The women on the piazza drew a deep breath that sounded almost like a heavy sigh from one breast as they sank back in their chairs. The men in the three crafts that had put in against our shore began to talk—not loudly, but to call back and forth, as though giving and taking orders. A bell clanged, a whistle sounded, and the three boats again started on their way—busily noisy boats on a busy, noisy river.
“I’m going down-stairs,” the woman at my elbow announced. “If any of those damned spies tries to use the telephone, I’ll know how to stop her.” She was no bigger than a second.
“I’ll go with you,” a woman called from the far end of the piazza.
Conversation was not resumed. One by one the women went in until finally the piazza was left to the librarian and me. Unmindful of my surroundings I sat staring straight ahead—for all I knew one of my brothers, or all of them, might be on that silent ship. Would they sail away into the unknown without being allowed to say good-by to any one, even their mothers? Had the country that my ancestors helped to found come to such a pass?—its sons going to fight in its defense must steal away in the darkness. Immigrants? Loathsome ingrates!
“I’m thinking of your grab-bag lot,” Miss Stafford remarked, and I, having forgotten her presence, turned grouchily toward her.
“Politics, like want, makes strange bedfellows,” I replied indifferently. Somehow the heart seemed to have been dragged out of my body by the passing of that ship. I longed to go away, get off by myself, yet dreaded the hot discomfort of my little room. Why could not this woman go to her comfortable room and leave me the piazza?
“Under a Democratic administration it is to be expected that Democrats will get all the jobs,” the librarian reminded me. “To the victors belong the spoils, you know.”
“All I know about it,” I replied crossly, “is that Judge Roger Pryor once told me that he was the first to use that quotation as a political slogan. I don’t know the politics of any of my fellow workers.”
When this subject recurred to me the following day I promptly began a quiet investigation. Much to my surprise I learned that with the exception of Mr. Gallagher, every person with whom I had come in contact who received above fifteen dollars a week, the lowest salary paid, was a Republican, and had voted against President Wilson. And they made no bones about either fact. Mr. Jobaski boasted of having held, for several years, another federal job. And that he still held it, having put in a substitute at a lower salary. Speaking of it, he assured me that it was the easiest and safest way for a person to make money.
The head of the department in which I worked, the fifty-dollar-a-week man, also had a code of morals somewhat different from any I had ever heard put into words.