“Oh, nothing much,” said Handy, “only I happened to be inside that door just now when she confessed—and there’s Gilman besides.” Handy, his cigar tilted upward, smoked on voluminously and smiled through the smoke with deep satisfaction. The governor averted his face. Lines of trouble drew themselves across his brow. Presently he turned to the chairman.
“Handy,” he said, “I may be reëlected and I may not—probably not. However that may be, I insist upon this: I want that woman, for the present, let alone. I have faith in the people. I am willing to go to them on my record. They may or may not reëlect me. I shall not, at any rate, have my motives impugned. I only want, when the turmoil has subsided, when the subject can be viewed with clear eyes and investigated by clear heads and clean hands, to see justice done.”
“Oh,” said Handy, “to hell with justice.”
“Well, then,” asked the governor, “what do you say to a little mercy now and then?”
THAT BOY
IT must have been sometime in the winter or spring of 1891 that I first saw him. I had just been elected to the legislature. It was the famous Reform Session, you will remember, that proved to be of such benefit to stenographers and space writers. During the six months that general assembly lasted I lived at the St. James hotel. It is probable that I first saw the boy behind the counter of the cigar stand in the lobby of the hotel. It is probable that I had seen and spoken to him many times before I gave him any especial notice. What first arrested my attention was a law book. I had stopped at the cigar stand one evening after dinner to get some cigars, and as he rose to attend upon my wants, he took the book from his lap and laid it down upon the counter. While he was under the counter getting out a box of the brand I wished—for I never relish, somehow, cigars taken from a show case—I turned the book over and idly looked at its title. I remember very well that it was Reeves’ History of the English Law. It struck me as rather odd that a boy behind a cigar stand should be reading such a book. It was not a book that law students, in my state, at any rate, generally read. I know that I never read it (through) and probably never shall read it, although it is, of course, a wise and ancient book. I asked him why he read it.
“Why,” he said, “I’m studying law!”
As I lighted a cigar, I looked at the boy. He was tall and overgrown, and thin with his overgrowth, with spare wrists that thrust themselves out of frayed cuffs. His face was sallow, and he was not good to look upon. His clothes were worn bare to the threads. He had every appearance of being poor, almost hungry. I fancy I disliked him.
“When do you expect to be admitted?” I asked casually.
“Oh,” he replied, blithely enough, “in two or three years. Then I go into politics.”