The Mayor of Warwick

by Herbert M. Hopkins

Leigh laughed with some bitterness. "You remember what the German professor said to his American student when he wished to take a rest. 'Who ever heard of a real mathematician with any health?'"

"Ah, yes," Cardington returned, with a comprehending look in his eyes, "but I 'm afraid you had too good a time down there in New York, and that now you 're working too hard by way of penance. But in regard to your suggestion, I am inclined to think favourably of it. Not that the President per se is an object of great interest to me. His mental processes are tolerably familiar, and I don't feel particularly in need of instruction concerning my duty toward God and my duty toward my neighbour. Still, this is an occasion of more than usual interest, as perhaps you are aware."

A change had come into the relationship of these two, or rather a readjustment of the view of the younger man concerning the older, dating from the time when Cardington had disposed so neatly of his tentative wish to accompany him to Bermuda. He had returned from the South alone about a fortnight before, quite uncommunicative in regard to his trip, merely saying that the Wycliffes would come by a later boat. The shadow of the woman in the case was undoubtedly between them, and yet it could not be said that jealousy, in the ordinary sense of the word, was operative as an estranging element. Leigh had too much reason to know that neither of them had much chance of winning her, and he thought he divined in Cardington not so much a lover's interest as a friend's deep concern on her behalf and an unwillingness to mention her name in casual conversation.

Upon the present occasion Leigh was impressed with his air of subdued excitement, with a hint of tension and expectancy, as if something untoward were about to happen; and as they took their way toward the city together, the reason of this mood became apparent.

"Now, you know," he began, "great things were happening this afternoon, and as I sometimes like to view history in the making, I went out to see what I could see. I 'm afraid that our respected mayor is destined to play a very inconspicuous rôle in this evening's entertainment. If I am correctly informed, he is not to have a speaking part. As an accidental mayor, pitchforked into his present position by Fortune in one of her ironical moods, he is to be allowed merely a seat on the platform, where he may be seen but not heard. But to go back to the beginning. When it was learned that the President of the United States intended to honour us with a visit and to stand and deliver a speech, it occurred to a group of representative citizens that a professional baseball player and street-car conductor was scarcely a fit person to receive so distinguished a guest; so they very properly resolved that his part in the exercises should be reduced to a minimum. To that end a committee, including among others Mr. Bradford, Mr. Parr, and our worthy alumnus, Mr. Cobbens, wrote a letter to Emmet in which they suggested that his speech of welcome at the station be limited to three, or at the most to five, minutes. They intimated also that after the speech of welcome was concluded, Mr. Emmet need not concern himself further in the entertainment of the President."

"I call that beastly snobbishness," said Leigh indignantly. "Whatever the man's former position may have been, he is now the mayor and entitled to all the honours of his office. On the same principle, the swells of forty years ago might have refused to recognise Lincoln as the President because he once split rails. And in fact they practically did. He had to be dead before they began to think that his rise in the world was a vindication of the equality of opportunity they pretended to believe in."

"'Beastly' is perhaps the proper adjective under the circumstances," the other admitted, "but why should we lose sleep and shorten our days with fruitless indignation because men of a certain kind act as men of that kind always have acted? I prefer to look at the dramatic and humorous side of it, having, perhaps unfortunately, reached the speculative and acquiescent time of life. And the situation at the station was not without its amusing aspect. Mr. Emmet's well-known oratorical powers being thus curtailed, the President was delayed but a few minutes and then conducted to a carriage and driven about the city, attended by the honourable trio before mentioned. It is said by those who were within earshot that the President inquired for his friend the mayor, when he saw that he was to be deprived of his company. However that may be, I myself saw our tribune of the people riding by himself in solitary grandeur in the third carriage."

At the memory of Emmet's discomfiture he interrupted his story to indulge in one of his silent laughs, an expression of mirth which, to his listener's excited mind, seemed almost an inhuman exhibition of his professed detachment from the passions about him. Perhaps, had he seen the dapper Cobbens and the lethargic Parr escorting the unsuspicious President to the carriage, and Emmet's expression as he found himself shoved into the third place in the procession, he might have appreciated his companion's sense of the ridiculous. But it was the inward struggle, not the outward aspect, that stirred his emotions. Emmet's most bitter strictures upon Cobbens and his kind were justified by this incident, and he imagined the mayor's sensations when he found himself out-generalled and humiliated. What would Felicity have felt, had she been present to witness the scene? How it might have affected her toward her husband, whether it would have aroused her to champion him the more, or whether it would have moved her to scorn of his stupidity in allowing himself to be put aside, Leigh could only guess; but his own instinct was to make common cause with the man that was wronged.

"And who appointed the committee," he inquired, "if Emmet had nothing to do with it?"

"Why, they appointed themselves, without any more regard for the mayor than if he had been a professor in St. George's Hall. Now perhaps you begin to appreciate why I remarked that this was an occasion of more than ordinary interest. Can we doubt that word has gone round among the proletariat that their mayor has been insulted, and can we doubt that they will be at the opera house in full force to express their opinion of the committee? You see now my motive in coming. I am like the man that went to the animal show in the hope of seeing the lion eat the trainer. In other words, if the people are going to give us a specimen of the psychology of the mob, I wish to be there to enjoy it. Such a thing might help one to an appreciation of certain incidents in Roman history, like the turmoils in the time of the Gracchi, and the scene in the forum when Mark Antony played on the heartstrings of the populace. Everything is grist that comes to our mill. Even a football game is a modern rendition of a gladiatorial combat. Don't you think so?"