“Oh–excuse me,” he began, “I did not know”–
“Oh, I am so glad you have come, Ronald,” cried Joe, rising to greet him, and taking his hand. “Sybil, let me introduce Mr. Surbiton–Miss Brandon.”
Sybil smiled and bent her head slightly. Ronald bowed and sat down between Sybil and Miss Schenectady.
Chapter IX.
Josephine Thorn never read newspapers, partly because she did not care for the style of literature known as journalistic, and partly, too, because the papers always came at such exceedingly inconvenient hours. If she had possessed and practiced the estimable habit of “keeping up with the times,” she would have observed an article which appeared on the morning after the skating party, and which dealt with the speech John Harrington had made in the Music Hall two days previous. Miss Schenectady had read it, but she did not mention it to Joe, because she believed in John Harrington, and wished Joe to do likewise, wherefore she avoided the subject; for the article treated him roughly. Nevertheless, some unknown person sent Joe a copy of the paper through the post some days later, with a bright red pencil mark at the place, and Joe, seeing what the subject was, read it with avidity. As she read, her cheek flushed, her small mouth closed like a vise, and she stamped her little foot upon the floor.
It was evident that the writer was greatly incensed at the views expressed by John, and he wrote with an ease and a virulence which proclaimed a practiced hand. “The spectacle of an accomplished Democrat,” said the paper, “is always sufficiently unusual to attract attention: but to find so rare a bird among ourselves is indeed a novel delight. The orator who alternately enthralled and insulted a considerable audience at the Music Hall, two nights ago, laid a decided claim both to accomplishment and to democracy. He himself informed his hearers that he was a Democrat; and, indeed, it was necessary that he should state his position, for it would have been impossible to decide from the tone and quality of his opinions whether he were a socialist, a reformer, a conservative, or an Irishman. Perchance he has discovered the talisman by which it is possible for a man to be all four, and yet to be a man, Furthermore, he claims to be an orator. No one could listen to the manifold intonations of his voice, or witness the declamatory evolutions of his body, without feeling an inward conviction that the gentleman on the platform intended to present himself to us as an orator.
“Lest we be accused of partiality and prejudice, we will at once state that we believe it possible for a man to be singular in his manner and quaint in his mode of phrasing, and yet to utter an opinion in some one direction which, if neither novel nor interesting, nor even tenable, shall yet have the one redeeming merit of representing a conceivable point of view. But when a man begins by stating that he belongs to the Democrats and then claims as his own the views of his political opponents, winding up by demanding the sympathy and support of a third party, the obvious conclusion is that he is either a lunatic, a charlatan, or both. A man cannot serve God and Mammon, neither can any man serve both the Irish and Chinese.
“Mr. John Harrington has made a great discovery. He has discovered that we require a Civil Service. This is apparently the ground on which he states himself to be a Democrat. If we remember rightly, the Civil Service Convention, which sat in discussion of the subject in the summer of 1881, was presided over by a prominent member of the Republican party. As some time has elapsed since then, and the gentlemen connected with the movement are as active and as much interested in it as ever, our orator will pardon us for questioning his right of discovery on the one hand, and his claim to be considered a Democrat on the strength of it, on the other. A Civil Service is doubtless a good thing, even a very good thing, and in due time we shall certainly have it; but that the Constitution of the United States is on the verge of dissolution at the hands of our corrupt public officers, that our finance is only another name for imminent bankruptcy, or that the new millennium of Washington morals will be organized by Mr. John Harrington–these things we deny in toto, from beginning to end. So wide and deep is our skepticism, that we even doubt whether ’war, famine, revolution, or all three together’ would have instantly ensued if Mr. John Harrington had not delivered his speech on Wednesday evening.
“In illustration–or rather, in the futile attempt to illustrate–Mr. Harrington put forth a series of similes that should make any dead orator turn in his grave. The nation was successively held up to our admiration in the guise of a sick man, a cripple, a banker, a theatrical company, and a peddler of tape and buttons. We were bankrupt, diseased; and our bones, like those of the Psalmist, were all out of joint; and if our hearts did not become like melting wax in the midst of our bodies, it was not the fault of Mr. John Harrington, but rather was it due to the hardening of those organs against the voice of the charmer.
“The Navigation Act called down the choicest of the orator’s vessels of wrath. Fools had made it, worse than fools submitted to it, and the reason why the Salem docks were no longer crowded with the shipping of the Peabody family was that there were ferry-boats in Boston harbor, a train of reasoning that must be clear to the mind of the merest schoolboy. Mr. Harrington further stated that these same ferry-boats–not to mention certain articles he terms ‘mudscows,’ with which we have no acquaintance– are built of old timber, copper, and nails, obtained by breaking tip the fleets of the Peabody family, which is manifestly a fraud on the nation. As far as the ferry-boats are concerned, we believe we are in a position to state that they are not built of old material; as regards the aforesaid ‘mudscows’ we can give no opinion, not having before heard of the article, which we presume is not common in commerce, and may therefore be regarded as an exception to the universal rule that things in general should not be made of old timber, copper, and rusty nails.