“As I say,” Garwood continued, warming, “I’ve come to see you as a citizen and as a delegate, and to ask you if you can conscientiously support me for renomination. There is no other candidate from this county, and it seems to me that as a matter of local pride you might prefer a man from your home to one from some other county.”
“Well,” Pusey answered, “there is of course that aspect of the case, Mr. Garwood. I do not say that I will not support you, neither do I say I will. I will say this, that if you are nominated I shall support you for election earnestly and heartily; I may be permitted to add, perhaps, effectively. But for the present I prefer not to commit myself. You understand my position, both as a citizen and as an editor. Of course conditions may arise under which I would give you my vote and my support.”
“May I ask what those conditions are?” Garwood leaned over to ask.
“I do not say, mark me,” Pusey replied in a corrective tone, “that the conditions exist now, but that they may arise.”
“Could you indicate them?”
“I would prefer, Mr. Garwood, to let events take their own course and shape themselves. The convention has not been called yet, and is some weeks off; there will be ample time. I wish for the present to feel that I am free to pursue the course that seems wise to me—as a citizen and as an editor, you understand.”
“Very well,” said Garwood, “I am at least glad to know that you are uncommitted; I am also glad I called, and”—he arose—“I shall perhaps do myself the honor to call again.” He bowed and left, and when he had gone, and the mockery was all over, Pusey took the pipe from the tobacco box, filled it, and lighted it from a gas jet he kept burning for that very purpose. He smoked in a way that evinced no enjoyment in tobacco whatever; he smoked in a dry, habitual way, as he talked, and ate, and wrote, but now he enjoyed his reflections, for Garwood, who once had spurned him, had called and humbled himself. Suddenly, however, an idea struck him, and hastily leaning over and hooking his toes in their carpet slippers behind the legs of his chair, he wrote feverishly for an instant. When he had done he read the item over, drew a line down through it, marked it “must,” and hung it on his copy hook.
The item appeared the following evening in the Citizen. It was this:
“Hon. Jerome B. Garwood called upon us yesterday afternoon. The congressman is looking extremely well, despite his long and arduous duties in the Capital, and the severe heat that marks the recent season of the year at Washington. The congressman is home for the summer. Call again, Congressman.”
The evening following the Advertiser, the organ of the opposition which, in Polk County at least, had never been called into responsibility, copied Pusey’s personal item and made this comment: