Schwefel accompanied the millionaires into a lengthy hall, across the lower end of which stood a table. There sat the commissary of elections surrounded by the committee, animated gentlemen with great beards, who were occupied in distributing tickets to voters or receiving tickets filled up. The extraordinary good-humor prevailing among these gentlemen was owing to the satisfactory course of the election, for rarely was any ultramontane paper seen mingling in the flood that poured in from the ranks of progress. The sides of the hall were hung with portraits of the sovereigns of the land, quite a goodly row. The last one of the series was youthful in appearance, and some audacious hand had scrawled on the broad gilt frame the following ominous words: “May he be the last in the succession of expensive bread-eaters.” Down the middle of the hall ran a baize-covered table, on which were numerous inkstands. Scattered over the table lay a profusion of green bills; the yellow color of the ultramontane bills was nowhere to be seen. The table was lined by gentlemen who were writing. They were not writing for themselves, but for others, who merely signed their names and then handed the tickets to the commissary. Several corpulent gentlemen also occupied seats at the table, but they were not engaged in writing. These gentlemen, apparently unoccupied, wore massive gold watch-chains and sparkling rings, and they had a commanding and stern expression of countenance. They were observing all who entered, to see whether any man would be bold enough to vote the yellow ticket. People of the humbler sort, mechanics and laborers, were constantly coming in and going out. Bowing reverently to the portly gentlemen, they seated themselves and filled out green tickets with the names of the liberal candidates. Most of them did not even trouble themselves to this degree, but simply laid their tickets before the penman appointed for this special service. All went off in the best order. The process of the election resembled the smooth working of an ingenious piece of machinery. And there was no tongue there to denounce the infamous terrorism that had crushed the freedom of the election or had bought the votes of vile and venal men with beer.
Seraphin stood with Greifmann in the recess of a window looking on.
“Who are the fat men at the table?” inquired he.
“The one with the very black beard is house-builder Sand, the second is Eisenhart, machine-builder, the third is Erdfloh, a landowner, the fourth and fifth are tobacco merchants. All those gentlemen are chieftains of the party of progress.”
“They show it,” observed Gerlach. “Their looks, in a manner, command every man that comes in to take the green ticket, and I imagine I can read on their brows: ‘Woe to him who dares vote against us. He shall be under a ban, and shall have neither employment nor bread.’ It is unmitigated tyranny! I imagine I see in those fat fellows so many cotton-planters voting their slaves.”
“That is a one-sided conclusion, my most esteemed,” rejoined the banker. “In country villages, the position here assumed by the magnates of progress is filled by the lords of ultramontanism, clerical gentlemen in cassocks, who keep a sharp eye on the fingers of their parishioners. This, too, is influencing.”
“But not constraining,” opposed the millionaire promptly. “The clergy exert a legitimate influence by convincing, by advancing solid grounds for their political creed. They never have recourse to compulsory measures, nor dare they do so, because it would be opposed to the Gospel which they preach. The autocrats of progress, on the contrary, do not hesitate about using threats and violence. Should a man refuse to bow to their dictates, they cruelly deprive him of the means of subsistence. This is not only inhuman, but it is also an accursed scheme for making slaves of the people and robbing them of principle.”
“Ah! look yonder—there is Holt.”
The land cultivator had walked into the hall head erect. He looked along the table and stood undecided. One of the ministering spirits of progress soon fluttered about him, offering him a green ticket. Holt glanced at it, and a contemptuous smile spread over his face. He next tore it to pieces, which he threw on the floor.
“What are you about?” asked the angel of progress reproachfully.