Though still looked upon as a boy by his father, the man was of huge proportions and of an important, slightly overbearing attitude.
Somewhat like his parent in appearance, young Sam, as he was always called, had more grace and ease, if less effect of power. He smiled genially and impartially; he seemed cordial and friendly to all the world, and he was a general favorite. Yet so far he had achieved no great thing, had no claim to any especial record in public or private life.
At forty, unmarried and unattached, his was a case of an able mentality and a firm, reliable character, with no opportunity offered to prove its worth. A little more initiative and he would have made opportunities for himself; but a nature that took the line of least resistance, a philosophy that believed in a calm acceptance of things as they came, left Samuel Appleby, junior, pretty much where he was when he began. If no man could say aught against him, equally surely no man could say anything very definite for him. Yet many agreed that he was a man whose powers would develop with acquired responsibilities, and already he had a following.
“Hello, little one,” he greeted Genevieve, carelessly, as he sat down near Keefe. “I say, old chap, you’re going down to the Wheelers’ to-day, I hear.”
“Yes; this afternoon,” and the secretary looked up inquiringly.
“Well, I’ll tell you what. You know the governor’s going there to get Wheeler’s aid in my election boom, and I can tell you a way to help things along, if you agree. See?”
“Not yet, but go ahead.”
“Well, it’s this way. Dan Wheeler’s daughter is devoted to her father. Not only filial respect and all that, but she just fairly idolizes the old man. Now, he recips, of course, and what she says goes. So—I’m asking you squarely—won’t you put in a good word to Maida, that’s the girl—and if you do it with your inimitable dexterity and grace, she’ll fall for it.”
“You mean for me to praise you up to Miss Wheeler and ask her father to give you the benefit of his influence?”
“How clearly you do put things! That’s exactly what I mean. It’s no harm, you know—merely the most innocent sort of electioneering——”