GEORGE HELM

The Works of David Graham Phillips

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, New York

David Graham Phillips

GEORGE HELM

NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1912

Copyright, 1912, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1912, by Hearst’s Magazine
Published September, 1912
Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

GEORGE HELM

I
BEHIND THE BEARD

A COMET so dim that it is almost invisible will cause agitated interest in the heavens where great fixed stars blaze nightly unnoticed. Harrison was a large Ohio river town, and in its firmament blazed many and considerable fixed stars—presenting pretty nearly all varieties of peculiarity in appearance and condition. But when George Helm appeared everybody concentrated upon him.

“Did you see that young fellow with the red whiskers stumping down Main Street this afternoon?”—“Did you see that jay in the funny frock coat and the stove pipe hat?”—“Who’s the big hulking chap that looks as if he’d just landed from nowhere?”—“I saw the queerest looking mud-dauber of a lawyer or doctor—or maybe preacher—sitting on the steps of Mrs. Beaver’s boarding-house.”—“I saw him, too. He had nice eyes—gray and deep-set—and they twinkled as if he were saying, ‘Yes, I know I’m a joke of a greenhorn, but I’m human, and I like you, and I’d like you to like me.’”

In towns, even the busiest of them, there is not any too much to talk about. Also, there is always any number of girls and widows sharply on the lookout for bread-winners; and the women easily get the men into the habit of noting and sizing up newly arrived males. No such new arrival, whether promising as a provider or not, escapes searching attention. Certainly there was in young George Helm’s appearance no grace or beauty to detain the professional glance of a husband-seeker with a fancy for romantic ornamentation of the business of matrimony. Certainly also there was in that appearance no suggestion of latent possibilities of luxury-providing. A plain, serious-looking young man with darkish hair and a red beard, with a big loosely jointed body whose legs and arms seemed unduly long. A strong, rather homely face, stern to sadness in repose, flashing unexpectedly into keen appreciation of wit and fun when the chance offered. The big hands were rough from the toil of the fields—so rough that they would remain the hands of the manual laborer to the end. The cheap, smooth frock suit and the not too fresh top hat had the air of being their wearer’s only costume, of having long served in that capacity, of getting the most prudent care because they could not soon be relieved of duty.

“He lives in the room my boy Tom made out of the attic last summer,” said Mrs. Beaver, who supported her husband and children by taking in boarders. “And all he brung with him was in a paper shirt box. He wears a celluloid collar and cuffs, and he sponges off his coat and vest and pants every morning before he puts ’em on. So Tom says. He lies awake half the night reading or writing in bed—sometimes when he reads he laughs out loud, so you’d think he had company. And he sings hymns and recites poetry. And, my! how he does eat! Them long legs of his’n is hollow clear down.”

There is no doubt about the red beard. Since George Helm has become famous, the legend is that he always had a smooth face. But like most of the legends about him—like that about his astonishing success and astounding marriage—this legend of the smooth face is as falsely inaccurate as most of the stuff that passes for truth about the men of might who have come up from the deep obscurity of the masses. It was a hideous red beard—of the irritating shade of bright red with which brick walls used to be—perhaps in some parts of the world still are—painted in the spring. It grew patchily. In spots it was straight; in other spots, curly. It was so utterly out of harmony with his hair that opinion divided as to which was dyed, and the wonder grew that he did not dye both to some common and endurable shade.

“What does he wear those whiskers for?”—“How can a man with hair like that on his face expect to get clients or anything else?” Nevertheless, public opinion—which is usually wrong about everything, including its own exaggerated esteem for itself—was wrong in this case. As soon as a comet ceases to be a visitor and settles down into a fixed inhabitant with a regular orbit it ceases to attract attention, becomes obscure, acquires the dangerous habit of obscurity. George Helm, only twenty-four years old and without money, friends or influence, might have been driven back to the farm but for that beard.

Successful men feed their egotism with such shallow and silly old proverbial stuff as, “You can’t keep a good man down,” and “A husky hog will get its nose to the trough.” But they reckon ill who leave circumstance out of account in human affairs. And circumstance does not mean opportunity seen and seized, but opportunity that takes man by the nape of the neck and forcibly thrusts him into responsibility and painfully compels him to acquire the education that finally leads to success. Those who arrive forget that they were not always wise and able; they forget how hardly they got wisdom and capacity, how fiercely their native human inertia and stupidity fought against learning. If some catastrophe—which God forbid!—should wipe out at a stroke all our leaders—all the geniuses who give us employment, run our affairs, write our books and newspapers, make our laws, blow the whistles for us to begin and to stop work, tell us when to go forth and when to come in out of the rain—if some cataclysm should orphan us entirely of these our wondrous wise guardians, don’t you suspect that circumstance would almost overnight create a new set for us, quite as good, perhaps better? The human race is a vast reservoir of raw material for any and all human purposes. Let those who find cheer in feeling lonely in their unique, inborn, inevitable greatness enjoy themselves to their fill. It is their privilege. But it is also the privilege of plain men and twinkling stars to laugh at them.

So, George Helm’s beard may have had more to do with his destiny than his conventional biographers will ever concede. He ceased to be a comet. But he did not cease to attract attention. And his awkwardness, his homeliness and his solitary “statesman’s” suit would not have sufficed to keep him in the public eye. That preposterous beard was vitally necessary. It accomplished its mission. The months—the clientless months—the months of dwindling purse and hope passed. George Helm remained a figure in Harrison. Some men were noted for the toilets or the eccentricity or the beauty of their wives, some men for their fortunes or their fine houses, some men for dog or horse or high power automobile. George Helm was noted for his beard. It served as the gathering center for jokes and stories. The whole town knew all sorts of gossip about that “boy with the whiskers,” for, through the carmine mask, the boyishness had finally been descried. The local papers, hard put for matter to fill the space round patent medicine advertisements and paid news of dry goods, overshoes and canned vegetables at cut prices, often made paragraphs about the whiskers. And the heartiest laugh at these jests came from serious, studious George Helm himself.

“Why don’t you shave ’em, George?”—He was of those men whom everybody calls by the first name.

“You never happened to see me without ’em?” Helm would reply.

“I’d like to,” was usually the retort.

“Well, I’ve seen myself without ’em—and I guess I’m choosing the bluntest horn of the dilemma.”

It never occurred to any one in Harrison to wonder why, while George Helm’s whiskers were a butt, the young man himself was not. When Rostand made a tragic hero of a man with a comic nose, there was much outcry at the marvelous genius displayed in the feat. In fact, that particular matter required no genius at all. There is scarcely an individual of strongly marked personality who has not some characteristic, mental or physical, that is absurd, ridiculous. Go over the list of great men, past and present; note the fantastic, grotesque physical peculiarities alone. Those attention-arresting peculiarities helped, you will observe, not hindered, the man in coming into his own—the pot-belly of little Napoleon, the duck legs of giant Washington, the drooling and twitching of Sam Johnson.

Try how you will, you cannot make a man ridiculous, unless he is ridiculous. Lincoln could—and did—play the clown hours at a time. Yet only shallow fools of conventionality-worshipers for an instant confused the man and the clever story-actor. Harrison laughed at George Helm’s whiskers; but it did not, because it could not, laugh at George Helm.

But, being a shallow-pated town, Harrison fancied it was laughing at Helm himself. It is the habit of human beings to mistake clothes and whiskers and all manner of mere externals for men. Occasionally they discover their mistake. Harrison discovered its mistake.

It nominated George Helm for Circuit Judge. There were two parties in that district—as there are everywhere else—the Republican and the Democratic. There was also—as wherever else there is any public thing to steal—a third party that owned and controlled the other two. Sometimes this third party “fixes” the race so that Republican always wins and Democrat always loses; again, it “fixes” the race the other way; yet again—where there is what is known as an “intelligent and alert electorate”—this shrewd third party alternately puppets Republican and Democrat first under the wire—and then how the aforesaid intelligent and alert people do shout and applaud their own sagacity and independence!

They say that woman is lacking in the sense of humor. There must be something in the charge. Otherwise, would she not long ago have laughed herself to death at the political antics of man?

In Harrison and its surrounding country the sentiment was overwhelmingly Republican—which meant that the majority of the “independent” farmers and artisans who were working early and late to enrich the Railway Trust, the Harvester Trust, the Beef Trust, the Money Trust, and the rest of the members of the third and only real party, said, when they sat doddering about politics, “Wall, I reckon I’ll keep on voting as I shot.” If the community had been Democratic, the dodder would have been, “I think it’s about time to turn the rascals out.” Needless to say, the third party cares not a rap which side wins. The vote goes into the ballot box Republican or Democratic; it is counted for the third party. In Harrison the Republican candidates of the third party always won, and its Democratic candidates were put up simply to make things interesting for the populace and to give them the feeling that they were sovereign citizens. The Republican candidate for Circuit Judge, the candidate slated to win in a walk, was Judge Powers. He had served two terms, to the entire content of the third party—and, being full of pious talk and solemn flapdoodle about the “sacredness of the judicial trust in a community of freemen,” to the entire content of the people. In a hilarious mood the Democratic machine, casting about for its sacrifice candidate, nominated George Helm—or, rather, George Helm’s whiskers.

It was a side-splitting joke. Everybody liked George. Everybody knew about his whiskers—knew him by his whiskers. It bade fair to inject that humor, so dearly beloved of the American people, into what was usually a dull campaign. The only trouble was that for the first time Helm failed to see a joke.

The night of his nomination the light in Mrs. Beaver’s tiny, stuffy attic room went out early. And if you could have looked in, you would have discovered, by the starlight that the big form was lying quite still in the little bed which sagged and bulged with it. But George Helm was not asleep. He slept not a wink that whole night. And as soon as he had finished breakfast he went down to the barber shop at the corner.

“Bob,” said he to the colored proprietor, “I want a clean shave.”

“What’s that, Mr. Helm?” exclaimed the amazed barber. And two loungers at the table where the sporting papers were spread out sat up and stared.

“A clean shave, Bob,” said Helm gravely, seating himself in the chair.

Bob started a broad grin that, with the least encouragement, would have become a guffaw—and would have echoed throughout the district. But he did not get the encouragement. Instead, he saw something in the kind, deep-set gray eyes, in the strong, sad mouth and chin, that set him soberly to work. The two loungers went outside to laugh and spread the news. But when they got outside they did not laugh. Why? It is impossible to explain the psychology of man the mass. They put the astounding news into currency—but not as a joke. Helm was shaving his beard. What did it mean?

“Our opponents,” said Judge Powers, “nominated a set of whiskers. The whiskers have disappeared—so there is no one running against us.”

The jest, being of the species which it is conventional to utter and to laugh at on stump and after-dinner occasions, got its momentary due of cackling and braying. But the mirth did not spread. For, before noon of that first day of the campaign, it had been discovered that the Democratic machine had not nominated whiskers, but a man.

We are in the habit of regarding a human being as a mere conglomerate of sundry familiar conventionalities—of dress, of manner, of thought. We have formed the habit because with an occasional rare exception a human being is simply that and nothing more. So an individuality is always a startling apparition—fascinating, perhaps, certainly terrifying. The coming of a man makes us suddenly aware how few real men there are—real live men—how most of us are simply patterns of men who once lived, or, rather, differently proportioned composites of all past men. The excitement in peaceful Harrison and its somnolent environs was almost hysterical. For, in all that region, there was not, there had not been for years—not since the stern, elemental pioneer days—a real living man. All the specimens of the genus homo were of the approved type of the past.

George Helm, man.

“George,” said Bill Desbrough, who had a law office across the hall in the same building—the Masonic Temple—“George, where’d you ever get the notion of those there whiskers you’ve just shed?”

“Oh, the girls,” replied George. “When I was a boy and a youngster the girls made fun of my face. So I hid it as soon as I could—as well as I could.”

“The fool women!” exclaimed Desbrough in disgust. “Why, George, you’ve got a face.”

“I’m afraid so,” said George with a rueful grin, passing his hand over the newly emerged visage.

“Afraid so!” cried Desbrough. “Let me tell you, old man, a face—a real face—is about the rarest thing in the world. Most so-called faces are nothing but front sides of heads.” Desbrough looked at the “face” narrowly, searchingly. “Helm, I believe you are a great man.”

George laughed delightedly and derisively—as a sensible man does at a compliment. “Oh, shucks!” said he.

“Anyhow,” said Desbrough, “if you’d have produced that face a day earlier, you’d never have got the nomination. A man with a face never gets anything from the powers-that-be, without a fight, until he has put himself squarely on record as being with them. Even then they’re always a little afraid of him.” Desbrough nodded thoughtfully. “And they may well be, damn ’em,” he added.

“Well—I’ve got the nomination,” said Helm.

“I wonder what you’ll do with it,” said his friend.

“I’m wondering what it’ll do with me,” replied Helm.

Desbrough glanced at him curiously.

George went on to explain. “Yesterday,” said he, “I was a boy of twenty-five”——

“Is that all you are!” cried Desbrough. “Why, even without the whiskers I’d have said thirty-five.”

“Oh, I’m one of those chaps who are born old,” laughed Helm. “I had lines and even wrinkles when I was eighteen. I’ll look younger at forty than I do now. Mother used to say I reminded her of her father—that he was homely enough to stop a clock when he was young and kept getting handsomer as he got older.”

“I know the kind,” said Bill Desbrough, “and it’s the best kind to be.”

“As I was saying,” proceeded George, “yesterday I was a boy. As soon as those fellows nominated me—they were laughing—they thought it was a fine old joke—but, Bill, a queer sort of a something happened inside me. A kind of shock, like a man jumping out of a sound sleep to find the house afire.”

Desbrough was interestedly watching the face of his friend. Its expression was indeed strange—the look of power—sad, stern, inexorable—the look of the men whose wills and passions hurl them on and on to the conquest of the world. Suddenly it changed, softened. The human lines round the mobile, handsome mouth appeared. The gray eyes twinkled and danced. “So you see, Bill,” said he, “the nomination didn’t lose any time in beginning to do things to me.”

“And the whiskers?”

“Oh, they had to go,” said George simply. “The fight was on, and a fellow naturally throws away all the foolishness before he jumps in.”

“So you’re going to make a fight?”

“Of course,” said George. “What else is there to do?”

“But you can’t win.”

“You mean I can’t lose. I’ve got nothing to lose.”

About the most dangerous character on this earth is a real man who has nothing to lose. When the powers-that-be discover such an one, and are convinced that he is indeed a real man and not a cunning bluff at it, they hasten to give him something to lose. They don’t feel safe until he has wife and children, or wealth, or position—something that will fill one arm and make the other cautious.

The three counties constituting that judicial district will not in many a year forget the first Helm campaign. In its second week Judge Powers canceled his speaking dates, giving out that he regarded it as undignified for a judge to descend in the ermine to the political arena and scramble and tussle for votes. The truth was that George Helm had driven him to cover because he dared not face the facts of his judicial record as the young candidate proclaimed it throughout those counties, on the highways, in the by-ways no less, in town, in village, in country.

The day he began campaigning George counted his cash, found that in all the world he had three hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty-six cents. He had been calculating that this money would keep him housed and fed and officed for about a year longer, assuming that he continued to be absolutely without clients. Then—he would teach school and toss hay and stack sacks at the threshing machine until he had put by the money for another two years’ try. To go into the campaign meant to use up his resources in two months—for he could not hope to get any help from the Democratic machine. Its “contributions” from the various corporations would be used in paying the leaders and their henchmen for refraining from “doing anything disturbing.”

“Sorry, Mr. Helm,” said Pat Branagan, the local Democratic boss, “but we can’t spare you a cent for your campaign.”

“So I calculated,” said Helm.

Branagan had changed toward Helm the instant he saw him without a beard. Branagan had not risen to be boss without learning a thing or two about human nature and human faces. “There’s no hope for you,” proceeded he. “And anyhow I think a judicial candidate ought to be dignified.”

“Oh, I don’t see any objection to his showing himself to the people,” said George, “and letting them judge whether he’s honest and sensible, and letting them hear what his notion of justice is—whether he’s for rich man’s reading of the law or for honest man’s reading of it.”

Branagan puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. If he had been looking at Helm, he might have seen a covert twinkle in those expressive gray eyes. But he was not looking at Helm; he didn’t like to look at him. “Yes, I suppose so, Mr. Helm,” he said. He had called Helm George—George, with a humorous grin—until Bob Williams, the colored barber, performed that magic feat. “But there won’t be no money for meetings. Meetings means hall rent and posters and processions, and them little knickknacks costs.”

“I guess I can look after that,” said George, crossing and uncrossing his long legs and smoothing out a tail of his shiny black frock upon his knee.

“You allow to do some speaking?”

“I’m going to hire a horse and buggy and move about some.”

“That’s good. You may stir up a little law business.”

“Maybe so.”

“Done any orating?”

“Oh, I’ve heard a lot of speeches, and I’ve made a few.”

“Then you know the kind of stuff to hand out to the people.”

“I guess so,” said Helm.

Branagan was obviously relieved when Helm departed—the conference was held in Pat’s saloon which was the “hang-out” for the politicians and other disreputables of the town. The first class really included the last, for there was not a disreputable who was not actively engaged in “practical” politics. Helm negotiated with the livery-man round the corner from Mrs. Beaver’s boarding-house, got a buggy and a sound horse for two months at two dollars and a half a day, he to feed the horse, keep the buggy in repair and do his own driving. The morning of the second day after he secured the nomination, he opened his campaign.

Two days later—or rather, three nights later—so far into the third night that it was near the dawn of the third day—a stalled automobile shot the powerful beams from its acetylene lamps into the woods near Bixby Cross Roads, about twenty miles to the northeast of Harrison. The light fell upon a buggy, with the horse taken from the shafts and hitched to a nearby tree.

“Hi, there—I say!” came in a man’s voice from the darkness of the auto.

This was followed a moment later by, “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” in the same voice, accompanied by the subdued laughter of two women, on the rear seat of the auto. The cause of the exclamation was the apparition of a head above the side of the bed of the buggy, and behind the seat—the head of a man.

“Why, he’s curled up in his buggy to sleep,” said one of the women in a low voice.

But the night was still and the voice had the carrying quality; so George Helm heard distinctly. As he was as shy as any man is apt to be who feels that he is not attractive to women, the sound of a woman’s voice—a young woman’s voice—threw him into a panic. He was acutely conscious of the fact that the frock suit neatly folded was under the buggy seat, and that he had nothing on over his underclothes but the lap robe. In his alarm he cried out, “Don’t come any nearer. What do you want to know?”

“We’ve punctured a tire,” said the man. “And we’ve lost our way. Will you come and help me?”

“Turn those lights the other way,” said Helm.

There was a chuckle from the direction of the auto, a sound of suppressed female laughter. The sound rose, swelled until the two women and their man and presently George Helm were all four laughing uproariously. The lights turned in another direction. “Thanks,” said Helm. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

And it was scarcely more than that when he, clad in the frock suit and carrying the top hat in his hand, advanced toward the auto. “Now—what can I do for you?” inquired he.

“Do you know how to fit on a tire?” said the man—he was young, about George’s age—but a person of fashionable dress and manner.

“I don’t know a thing about automobiles,” replied Helm.

“But I do, Bart,” said one of the women—the one with the sweeter voice. “I can superintend.”

“Are we far from the main road?” said Bart to Helm.

“About a mile and a half.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m Barton Hollister.”

The young man spoke the name as if he were certain of its being recognized. “Oh, yes, I know you, Mr. Hollister. We come from the same town—Harrison. I’m George Helm.”

“I’ve heard of you,” said young Hollister graciously. “I suppose we’ve never happened to meet because I’m at home so little. You’ve lost your way, too?”

“No, I’m making a campaign through the district.”

“Oh—yes. You were nominated by the Democrats for—for——”

Mr. Hollister hesitated awkwardly. “For Circuit Judge,” Helm supplied.

“Against my cousin, Judge Powers. These ladies are my sister Clara and Miss Clearwater.”

Helm bowed to the ladies, who smiled graciously at him. He could see their faces now—lovely, delicate faces with the look of the upper class—the sort of women he had seen only at a distance and had met only in novels and memoirs.

“The chauffeur was sick and I was ass enough to risk coming without him,” said Hollister. “Nell, you’ll have to tell us what to do.”

There followed about the most interesting and exciting hour of George Helm’s life up to that time. Within five minutes Barton Hollister had shown that he was worse than useless for the work in hand, had been swept aside by Helm and Miss Clearwater. He smoked and fussed about and quarreled with his sister, who was in no very good humor with him—“casting us away in the wilderness at three o’clock in the morning.” Helm and the girl who knew toiled at removing the tire and replacing it. She did not know very much; so in the end Helm became boss and, with her assistance, worked out the problem from its foundations.

It isn’t easy for an intelligent human being to say so much as three sentences without betraying his intelligence. And in an emergency the evidences of superior mind stand out clearly and brilliantly. Thus it came to pass that in the hour’s work George Helm and Eleanor Clearwater got a respect each for the other’s intelligence. His respect for her was so great that he all but forgot her loveliness and her remote removal from the sphere of his humble, toilsome life. He was tempted to prolong the task, in spite of the irritation of Clara Hollister’s railing, peevish voice. But he resisted the temptation and got his visitors into condition for departure with all the speed he could command.

They thanked him effusively. There was handshaking all round. Hollister and his sister urged him to call “soon”—a diplomatic invitation; it sounded cordial, yet—was safely vague. The automobile departed, and the candidate for judge was free to resume his repose in the airy chamber he had selected, to save time and hotel bills.

Two hours later he made a thorough toilet with the assistance of a convenient spring, hitched up his horse and drove out of the woods and into the by-road to search for a farm-house and breakfast. After about a mile, and just before he reached the main road, he saw ahead of him an auto—the auto. In his shyness he reined in his horse and looked round for some way to escape. He, the homely, the obscure, the wretchedly poor, the badly dressed, the grotesque straggler for a foothold in life—“as ridiculous as a turtle on its back and trying to get right side up”—what had he to do with those rich, grand, elegant people? When they saw him in the full light of day, needing a shave and none too tidy after his interrupted night out, they would humiliate him with their polite but not to be concealed disdain of him. Bart Hollister suddenly sprang from the auto and shouted and waved. There was nothing to do but go on.

Another tire had exploded, and Bart had not dared leave the two girls alone; besides, he would have been lost the instant he got beyond the range of the lights. “We’ve been dozing in the car and hoping you’d come along,” he ended. “I’ll bet you’re cursing the day you ever saw us. But—couldn’t you help put on another tire?”

A few minutes, and Helm and Eleanor Clearwater were at work again. But his fingers were much clumsier now, and he was wretchedly self-conscious. By daylight he saw her to be the loveliest woman—so he decided—that he had ever seen. About twenty years old, with thick hair of the darkish neutral shade that borrows each moment new colors and tints from the light; with very dark gray eyes, so dark that an observer less keen than Helm might have thought them brown. She was neither tall nor short, had one of those figures that make you forget inches, and think only of line and proportion. A good straight nose, a sweet yet rather haughty mouth. Her hands—he noted them especially as he and she worked—were delicate, had a singular softness that somehow contrived to combine with firmness. They were cool to the touch—and her voice was cool, even when talking intimately with Clara Hollister and her brother. Not the haughty reserve of caste, but the attractive human reserve of those to whom friendship and love are not mere words but deep and lasting emotions.

When he took off his coat to go to work Helm was so thoroughly flustered that he did not think of his linen—or rather, of his cotton and celluloid—or of the torn back of his waistcoat, or of the discolored lining of his coat. But when he was ready to resume the coat he suddenly saw and felt all these horrors of his now squalid poverty. She was apparently unaware; but he knew that she too had seen, had felt. Unconsciously he looked at her with a humble yet proud appeal—the effort the soul sometimes makes to face directly another soul, with no misleading veil of flesh and other externals between. Their eyes met; she colored faintly and glanced away.

Clara and Barton were for dashing straight on home to breakfast—a run of about three-quarters of an hour. But Miss Clearwater was not for the risk. “I’m starved,” said she. “I’ve worked hard, with these two tires. Mr. Helm will find us breakfast in this neighborhood.”

“I was going to ask them to give me something at Jake Hibbard’s, about half a mile further on,” said Helm. “It’ll be plain food, but pretty good.”

And it was pretty good—coffee, fresh milk, corn bread, fried chicken and potatoes, corn cakes and maple syrup. Barton and Clara ate sparingly. It made George Helm feel closer to the goddess to see that she ate as enthusiastically as did he. “I never saw you eat like this, Nell,” said Clara, not altogether admiring.

“You never saw me when I had things I really liked,” replied she.

“The way to get your food to be really tasty,” observed Mrs. Hibbard, “is to earn it.”

Miss Clearwater deigned to be interested in Mr. Helm’s campaign. “I know something about politics,” said she. “My father was United States Senator a few years ago.”

“Oh—you’re George Clearwater’s daughter?” said Helm. He knew all about Clearwater, the lumber “king” who had bought a seat in the Senate because his wife thought she’d like Washington socially.

“Yes,” said the girl. “I’m the only child. And you—are you going to be elected?”

“Judge Powers’s plurality was more than his opponent’s whole vote last time,” said Helm.

“Then you haven’t much hope?”

“I don’t hope—I work,” said Helm.

As they talked on, he saying nothing beyond what was necessary to answer the questions put to him, it was curious to see how he, the homely and the shabby, became the center of interest. His personality compelled them to think and to talk about him, to revolve round him—this, though he was shrinking in his shyness and could scarcely find words or utterance for them.

“What a queer man,” said Clara, when the auto was under way again. “He’s very dowdy and ugly, but somehow you sort of like him.”

“He’s not so ugly,” said Miss Clearwater.

“Perhaps not—for a man of his class,” said Clara. “I like to meet the lower-class people once in awhile. They’re very interesting.”

“I guess,” said Miss Clearwater, absently, “that father was a good deal that sort of a man when he was young.”

Clara laughed. “Oh, nonsense,” she cried. “Your father amounted to something.”

“He started as a pack peddler.”

Clara would not be outdone in generous candor. “Well—papa was a farm hand. Don’t all that sort of thing seem terribly far away, Nell? Just look at us. Think of us marrying a man like this Helm.”

Miss Clearwater shivered. “He was pretty dreadful—wasn’t he?”

“I don’t suppose the poor fellow ever had a decent suit in his life—or ever before met ladies.”

“Yet,” said Miss Clearwater, absent and reflective, “there’s no telling what he’ll be, before he gets through.”

“Talking about your conquest, Nell?” called Bart from the front seat.

Miss Clearwater colored haughtily. Clara cried, “Don’t be rude, Bart.”

“Rude?” retorted Hollister. “Anyone could see with half an eye that he was overhead in love with Nell. Wait till he comes to call.”

“Call?” Clara laughed. “He’d never venture to appear at our front door.”

“We’ll go to hear him when he strikes Harrison,” said Bart.

“Indeed we’ll not,” replied his sister. “He’d misunderstand and presume. Don’t you think so, Nell?”

“Yes,” replied Miss Clearwater promptly—too promptly.

But long before Helm and his campaign reached Harrison there were other reasons why the Hollisters, indeed all the “best people,” could not show themselves at a Helm meeting.

The ignorance of the mass of mankind has made government an arrangement whereunder the many labor for the prosperity of the few. The pretexts for this scheme and the devices for carrying it out have varied; but the scheme itself has not varied—and will not vary until the night of ignorance and the fog of prejudice shall have been rolled away. All things considered, it is most creditable to human nature and most significant of the moral power of enlightenment, that the intelligent few have dealt so moderately with their benighted fellows and have worked so industriously to end their own domination by teaching their servitors the way of emancipation; for let it not be forgotten that the light comes only from above, that the man who has emancipated himself could always, if he chose, be oppressor. Our modern American version of this ancient scheme of the few exploiting the many consists of two essential parts—laws cunningly designed to enable the few to establish their toll gates upon every road of labor; courts shrewdly officered so that the judges can, if they will, issue the licenses for the aforesaid toll gates, which are not as a rule established, but simply permitted, by the law. The treacherous legislator enacts the slyly worded authorization; the subservient judge—no, rather, the judge chosen from, and in sympathy with, the dominant class—reads the permissive statute as mandatory.

This primer lesson in politics, known to all men who have opportunity to learn and who see fit to seize the opportunity, was of course known to George Helm. But he did not content himself with a dry, tiresome, “courteous” statement of the fact. He brought it home to the people of those three counties by showing precisely what Judge Powers had done in his seven years as the people’s high officer of justice—by relating in detail the favors he had granted to the railways, both steam and trolley, to the monopolies in every necessity of life. He also gave an account of Judge Powers’s material prosperity, his rapid rise to riches in those seven years, and the flourishing condition of his relatives and intimate friends, the men owning stock in the railway and other monopolies. In a word, the young candidate made what is known as a “blatherskite” campaign. In his youth and simplicity he imagined that, as a candidate, it was his duty to tell the truth to the people. He did not know the difference between the two kinds of truth—decent and indecent—decent truth that gives everybody a comfortable sense of general depravity, and indecent truth that points out specific instances of depravity, giving names, dates and places.

“Let those who will benefit by Judge Powers’s notion of justice and law vote for him,” said Helm. “I ask those who will benefit by my notion of law and justice to vote for me.”

The Democratic machine hastened to disavow Helm’s plainness of speech. The newspapers, Democratic no less than Republican, ignored him. But the scandal would not down. The news of Helm’s charges—of his unparliamentary statements of fact—spread from village to village, from farm to farm. Within a week it was no longer necessary for him to distribute handbills and call at farm-houses to announce his meetings. Wherever he went he found a crowd waiting to hear his simple conversational appeal to common-sense—and, after hearing, bursting into cheers. In private, in handshaking and talking with the farmers and villagers, he was all humor, full of homely, witty stories and jests. But the moment he stood up as the candidate addressing the people, the face lost its humor lines, the eyes their twinkle, and he uttered one plain, serious sentence after another, each making a point against Judge Powers.

The strong homely face grew rapidly thinner. The deep-set gray eyes sank still deeper beneath the overhanging brows. As for the frock suit, it soon became a wretched exhibit from a rag bag. The “respectable” people—that is, those owning the stocks and bonds of Judge Powers’s protégé companies—laughed at the fantastic figure, roving about in the mud-stained buggy. But—“the common people heard him gladly.”

After six weeks of campaigning with farmers and villagers, Helm felt strong enough to attack the fortress—Harrison. There are those in Harrison who can still tell in minutest detail of the coming of Helm—driving slowly, toward mid-day, down the main street—the direct way to Mrs. Beaver’s boarding-house. The top hat was furry and dusty. The black frock suit was streaked and stained, was wrinkled and mussed. The big shoulders drooped wearily. But the powerful head was calmly erect, and there was might in the great, toil-scarred hands that held the reins on the high bony knees.

Not in the worst days of the whiskers had George Helm been so ludicrous to look at. But no one laughed. The crowds along the sidewalks gazed in silence and awe. A man had come to town.

That afternoon he spoke in Court House square—that afternoon, and again after supper, and twice every day for a week. Never had there been such crowds at political meetings—and, toward the last, never such enthusiasm. The suddenness, the strangeness of the attack paralyzed the opposition. It accepted Judge Powers’s dignified suggestion—“the fellow is beneath contempt, is unworthy of notice.”

At the end of the week, off went George to the sparser regions again, repeating the queer triumph of his first tour. And every one was asking every one else, What are the people going to do? Reichman, the Republican boss, put this question to Democratic boss Branagan when they met a few evenings before the election on the neutral ground of Tom Duffy’s saloon and oyster parlor.

“What do you think the people are going to do?” asked Reichman.

“Dun’ no,” said Branagan. “But I know what I’m goin’ to do.”

This, with a wicked grin and a wink. Said Reichman, “Me, too, Pat.”

And they did it. Not a difficult thing to do at any election, for the people know little about election machinery, and do not watch—indeed, what would the poor blind, ignorant creatures find out if they did watch? Yes, Reichman and his Democratic partner did it. The easiest thing in the world, when the machinery of both parties is in the same hands.

The country went strongly for Helm. But Harrison and the three other towns of the district more than “saved the day for the sanctity of the ermine and the politics of gentlemen.” Judge Powers was reëlected by an only slightly reduced plurality. Helm had polled three times as many votes as any Democratic candidate ever had. But the famous “silent, stay-at-home voter” had come forth and had saved the republic. That famous retiring patriot!—so retiring that the census men cannot find him and the undertaker never buries him. But no matter. He is our greatest patriot. He always appears when his country needs him.

No one saw Helm on election night. At Mrs. Beaver’s it was said that he had gone to bed at the usual time. Next day he appeared, looking much as usual. The gray eyes were twinkling; the humorous lines round the mouth were ready for action. He went to see Branagan at the saloon. They sat down to a friendly glass of beer.

“Well, Mr. Helm,” said Branagan, “you lost.”

“The election—yes,” said Helm.

“Everything,” said Branagan.

“Oh, no,” replied George softly. “Next time I may win.”

Branagan’s hard blue eyes looked straight into Helm’s. Said he: “There ain’t goin’ to be no next time—fur you.”

Helm returned the gaze. “Yes, there is, Pat,” said he.

“Goin’ to make a livin’, practicin’ before Judge Powers—eh?”

“No. I’m going up the State to teach school. But I’m coming back.”

“Oh—hell,” said Pat Branagan—a jeer, but an ill-tempered one.

On his way uptown again George Helm almost walked into Eleanor Clearwater and Clara Hollister. He lifted his hat and bowed, blushing deeply. The two girls looked past him. Clara seemed unconscious that he was there; Eleanor slightly inclined her head—a cold, polite acknowledgment of the salute of a mistaken stranger.

Helm put on the frayed and frowzled top hat. His embarrassment left him. With a sweet and simple smile of apology that made the strong homely face superbly proud, he strode erectly on.

II
THE CAT’S-PAW

PAT BRANAGAN, Democratic boss of Harrison, had said to George Helm, his defeated nominee for circuit judge: “There ain’t goin’ to be no next time—fur you.” He had said this in circumstances of extreme provocation. The young candidate, nominated as a joke, nominated to help the Republican machine roll up a “monumental majority” for Judge Powers, judicial agent of the interests owning both party machines—the young candidate had made a house to house, stump to stump campaign, had exposed Judge Powers, had forced both machines to commit wholesale election frauds to prevent his defeat. But Mr. Branagan’s anger had not been the real cause of his serving notice on the big, homely young lawyer that he would never get another nomination from the Democratic party of the city of Harrison. Mr. Branagan did not conduct his life with his temper. If he had done so, he would not have become boss, but would have remained a crumb-fed private. He had reasons—reasons of sound business sense—for “double crossing” George Helm. The Helm sort of Democrat, attacking corruption, smashing at the Republican machine, rousing the people to suspect and to reflect and to revolt, was a dangerous menace to the Branagan income.

“He’s one of them there damned agitators that’s bad for business,” said Mr. Branagan to his friend and partner, the Republican boss. “Everything’s running quiet and smooth here, and the people’s satisfied. If that fellow had his way, they’d be attendin’ to politics instead of to their jobs.”

“That’s right,” said Reichman. “My people”—meaning the corporations whose political agent he was—“my people understand you didn’t intend to do it. They look to you to get rid of him.” Reichman said “my people” rather than “your people,” because Republican partisans being overwhelmingly in the majority in that district, the interests had him for chief political manager, and dealt with the Democratic boss only through him. If Reichman had been strictly accurate he would not have said “my people,” but “the people”; for the interests are the only people who have not power in politics.

“Helm’s leaving, all right,” said Branagan. “That there campaign of his used up his money. He never had no law business, and he’s smart enough to know he’ll never get none hereabouts, so long as Powers is on the bench. So he’s gone up the State to teach school.”

“Well, that’s the last of him,” said Reichman. “I’m kind of sorry for him, Pat. He’s a damn nice young fellow.”

“Yes—and a mighty good stumper, too.” With a grin, “He landed on your friend the Judge—jaw, solar plexus, kidneys—had him groggy.”

The two bosses laughed uproariously. Then Branagan said: “Yes, George Helm’s a nice boy. But I don’t like him. If he’d a won out, he’d a made it hot for me—and for you, too.”

“But he didn’t,” said Reichman. “And he’s all in. I can think well of the dead.”

“I don’t like him,” growled Branagan. “He fooled me with those crazy red whiskers of his. I knew what he was the first time I saw him after he cut ’em off—that was the day after I put him on the ticket. When a man fools me, he makes me mad.”

“He fooled everybody,” said Reichman soothingly. “And as it has turned out there’s no harm done. The way we made him walk the plank’ll be a warning to any other young smart Alecks there are in these parts, thinking of upsetting things.”

It certainly looked as if George Helm were dead and done for in that community. But Patrick Branagan was a sensible man. Vain men concern themselves about likes and dislikes; sensible men, about advantages and disadvantages. It came to pass in that winter, while George Helm was teaching school up the State, and saving money for another attempt as a lawyer, Branagan and Reichman fell out about the division of the graft. Branagan was a slow thinker, but it gradually penetrated to him that in George Helm he had a threat wherewith he could, or, rather, should, extort for himself a larger share of the spoils. Helm, making a single-handed campaign against both machines—for the Branagan machine had repudiated him—had carried the district, had been kept out of office only by the most barefaced frauds in Harrison and the three large towns. So Branagan told Reichman that unless his share—in the vice money, in the “campaign contributions” and in the contracts—were raised to an equality with Reichman’s own share, he would bring Helm back. Reichman laughed, Branagan insisted. Reichman grew insulting. Branagan presented an ultimatum. Reichman answered by cutting Branagan’s third to a fourth.

In May Branagan went up to Mrs. Beaver’s boarding-house. Yes, Mr. Helm had left his address. “And,” said Mrs. Beaver, “he sends me regular his rent for the room he had.”

“What does he do that for?” said Branagan.

“I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Beaver. “He was mighty queer in lots of ways. No, I can’t nohow work it out why he sends me the two dollars a week—and him so poor he had to do his own washing and mending—and wore celluloid.”

But Branagan knew, on second thought. So the young damn fool did intend to come back—had kept his legal residence in Harrison. Though this news was altogether satisfactory to Branagan’s plans, it gave him a qualm. What a stubborn, dangerous chap this boy was! However—his fear of Helm was vague and remote, his need of him clear and near. He took the midnight express for the north and was at George Helm’s boarding-house on the lake front at Saskaween as George, with breakfast finished and his cigar lighted, was starting out for a stroll.

“I’ll go along,” said Pat. “Throw away that cigar and let me give you a good one.”

“If it’s like the one you’re smoking,” said George, “it’s not good. But it’s better than my five-center.”

“I pay a quarter apiece for my cigars,” said Branagan. “And I think I know a good cigar.”

“You think it’s good because Len Melcher charges you a quarter for it,” replied Helm.

“What do you know about good cigars, anyhow?” said Branagan, ruffled that this poor school teacher should presume to be critical.

Helm might have explained that he happened to be one of those people who are born with intensely acute senses—eyes that see, ears that hear, nerves of touch, taste and smell that respond where the ordinary nerve remains inert. But he contented himself with a good-natured laugh and a cheerful, “Where’s the cigar? And what do you want, Pat?”

Branagan drew the cigar from his well-filled waistcoat pocket. “How’d you like to go to the State Legislature next winter, as Senator from down yonder?” he said.

Helm lit the quarter cigar from his “five-center,” strode along in silence beside his shorter and stouter companion. He finally said:

“So you and Reichman have fallen out?”

“Personally, we’re friends,” replied the Democratic boss with an air of virtue earnest enough, but so grotesque that it did not even seem hypocritical. “But in politics we are and always have been enemies.”

Helm’s deep-set gray eyes gazed shrewdly at the heavy red face of the boss. “And,” he went on, as if Branagan had not spoken, “you want to use me as a club for bringing him to terms.”

“Who’s been handing you out that line of dope?” said Branagan noisily.

Helm ignored this blustering bluff as unworthy of reply. He said: “When do you want your answer?”

“I ain’t offered you no nomination,” protested Branagan angrily. “I just put out a suggestion.”

“Oh—you want to make terms?—want to pledge me?—want to see if you can control me?” Helm shook his head and smiled. “Nothing doing, Pat,” he said.

“Now, look here, George—why’re you so damn suspicious? I’m older’n you and I’ve been all through the game. Let me tell you, my boy, you’re trying to get in the wrong way. There’s nothing in that there end of the game. A fellow who works for the people works for somebody that’s got nothing, and is a fool, to boot. Get in right, George. Work for them as can and will do something for you.”

“Oh, I’m not thinking of working for the people,” replied Helm, amused. “I’m working for myself—for my own amusement. I’ve made up my mind to have a good time in my life—not what you’d call a good time, perhaps, but the kind of a time that suits me. I don’t care for money—nor for the things money buys. I rather think the kind of woman I’d want wouldn’t want me—so I’m not going to have a wife and family to work for. I’ve decided to be my own boss—and to do as I damn please.”

“You’re a queer chap, for sure,” said Branagan. “But let me tell you one thing. A man that sets out to do as he pleases has got to have a lot of money—unless he pleases to be a hobo, or near it. You’d better wait till you’ve made your pile before you put your nose in the air.”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Helm. “Yes, I’ve got to have money. They can always do me up as long as I’m poor. But I’m going to make it in my own way.”

“I can help you,” said Branagan.

“Yes—you could,” admitted Helm.

“You’d not have to touch a cent that wasn’t perfectly honest graft.”

Helm laughed.

“What’s the joke?” demanded Branagan.

“I was thinking how plainly you were showing me your hand. How you must need me to travel clear across the State to see me, and then to talk straight out like this.”

Branagan frowned—grinned. “I don’t need you any more than you need me,” retorted he. “Not as bad. How much does this job you’ve got pay?”

“Sixty-five a month.”

“And you an educated man. That was a pretty good hash house you’re livin’ in.”

“Fourth rate. But my bed’s clean and the food is good.”

“Sixty-five a month! I can put you in the way of makin’ that much a day—if you deliver the goods.”

“Meaning—”

“If you carry in my ticket next fall—and behave yourself like a sensible man after you get in.”

“What was my majority in the district last fall?” Helm suddenly asked.

“About twelve hundred,” replied Branagan.

“I thought so,” said Helm. “If I’d had five thousand dollars I’d have sent you and Reichman to the pen for the frauds. But you knew I’d be helpless.”

The Democratic boss gave him an amiable and sympathetic look. Said he: “A man without money is always helpless, George. And the further he goes the surer he is to fall—and fall hard.”

“I know. I’ve got to have enough to make me independent.”

“How’re you goin’ to get it, my boy?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” confessed Helm. “Thus far I’ve not found the answer.”

“You’ll never find it where you’re looking,” said Branagan. “The people—they ain’t goin’ to give it to you. And you ain’t goin’ to get no law cases unless you’re in right. If you did get a good law case, it’d be decided against you.”

Helm’s expression was admission that the boss was right.

“And,” proceeded Branagan, “if you decided to make money by going into business—that’s slow, and anyhow you’ll have to graft or you won’t make nothin’. I tell you, George—— They call us politicians grafters. But the truth is we’re a damn sight honester than the business men or the lawyers—or any other class except them that ain’t got no chance to graft. The worst of us ain’t no worse than the best of them swell, big-figger grafters like Hollister and Powers. And the best of us is a hell of a sight honester. We’ve got some friendship in us. And I’ve yet to see the respectable, tony, church-going grafter I’d trust unless I had him in writing. What’s the matter nowadays with Al Reichman? Why, as long as he was just a plain low-down politician he kept his word and played square. But now that he’s married among the swells and has taken up the respectable end of the game, he’s as crooked as—as Judge Powers.”

“I can’t make up my mind what to do about Reichman,” said Branagan to Helm.

“Haven’t you got your orders from the crowd that’s behind both of you?” inquired Helm.

“Yes—to let him alone—to let up on him.”

“Then—that’s what you’ll do.”

“I suppose so,” Branagan reluctantly admitted. “I wisht I was as young as you, George—and had my old-time nerve—and didn’t have an expensive family. I’d take a chance.”

“Of being able to stay in now that you’re in?”

“That’s it. Damn it, I sometimes believe we could.”

Helm shook his head. “The district is normally seven thousand Republicans out of a total vote of eighteen thousand. It’d take ten years of hard work—and honest politics—to change that round to a small steady Democratic plurality.”

“But the people are crazy about you.”

“They won’t reëlect me,” said Helm. “Next time they’ll be back in the harness.”

“For a youngster you take a mighty gloomy view of things.”

“I don’t delude myself. I don’t dare. I’ve been making my own living since I was ten and I’ve got to go on making it till I die.”

“Yes, the people are mutts,” said Branagan. “They were born to be trimmed..... So—if you was in my place you’d fix up a peace with Reichman?”

“No,” said Helm. “I shouldn’t. But you ought to do it. You don’t want to make a losing fight for ten years—do you? You don’t want to drop politics as a business, do you?”

“It’s a business or it’s nothing,” replied Branagan.

“For you,” corrected Helm.

“For all of them that’s in it—except here and there a crank.”

“Except here and there a crank,” assented Helm.

“Republicans and Democrats—they all belong one way or another to this interest or that. What’s the use of fighting the crowd that’s got the money? No use—not here in this town—not up to the State Capitol, where you’re going—not on to Washington where I reckon you calculate to go some day. Not nowhere, George!”

“Not nowhere,” said George. “It takes two negatives to give that affirmative its full strength.”

“Not nowhere on earth,” repeated Branagan. “Fight the money crowd, and sooner or later they’ll get you down. Bluff at fightin’ ’em. They don’t mind that. They understand you’ve got to keep in with the people, and they want you to, so as you’ll be useful. But don’t do nothing. Look at any of the big politicians that the people think so well of. What have they done? Nothing. They’ve bluffed—and talked—and roared. Maybe they cut off a measly little grafter here or there. But when it came to a show-down, they gave the crowd with the cash what they wanted. Eh?”

Helm nodded.

“Well—what are you going to do?”

“I’ll see when the time comes. Meantime, what’s my cue, Pat? To roar—isn’t it?”

Branagan laughed. “And you’re the boy that can do it,” he cried. “You almost make me believe you’re in earnest.”

Helm gave his political sponsor a queer, quick look. “Almost,” he said, with a laugh. “That’s good.”

“For your age, Helm, you’ve got the best nut on you of any man I know or know about. I’ll back you to win. You’ll be the nominee for governor in two years.”

“I hope so,” said Helm.

“And as soon as I settle things with Reichman I’ll give you all the law business you can take care of—good, paying business—the kind that won’t hurt you with the people.”

“I’ll take all of that I can get,” said Helm. “I want to make money. I’ve got to make money.”

“You’ve put me in the way of doing better than ever, my boy, and I’m not ungrateful.”

George winced. But he laughed and said: “And don’t forget, my usefulness has only begun.” He reflected, smiled a peculiar secret smile as he went on: “The people allow the crowd that’s robbing them to pay big wages to the politicians who make the robbery possible. Why shouldn’t an honest man take away from the robbers a big enough share to keep him going and to put him in a position to serve the people better?”

“That’s good sense,” said Branagan heartily.

“It’s practical,” said Helm, staring gloomily.

Branagan observed him with narrowed eyelids and cigar tilted to a high reflective angle. “You’re a queer one,” he said, at last. “I can’t exactly place you.”

From time to time Helm had been nodding a thoughtful assent. He now said:

“Last summer and fall I got a lot of experience, Branagan. Ever since, I’ve been turning it over in my mind. The time may come when a man can get where he wants to go by a smooth bee line through the air. But not now. Now he has to move along the ground, and the road isn’t as straight as it might be, or as smooth. I was all for the bee line through the air. I’ve found out better.” He looked pointedly at his hard-eyed companion. “I haven’t changed my destination, Pat. You understand?”

Branagan nodded.

“I’ve simply changed from the heavenly route to the human. And by human I don’t mean crooked.”

“I understand, Mr. Helm,” said Branagan, with the respect a shrewd man cannot but feel in presence of an intelligence that has shown itself the superior of his. “I understand perfectly, George.”

“You probably don’t understand,” said George. “But no matter. You can be boss of the machine, but you can’t be my boss. If you give me the nomination and I’m elected, I’ll not attack the—the shortcomings of my friends until I’ve settled with the crimes of my enemies. I’ll not forget that I owe you, and not the people, for the nomination. But neither will I forget that I owe the people, and not you, for the election.”

“That’s the talk, Helm!” said Branagan, with enthusiasm.

“I’ll accept your nomination if you make up a good ticket throughout—one that ought to win.”

“I’ve got to do that, George,” said the boss. “The Republicans outnumber us three to one. Yes, I’ll give you A1 running mates.”

“After we’ve won—you’ll have to look out for yourself,” pursued Helm. “I’ll not stand personally for any crookedness. I don’t like it, and I don’t think it’s good politics.”

“I’ll nominate you,” said Branagan. “And I’ll send you a list of the men I pick out to run with you. I’m not a fool, Mr. Helm. I know we can’t get in unless we make the people believe we’re sincere—and that we can’t make ’em believe it unless we put up clean men.”

Helm smiled. “Yes—we’ve got to make a good strong bluff at decency.”

Branagan inspected Helm’s face with a quick, eager glance—a hopeful glance. Helm laughed at him. Branagan colored.

“I knew you didn’t understand,” said Helm. “But, as I said before, it doesn’t matter. We’ll only win the one election. Then the people’ll go back to their Republican rut, and in will come Reichman and the old gang again. You calculate that you can make better terms with him after you’ve given him a beating. Now, don’t you see that it’s to your interest to keep me decent—to keep me a scarecrow for Reichman?”

Branagan nodded. “You and me’ll have no trouble, George. I’ll let you play your game to suit yourself.”

Two months later Helm reappeared at Harrison, resumed the lodging at Mrs. Beaver’s and the dark and dingy little back office in the Masonic Temple. He was dressed in new clothes—a plain, cheap business suit of dark blue, linen shirt, collars and cuffs, a straw hat. He thought himself a stylish, almost a foppish, person. In fact he seemed hardly less unkempt and ill fitted than he had in the black frock suit and top hat of the previous year. Perhaps—but only perhaps—in the days of the toga George Helm might have looked well in clothes; in modern dress he could not look well. The most he could do was to look clean and important and strong—and that he certainly did.

Reichman understood, the moment it became known that the young lawyer had as clients four contracting companies in which Pat Branagan was the silent—and sole—partner. Reichman was for making a fight at once. But Judge Powers and Hollister had no fancy for a shower of the shafts which would glance harmlessly from the tough hide of Reichman, but would penetrate their skins and fester in their vanity. “I’ll take care of Helm,” said Hollister. And he sent his son Bart to call.

“Glad to see you back,” said Barton, a dazzling but also an agreeable apparition in the dingy dimness of Helm’s office. “We were talking about you only yesterday—I and my sister and Miss Clearwater. You remember her?”

“Yes—I—I remember her,” said Helm, as painfully embarrassed as if Miss Eleanor Clearwater, the beautiful, the fashionable, had been there in her own exquisite person. Remember her! Not a day had passed that he had not lived again those hours when chances had thrown him into her company on terms of almost friendly intimacy.

“We want you to come to dinner,” continued Barton, pretending not to notice the simple, uncouth, homely Helm’s woeful confusion. “To-morrow night—very informal—dressed as you are—really a home supper.”

“Sorry, but I can’t,” George blurted out—curt, rude, uncouth.

“Oh—nonsense!” cried young Hollister. “You’ll get along all right.”

“I can’t come, Mr. Hollister,” said George, suddenly recovering his self-possession. Perhaps the fashionable young man’s misunderstanding of his diffidence may have helped. Helm went on with the natural dignity and grace that makes the acquired sort look what it is, “It’s very kind of your father and Judge Powers to ask me. But I can’t.”

“I’m asking you,” weakly blustered Barton. “My father’s got nothing to do with it. As for Judge Powers, I can’t see why you drag him in.”

The calm, honest look of George Helm’s deep-set eyes was not easy to bear, as he explained without a trace of anger:

“I met your sister and her friend on the street the day after the election last fall. They made it plain that they had ceased to know me——”

“But,” interrupted Bart, “that was the day after the election, when everybody was hot in the collar. We’ve all cooled down.”

“I’ve come back here to go into politics again,” said George. “And I’ve got to say and do things that’ll make you and your relatives madder than ever——”

“What for?” cried Bart. “I say, Helm, what’s the use of being so devilish personal and unpleasant? Why stir things up and make trouble for yourself? Why not join our party and jog along quietly and comfortably?”

Helm laughed good-humoredly. “Let’s say it’s because I was born a contentious cuss and can’t change my nature. No, Hollister—you don’t want me at your house.”

Hollister was convinced. But his father’s orders had been positive, had made no provision for failure. He persisted as best he could: “You can’t think we’re trying to buy you with a dinner?”

“I think I’m too good-natured not to sell out for a dinner—and that sort of thing—if I put myself in the way of temptation.”

“What rot! You’ll come? Nell Clearwater will be terribly disappointed. She took quite a shine to you.”

George Helm laughed. “I shave myself, Hollister. I see myself every morning. I’m not for the ladies, nor they for me.”

“Oh, hell! A woman doesn’t care what a man looks like. They’d rather a man wouldn’t be handsome, so he’ll think about them instead of about himself. The way to please a woman is to help her to think of nothing but herself.”

“I’m not a ladies’ man,” said Helm.

Hollister argued—not unskillfully, because he liked Helm. But George was not to be moved. He had not set out from the depth of the valleys for the heights without so obvious a precaution as taking the measure of his weaknesses. He knew that the one bribe he could not resist was the social bribe—that his one chance for success in the career he had mapped out for himself lay in having no friends among those he must fight. And in the nearest rank of them were Hollister, the railway giant of the State, and Judge Powers, his brother-in-law and closest judicial agent. A day or so later, when he, walking up Main Street, saw Clara Hollister and Eleanor Clearwater driving toward him in a phaeton, he abruptly turned to inspect a window display. He shivered and jumped ridiculously when he heard Clara’s voice at his elbow.

“You interested in millinery!” Miss Hollister was saying laughingly.