Captivating Mary Carstairs

by Henry Sydnor Harrison

Then a burst of hand-clapping, unforced by the faithful hirelings from
New York, ran unexpectedly through the house.

Peter told how easy it had been to find out what was choking the life out of Hunston. His open countenance, democratic manners, and pungent speech produced a most favorable impression, and it was undeniable that, for the moment at least, he had the house with him when he swung into his peroration.

"You know we are told," he said, "that it is the truth that makes us free. Well, you are going to hear the truth to-night, at last. There is a man listening to me at this moment who knows everything there is to be known. Like me, he has no axe to grind, no special interest to promote, no ambition but the manly wish to loose this town from the bonds with which a dishonest boss has shackled it. He has sacrificed much to the hope that he might help you, and for months he has been fighting against big odds, just to get a chance to tell you the facts. To-night he has got his chance, and you may be very sure that he will make the most of it.

"Relieving your honorable chairman of the trouble of rising for the purpose, I take pleasure in introducing to you Mr. J. Pinkney Hare, who is, with your consent, the next mayor of Hunston."

Back in the center of the house, a foot scraped upon the floor, and there was J. Pinkney Hare standing out in the aisle, his little black bag stuffed with documents swinging in his hand. And then there arose, to the surprise of everybody (barring those good fellows who had been well paid for their work and were earnestly determined to earn it) a deafening roar of applause, starting in the rear of the house, taken up at certain definite points all through it, and gradually spreading almost everywhere, many people joining in because they liked Peter greatly and others without having any idea why. The roar subsided a little as Hare drew near to the stage, mounted it, and deposited his little bag upon the table. Then it broke again, more loudly, as he came forward a step, looking out upon the crowded house—he who could not hire a hall for himself—a little pale, a little awed by the bigness of his chance, but with neither tremor nor uncertainty on his small, cool face….

Hare spoke for an hour and a half, and not a soul left the hall. It was impossible to call him off or cry him down: the plain sentiment of the house was, "Give the little man his show." Afterwards, Chairman Bates had made a desperate effort to overcome the damning effect of that address, calling on various Ryanites of aggressive manners, and making a second speech himself, but with little avail. Even the free fight which broke out during the distribution of the ice-cream of the Neapolitans (the announcement of which addition to the regular menu evoked the loudest spontaneous applause of the evening) resulted, until the police checked it, decidedly in favor of the strangers from New York.

This part of the evening's pleasures Varney did not see. He rose with many others when the published tidings of refreshment gave notice that the speechmaking was over, and turned his face toward the door against a stream of ushers entering with alluring trays. Already all sense of the daring brilliance of Peter's stroke had faded and dropped from his mind. His own concerns crowded instantly upon his attention, and all his thought was of finding Mary Carstairs immediately and compelling her to recognize him for the man he was.

She, too, had risen to leave the hall. While he listened to the fierce philippic of J. Pinkney Hare, Varney's eye had carefully marked her seat: it was empty now. Once, as he pushed his way slowly toward the door, he caught a brief glimpse of her over in the other aisle, some distance ahead of him; but he hardly saw her before she was lost to him again, swallowed up in the jostling throng. The theatre was in an uproar: all was noise and bustle and movement. And the wide lobby, when at length he reached it, was no better; it looked scarcely more promising to his quest than the traditional haystack to the searcher of needles.

Here were set the ice-cream freezers and the other paraphernalia of delight, and about them was a struggling mob. Varney circled the throng with a roving eye. Of the lady he saw no sign anywhere. But presently, on the outer fringe of the cohorts which stormed the freezers, he came upon the child Jenny, and knew that he had found a guide according to his heart's desire.

He touched her on the elbow. "Do you want to get some ice-cream?"