“Yes,” I returned, after a pause; “I give you my word, your friend is in no further peril. You should tell him, however, to forget the name, 'machine.' Also, he has too many opinions for a policeman.”
The longer I considered, the more it was clear that it would not be a cautious policy to cashier McCue. It would make an uproar which I did not care to court when so near hand to an election. It was not difficult, therefore, to give the Reverend Bronson that promise, and I did it with a good grace.
Encouraged by my compliance, the Reverend Bronson pushed into an argument, the object of which was to bring me to his side for the town's reform.
“Doctor,” said I, when he had set forth what he conceived to be my duty to the premises, “even if I were disposed to go with you, I would have to go alone. I could no more take Tammany Hall in the direction you describe, than I could take the East River. As I told you once before, you should consider our positions. It is the old quarrel of theory and practice. You proceed upon a theory that men are what they should be; I must practice existence upon the fact of men as they are.”
“There is a debt you owe Above!” returned the Reverend Bronson, the preacher within him beginning to struggle.
“And what debt should that be?” I cried, for my mind, on the moment, ran gloomily to Blossom. “What debt should I owe there?—I, who am the most unhappy man in the world!”
There came a look into the eyes of the Reverend Bronson that was at once sharp with interrogation and soft with sympathy. He saw that I had been hard wounded, although he could not know by what; and he owned the kindly tact to change the course of his remarks.
“There is one point, sure,” resumed the Reverend Bronson, going backward in his trend of thought, “and of that I warn you. I shall not give up this fight. I began with an attack upon those robbers, and I've been withstood by ones who should have strengthened my hands. I shall now assail, not alone the lawbreakers, but their protectors. I shall attack the machine and the police. I shall take this story into every paper that will print it; I shall summon the pulpits to my aid; I shall arouse the people, if they be not deaf or dead, to wage war on those who protect such vultures in their rapine for a share of its returns. There shall be a moral awakening; and you may yet conclude, when you sit down in the midst of defeat, that honesty is after all the best policy, and that virtue has its reward.”
The Reverend Bronson, in the heat of feeling, had risen from the chair, and declaimed rather than said this, while striding up and down. To him it was as though my floor were a rostrum, and the private office of Tammany's Chief, a lecture room. I am afraid I smiled a bit cynically at his ardor and optimism, for he took me in sharp hand, “Oh! I shall not lack recruits,” said he, “and some will come from corners you might least suspect. I met your great orator, Mr. Gutterglory, but a moment ago; he gave me his hand, and promised his eloquence to the cause of reform.”
“Nor does that surprise me,” said I. Then, with a flush of wrath: “You may say to orator Gutterglory that I shall have something to remind him of when he takes the stump in your support.”