Wood chuckled. “Go ahead. Most men 'll lie, if you give 'em time to rearrange their ideas. Well—it won't take me so long.” His manner became genial. “You've got a good head, Dick. Well—I'll tell what I'm thinking. It's this. The old man 'll have to drop his job one of these days, and—if you're feeling for pointers—I don't say you are, but supposing you are—I don't mind saying I shall back you to head the organization. Maybe—well,—in fact, I don't suppose there's much money in it you'd care to touch—maybe there ain't any—but there's a place for the right man. I like you. I liked your father. He was built something your way. The boys want somebody over 'em that won't wriggle off the safety valve, and knows how to pick up punkins peacefully as they come. This First Ward business—well, you've got a pretty good grip through the crowd to begin with.”
“Now there!” broke in Hennion.
“You and Aidee are both trying to do the same thing. You want to get me into politics. I don't care for your primaries and committees. I don't see ten cents' difference to the city which party runs it. I dare say whoever runs it expects to make a living out of it. Why do you both come to me?”
“I guess we've both got an idea you're useful.”
Hennion thought a moment and then spoke more quietly.
“Henry Champney used to boss this section. He did it from the platform instead of the committee room. And my father handled bigger contracts than I've touched yet. But Champney didn't ask him to run his canal into the next caucus, or furnish stray batches of constituents with jobs. Understand, I'm not grumbling about the last. Champney stayed on his platform, and my father stayed in his big ditch and dug. The proper thing now seems to be for everybody to get into the street and row around together. Here's Aidee too thinks he's got to jump into it now, and take with him—take with him everything he can' reach.”
“That's straight,” murmured Wood. “So they do.”
“Yes, and I call off, myself.”
“All right. I was only guessing what you had in your mind. Well—it's business sets the pace nowadays. 'Most everything else has to catch its gait or be left. I remember Champney forty years gone. He was a fine picture, when he got up and spread himself. He didn't do anything that's here now, unless it's a volume of his speeches, congressional and occasional. Not much. He kept us all whooping for Harry Clay. Well—Clay's dead, Whig Party and Compromises and all burnt up. Your father built sixty miles of canal. Canal stock's pretty dead now, but that's not his fault. He laid a few thousand miles of railroad, went around this place and that, cleaning up the country. Several million people travel his railroads and walk his bridges. Anybody ever call him a great man like Henry Champney? Gone little he cared if they did or didn't. He and his like were a sight more important. Well—no; Champney didn't ask favours of anybody in those days. And he didn't ask votes. They shovelled 'em at him, and he went on telling 'em the Constitution was the foundation of America, and Harry Clay the steeple. They weren't. Rick Hennion and his like were the foundation, and there wasn't any steeple. If you ask what they're all rowing round in the street for now, why, I don't know. I guess they've all found out the point's got to be fought out there or nowhere. Well—better think over what I was telling you, Dick. You're Rick Hennion's son. Well—it's none of my business—but—I'd gone like to see you old Champney's son-in-law—if that's it. I believed in Champney once, and shouted for Clay, and thought there was something in it. I did, that's a fact. I'd lock horns with any other bull then, and swear my name was Righteouashess and his was Sin.”
“Well, but Champney——”