Part 20 (1/2)
But others were abroad, too. Attorney Toole, watching the editor, had seen him enter the cobbler-car and leave it again, and he easily guessed the object of the editor's visit. He, too, went to see St.i.tz, and had a long and confidential talk with him, first frightening him until he was in a collapse, and then offering him immunity and safety, and at length leaving him in a perspiration of grat.i.tude. He held up to him a vision of the penitentiary as the reward of grafting, and when the mayor was sufficiently wilted, rebraced him by promising to defend him, whatever happened, and finally restored him to complacency by showing him that the transaction was not graft at all. When he parted from the mayor, that official was, as opposition papers put it, ”a creature of the attorney's.”
The attorney found Skinner in his butcher-shop surrounded by a group of friends, to whom he was relating a story of how he had been attacked by the Colonel, and what would have happened to the Colonel if intervention had not come just when it did. Toole entered briskly and pushed his way through the group to where the butcher stood.
”Skinner,” he said, ”I want half a dozen words with you, at once,” and his manner was enough to silence the butcher. Skinner led the way to the back room where the sausage machine made its home, and Toole carefully closed the door.
”Now,” he said, taking the butcher by the s.h.i.+rtsleeve,” you have had a taste of what comes of taking the political lead away from the party to which it rightly belongs. You have had an experience of what happens when people who know nothing about politics meddle with thing that the natural political leaders should be left to handle. You have been choked, and you have been cheated, and you deserve to be kicked. You pay money to this editor her in town, for an advertis.e.m.e.nt that you know does you no good, and in return he prints an article to make you laughed at. You form a combination with Guthrie to put in outsiders instead of good party men, and Guthrie uses his pull to have an ordinance pa.s.sed to make you spend money for fire-extinguishers. You elect a mayor, by your influence as a leading citizen, and he takes a bribe from Guthrie, and pa.s.ses an ordinance to rob you. And you, like a fool, let him do it. And you let Guthrie, that he may stand in solidly with the very woman you have your eye on, sell you--what? Fire-extinguishers? Not much! Not fire-extinguishers at all, but useless, no-account lung-testers!
Lung-testers, that he makes you pay one hundred dollars for, and that you will have to throw away. That is what they are, lung-testers, and you can pocket a loss of one hundred dollars, and buy four real fire-extinguishers now, as the ordinance tells you, and makes you!”
The butcher's mouth opened and his eyes stared. He felt weakly behind him for the edge of the table, pawing uncertainly in the air.
”That's all I have to say to YOU,” said the attorney. ”If you like that kind of thing, you are welcome. If you are willing to be cheated it is nothing to me. I don't say T. J. Jones set them up to doing all this, just to throw down your Citizen's Party, but you can see in the TIMES who printed the whole thing. If you like to have that kind of man run your only public journal it is no business of mine, but look out for the next TIMES!”
The butcher had found the edge of the table and was leaning back against it. The attorney paused with his hand on the door.
”You ought to be able to make the Colonel pay you back that hundred dollars,” he said. ”It looks as if he had obtained money under false pretenses and given a bribe. But if you don't care, I don't,” and he went out.
Outside of the butcher shop the attorney stopped and looked up and down the street, smiling. He felt that he had done well, so far, setting both the mayor and Skinner against the editor, making a tool of the mayor, and inflaming the butcher against the Colonel. He would have liked to go to the Colonel and set him against the editor and Skinner, but he neither dared nor felt it really necessary. If Skinner attempted to make the Colonel take back the lung-testers the ill feeling between the two would be sufficiently emphasized, and no doubt the Colonel had sufficient reason, in the publication of the article, to hate the editor.
Horsewhipped! His face reddened as he thought of it, but he was too polite to consider a revenge of fists, which would not lessen the insult of the whipping he had received, but would only add the stigma of attacking an older man. That he had led the Colonel into the affair, putting him up to it, did not strike him as being any excuse for the Colonel. He felt that he had done only what he was ent.i.tled to do in the pursuit of political leaders.h.i.+p. He would revenge himself on the Colonel later. A suit for damages for a.s.sault, timed to precede the next election, would be both revenge and politics. He could, at the moment, think of nothing else to do to undermine his opponents, and he had turned toward his office when a fresh idea occurred to him. Should Miss Sally take back the lung-testers, where then would his case stand?
Guthrie would return the hundred dollars to Skinner. Skinner was fool enough to be satisfied with that, and Kilo, like many other towns, not wis.h.i.+ng to besmirch herself, would hush up the whole affair. Miss Sally must not take back the lung-testers.
The attorney swung around and walked briskly toward Miss Sally's home, tossing tumultuously in his mind the events of the day, his plans and what he would say to Miss Sally. As he turned in at the gate he saw Mrs. Smith and Susan sitting on the porch, and he took off his hat, and walked smilingly up to them.
”Miss Sally in?” he asked, after the customary greetings. ”I would like to speak to her if she is.”
”She's in” said Mrs. Smith, ”but she is engaged at present. Won't you have a seat and wait?”
Toole pa.s.sed rapidly through his mind all those who might have business with Miss Sally this morning--the Colonel, Skinner, the editor. It could not be Skinner, for he had just left him, nor the editor, for he knew he was still in his office where he had seen him last. Probably it was the Colonel. He took the proffered seat.
”I suppose you saw the TIMES,” he said, ”and that tremendous article.
It amused me considerably. Splendid specimen of local journalism. Our friend T. J. is to be congratulated, isn't he? He has made quite a stir.”
”The Colonel was here with a paper,” said Mrs. Smith. ”He was furiously angry. I couldn't understand what it was all about, except that it was connected with those fire-extinguishers Miss Sally had.”
”It was about the meanest piece of business I have ever run across,”
said the attorney, speaking more to Susan than to Mrs. Smith. ”It was the most vindictive thing I ever heard of. Do you know any reason why that editor should want to annoy Miss Briggs?”
”Mr. Jones annoy Miss Sally?” said Susan, with surprise. ”I can't imagine why he should.”
”That's what puzzles me,” said Toole. ”There doesn't seem to be any reason whatever, except that he is showing his ill-will. It looks like a conspiracy to throw those fire-extinguishers back on Miss Sally's hands.
Probably he has taken an agency for fire-extinguishers, or had made a deal to take some in payment for advertising s.p.a.ce in his paper, and wants to sell them to Skinner. I understand there is some c.o.c.k-and-bull story he has got up about these fire-extinguishers being out-of-date, or useless, or something of that kind, and that he means to make a big stir about the council having been bribed to force them on Skinner. I suppose Jones will get something out of it, someway. I understand he means to keep the thing alive in his paper, and throw ridicule on all concerned, until he forces things his way. Probably he has some political object, too. But I think it is bad that he should drag Miss Sally into it.
I don't mind his trying to throw mud on me. I can see his reason for that.”
He looked at Susan and smiled.
”I don't understand,” said Mrs. Smith, ”I couldn't see that he said anything about you this morning.”
”Not this morning,” said the attorney. ”There will be more to follow.