Just as we sat down, Slocum, who had been called to the telephone, came up to me, a smile on his wrinkled face, and said, raising his right hand:—
"Gentlemen, the legislature at Springfield has elected Mr. Harrington to fill the unexpired term of the late Senator Parkinson. Gentlemen, three cheers for Senator Harrington!"
As the men raised their champagne glasses to drink to me, Slocum shook me warmly by the hand, a smile broadening over his face. Although, as I told them, it had never been my part to talk, I said a few words, thanking them for their good-will, and promising them that I should do my best to serve the interests of the country we all believed was the greatest nation that had ever been. My old friend Orlando Bates, the president of the Tenth National, replied to my talk, expressing the confidence my associates had in me. In the course of his graceful speech he said, "Mr. Harrington is so closely identified with the conservative interests of the country that we can feel assured he will stand as a bulwark against the populistic clamor so rife in the nation at the present time." And young Harvey Sturm, also a bank president, who followed him with a glowing speech, made flattering references to the work I had done "in upbuilding our glorious commonwealth." After deprecating the growth of socialistic sentiments and condemning the unrestricted criticism of the press in regard to capital, he closed with a special tribute: "Such men as Edward Harrington are the brains and the will of the nation. On their strong shoulders rests the progress of America. Were it not for their God-given energy, their will, their genius for organization, our broad prairies, our great forests, our vast mines, would cease to give forth their wealth!"
There was more of the same sort of talk before we broke up. Afterward, as the theatres and the opera closed, men dropped in to hear the news, and many of them came up to congratulate me. Among others old Dround wandered into the club in the course of the evening, and, some one having told him that I had been elected Senator, he came up to the corner where I was standing with a group of men, and hovered around for a time, trying to get a word with me. After a while I stepped out and shook hands with him.
"I am very glad to hear this, Mr. Harrington," he said slowly, pressing my hand in his trembling fist. "I have always believed that our best men should take an interest in the government of their country."
His eyes had a wandering expression, as if he were trying in vain to remember something out of the past, and he continued to deliver his little speech, drawing me to one side out of hearing of the men who were standing there. "I thought once to enter public life myself," he said, "but heavy business responsibilities demanded all my attention. I wonder," he lowered his voice confidentially, "if you will not find it possible to further the claims of my old friend Paxton's son. He desires to secure a diplomatic post. I have urged his merits on the President, and secured assurance of his good-will; but nothing has yet been done. I cannot understand it."
Eri Paxton was a dissipated, no-account sort of fellow, but I assured Henry I. Dround that I would do my best for him. That was the least that the past demanded of me!
So it went on until past midnight, and the club began to empty, and I was left with a few friends about me. When they went I took Slocum up to my room for a last cigar before bed. We had some private matters to settle in connection with the election.
"You pulled out all right, Van," he said when we were alone. "But there wasn't much margin."
"I trusted Carmichael—I knew John wouldn't go back on me."