"Well, that sounds definite; but it doesn't make any difference now. We've just had a tip to let the deal alone. For God's sake, keep at the law, Harwood; this business is hell." The city editor bit a fat cigar savagely. "You no sooner strike a good thing and work on it for two days than you butt into a dead wall. What? No; there's nothing more for you to-night."
CHAPTER IX
DANIEL HARWOOD RECEIVES AN OFFER
A brief note from Morton Bassett, dated at Fraserville, reached Harwood in July. In five lines Bassett asked Dan to meet him at the Whitcomb House on a day and hour succinctly specified.
Harwood had long since exhausted the list of Hoosier statesmen selected for niches in the "Courier's" pantheon. After his visit to Fraserville, he had met Bassett occasionally in the street or at the Whitcomb House; and several times he had caught a glimpse of him passing through the reception room of the law office into Mr. Fitch's private room. On these occasions Dan was aware that Bassett's presence caused a ripple of interest to run through the office. The students in the library generally turned from their books to speak of Bassett in low tones; and Mr. Wright, coming in from a journey on one of these occasions and anxious to see his partner forthwith, lifted his brow and said "Oh!" meaningfully when told that it was Morton Bassett who engaged the time of the junior member. Bassett's name did not appear in the office records to Dan's knowledge nor was he engaged in litigation. His conferences were always with Fitch alone, and they were sometimes of length.
Harwood was not without his perplexities these days. His work for the "Courier" had gradually increased until he found that his time for study had diminished almost to the vanishing point. The home acres continued unprofitable, and he had, since leaving college, devoted a considerable part of his earnings to the relief of his father. His father's lack of success was an old story and the home-keeping sons were deficient in initiative and energy. Dan, with his ampler outlook, grudged them nothing, but the home needs were to be reckoned with in the disposition of his own time. He had now a regular assignment to the county courts and received a salary from the "Courier." He was usually so tired at the end of his day's work that he found it difficult to settle down to study at night in the deserted law office. The constant variety and excitement of newspaper work militated against the sober pondering of legal principles and Dan had begun to realize that, with the necessity for earning money hanging over him, his way to the bar, or to a practice if he should qualify himself, lay long and bleak before him.
Dan had heard much of Morton Bassett since his visit to Fraserville. His conviction, dating from the Fraserville visit, that Bassett was a man of unusual character, destined to go far in any direction in which he chose to exert his energies, was proved by Bassett's growing prominence. A session of the legislature had intervened, and the opposition press had hammered Bassett hard. The Democratic minority under Bassett's leadership had wielded power hardly second to that of the majority. Bassett had introduced into state politics the bi-partisan alliance, a device by virtue of which members of the assembly representing favored interests cooperated, to the end that no legislation viciously directed against railways, manufacturers, brewers and distillers should succeed through the deplorable violence of reformers and radicals. Apparently without realizing it, and clearly without caring greatly, Bassett was thus doing much to destroy the party alignments that had in earlier times nowhere else been so definitely marked as in Indiana. Partisan editors of both camps were glad when the sessions closed, for it had been no easy matter to defend or applaud the acts of either majority or minority, so easily did Republicans and Democrats plot together at neutral campfires. It had not been so in those early post-bellum years, when Oliver Morton of the iron mace still hobbled on crutches. Harrison and Hendricks had fought no straw men when they went forth to battle. Harwood began to be conscious of these changes, which were wholly irreconcilable with the political ideals he had imbibed from Sumner at Yale. He had witnessed several political conventions of both parties from the press table, and it was gradually dawning upon him that politics is not readily expressed in academic terminology.
The silver lining of the Democratic cloud had not greatly disturbed Morton Bassett. He had been a delegate to the national convention of 1896, but not conspicuous in its deliberations; and in the subsequent turbulent campaign he had conducted himself with an admirable discretion. He was a member of the state committee and the chairman was said to be of his choosing. Bassett stood for party regularity and deplored the action of those Democrats who held the schismatic national convention at Indianapolis and nominated the Palmer and Buckner ticket on a gold-standard platform. He had continued to reelect himself to the senate without trouble, and waited for the political alchemists of his party to change the silver back to gold. The tariff was, after all, the main issue, Bassett held; but it was said that in his business transactions during these vexed years he had stipulated gold payment in his contracts. This was never proved; and if, as charged, he voted in 1896 for Republican presidential electors it did not greatly matter when a considerable number of other Hoosier Democrats who, to outward view were virtuously loyal, managed to run with both hounds and hare. Bassett believed that his party would regain its lost prestige and come into power again; meanwhile he prospered in business, and wielded the Democratic minority at the state house effectively.
Dan presented himself punctually at the Whitcomb House where Bassett, with his bag packed, sat reading a magazine. He wore a becoming gray suit without a waistcoat, and a blue négligé shirt, with a turnover collar and a blue tie. He pulled up his creased trousers when he sat down, and the socks thus disclosed above his tan Oxfords proved to be blue also. His manner was cordial without effusiveness; when they shook hands his eyes met Dan's with a moment's keen, searching gaze, as though he sought to affirm at once his earlier judgment of the young man before him.