“No,” the young fellow interjected, “only working my own broom as vigorously as I can. And I wanted to see you particularly, Mrs. Wilbur, about this franchise business. You must get Mr. Wilbur to join us in fighting it. For a wonder the papers are dead with us, and if we can only get the decent men interested, we can prevent this rascally steal.”
Mrs. Wilbur’s face grew solemn, as if she were remembering something unpleasant. Jennings went on explanatorily to Miss Parker. “You’ve seen it in the papers? The railroad companies have made a raid on the legislature, to get a lot of privileges for nothing. Wrightington—he’s the scamp that owns the mayor and the city council—thinks the legislature cheaper on the whole than the council, and that makes the affair much more serious for all of us.” He talked on easily of the situation which was then uppermost in public gossip. It was a gigantic steal, a fraud on the public to be perpetuated for half a century. The newspapers had been violent over it: unfortunately the opposition had centred chiefly about a demagogic young city politician, who was using the uproar against Wrightington for personal capital.
“Mr. Wilbur says the newspapers have overdone it, that the measure isn’t really so bad for the city, and only fair to the railroad corporations,” Mrs. Wilbur suggested. Jennings looked at her sharply for a moment, and then answered swiftly,—
“But Wrightington’s methods? If it were a bill to found hospitals, his means of getting it through are enough to blacken it.”
“Well, you have to do that, they say, to buy your way here,” Mrs. Wilbur added sadly, a flush mounting over her face.
“That is the devil’s argument that we are always meeting,” Jennings replied earnestly, looking at Mrs. Wilbur intently. Then people came up, and the conversation ended. Miss Parker found herself talking to a handsome young man with a keen face. When he had gone Mrs. Wilbur said lightly, “You wouldn’t catch him talking as Jennings did. He used to be a secretary in the Civic Association until he got all the notoriety out of it he could. He is a type out here. Some years ago he was a clerk behind the counter in Arnold’s; now you find him everywhere. And they say he will marry the rich Miss McGregor. He is the ‘bound to rise’ kind, and he never does anything that will hurt his chances. Watch him!”
There were many others—middle-aged and young men, “each with a story,” Mrs. Wilbur declared, “if you only knew it.”
“But your Thornton Jennings is the best,” Molly Parker concluded, as they talked the people over after their return, “and I hope you will get John to be on his side.”
Mrs. Wilbur’s face darkened. “That question is so complicated, and like so many things here, opinion seems to come down to two views—that of those ‘who are in it,’ and that of those who aren’t. But Jennings is a fine fellow. I met him on the steamer coming home. He turned up here that winter as a young lawyer. John calls him ‘my stripling.’”
“Well, I like your stripling, and I think he will be somebody.”