The Thunders of Silence

by Irvin S. Cobb

Three days after the burial of his sister Congressman Mallard took part in a debate on a matter of war-tax legislation upon the floor of the House. As usual he voiced the sentiments of a minority of one, his vote being the only vote cast in the negative on the passage of the measure. His speech was quite brief. To his colleagues, listening in dead silence without sign of dissent or approval, it seemed exceedingly brief, seeing that nearly always before Mallard, when he spoke at all upon any question, spoke at length. While he spoke the men in the press gallery took no notes, and when he had finished and was leaving the chamber it was noted that the venerable Congressman Boulder, a man of nearly eighty, drew himself well into his seat, as though he feared Mallard in passing along the aisle might brush against him.

HE MAY OR MAY NOT KEEP FAITH,
BUT YOU CAN BET HE ALWAYS KEEPS A SCRAP-BOOK.[ToList]

The only publication in America that carried a transcript of Congressman Mallard's remarks on this occasion was the Congressional Record.

At the next day's session Congressman Mallard's seat was vacant; the next day likewise, and the next it was vacant. It was rumoured that he had left Washington, his exact whereabouts being unknown. However, no one in Washington, so far as was known, in speaking of his disappearance, mentioned him by name. One man addressing another would merely say that he understood a certain person had left town or that he understood a certain person was still missing from town; the second man in all likelihood would merely nod understandingly and then by tacit agreement the subject would be changed.

Just outside one of the lunch rooms in the Union Station at St. Louis late one night in the latter part of January an altercation occurred between two men. One was a tall, distinguished-looking man of middle age. The other was a railroad employé—a sweeper and cleaner.

It seemed that the tall man, coming out of the lunch room, and carrying a travelling bag and a cane, stumbled over the broom which the sweeper was using on the floor just beyond the doorway. The traveller, who appeared to have but poor control over his temper, or rather no control at all over it, accused the station hand of carelessness and cursed him. The station hand made an indignant and impertinent denial. At that the other flung down his bag, swung aloft his heavy walking stick and struck the sweeper across the head with force sufficient to lay open the victim's scalp in a two-inch gash, which bled freely.

For once a policeman was on the spot when trouble occurred. This particular policeman was passing through the train shed and he saw the blow delivered. He ran up and, to be on the safe side, put both men under technical arrest. The sweeper, who had been bowled over by the clout he had got, made a charge of unprovoked assault against the stranger; the latter expressed a blasphemous regret that he had not succeeded in cracking the sweeper's skull. He appeared to be in a highly nervous, highly irritable state. At any rate such was the interpretation which the patrolman put upon his aggressive prisoner's behaviour.

Walking between the pair to prevent further hostilities the policeman took both men into the station master's office, his intention being to telephone from there for a patrol wagon. The night station master accompanied them. Inside the room, while the station master was binding up the wound in the sweeper's forehead with a pocket handkerchief, it occurred to the policeman that in the flurry of excitement he had not found out the name of the tall and still excited belligerent. The sweeper he already knew. He asked the tall man for his name and business.