"At my age there isn't time to make long speeches to shade the facts," returned General Waymouth. He was calm but intensely in earnest.
"Then you are all for reform—one of the new reformers, eh?" inquired the Senator. He cast a look of reproach at Thornton, as though that trusted manager had loosed a tiger on their defenceless party.
The General smiled—smiled so sweetly that he almost disarmed their resentment.
"No, the Arba Spinneys of this State are the reformers. I'm not under salary to run round and make disturbances in settled order. I'm not a bigot with a single idea, nor a fanatic insisting that the world ought to follow the diet that my dyspepsia imposes upon me. I'm merely an old man, gentlemen, who has got past a lot of the follies of youth and the passions of manhood, and has had a chance to reflect for a few years. I have not asked to return to public life. But if I do return, if you put power into my hands, I propose to render unto the people the things that are the people's, and that term includes every man in this room. It is not a programme that should alarm honest gentlemen!"
There was appeal in the tone—there was a hint of rebuke in that final sentence that troubled the conscience of even Senator Pownal. Thelismer Thornton was in a chair close to him.
"Don't let a few little cranky notions about a platform scare you," he mumbled in the Senator's ear. "You know Vard Waymouth as well as I do. He's safe and all right. Give him his head. You don't want Spinney, do you?"
"But that was devilish insulting," growled Pownal.
"Tipping backward a little, trying to stand straight, that's all. Blast it, a Governor can't run the State. What are you afraid of? You've got a lobby and a legislature, haven't you?"
If Waymouth noticed this sotto voce conference he gave no sign.
"General," said Pownal, getting hold of himself manfully, even desperately, "the resolution is not essential. I fear you misunderstand what it really means, but we'll not discuss it now. I withdraw it."