Part 30 (1/2)
”Bring her. There's no time to waste now. If ye yell again, ye'll both be strangled,” the second speaker added as he led the way toward the road, where the dimmed lights of a motor car shone.
He was carrying E. Eliot as if she were a doll. Behind him his a.s.sistant stumbled along, bearing, less easily but no less firmly, the, wife of the candidate for district attorney!
CHAPTER XII. BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
As the two gagged women--one comfortably gagged with more or less pleasant bandages made and provided, the other gagged by the large, smelly hand of an entire stranger to Mrs. George Remington--whom she was trying impolitely to bite, by way of introduction--were speeding through the night, Mr. George Remington, ending a long and late speech before the Whitewater Business Men's Club, was saying these things:
”I especially deplore this modern tendency to talk as though there were two kinds of people in this country--those interested in good government, and those interested in bad government. We are all good Americans. We are all interested in good government. Some of us believe good government may be achieved through a protective tariff and a proper consideration for prosperity [cheers], and others, in their blindness, bow down to wood and stone!”
He smiled amiably at the laughter, and continued:
”But while some of us see things differently as to means, our aims are essentially the same. You don't divide people according to trades and callings. I deplore this attempt to set the patriotic merchant against the patriotic saloonkeeper; the patriotic follower of the race track against the patriotic manufacturer.
”Here is my good friend, Benjie Doolittle. When he played the ponies in the old days, before he went into the undertaking and furniture business, was he less patriotic than now? Was he less patriotic then than my Uncle Martin Jaffry is now, with all his manufacturer's interest in a stable government? And is my Uncle Martin Jaffry more patriotic than Pat Noonan? Or is Pat less patriotic than our substantial merchant, Wesley Norton?
”Down with this talk that would make lines of moral and patriotic cleavage along lines of vocation or calling. I want no votes of those who pretend that the good Americans should vote in one box and the bad Americans in another box. I want the votes of those of all castes and cults who believe in prosperity [loud cheers], and I want the votes of those who believe in the glorious traditions of our party, its magnificent principles, its martyred heroes, its deathless name in our history!”
It was, of course, an after-dinner speech. Being the last speech of the campaign it was also a highly important one. But George Remington felt, as he sat listening to the din of the applause, that he had answered rather neatly those who said he was wabbling on the local economic issue and was swaying in the wind of socialist agitation which the women had started in Whitewater.
As he left the hotel where the dinner had been given, he met his partner on the sidewalk.
”Get in, Penny,” he urged, jumping into his car. ”Come out to the house for the night, and we'll have Betty over to breakfast. Then she and Genevieve and you and I will see if we can't restore the _ante-bellum modus vivendi_! Come on! Emelene and Alys always breakfast in bed, anyway, and it will be no trouble to get Betty over.” The two men rode home in complacent silence. It was long past midnight. They sat on the veranda to finish their cigars before going into the house.
”Penny,” asked George suddenly, ”what has Pat Noonan got in this game--I mean against the agitation by the women and this investigation of conditions in Kentwood? Why should he agonize over it?”
”Is he fussing about it?”
”Is he? Do you think I'd tie his name up in a public speech with Martin Jaffry if Pat wasn't off the reservation? You could see him swell up like a pizened pup when I did it! I hope Uncle Martin will not be offended.”
”He's a good sport, George. But say--what did Pat do to give you this hunch?”
Remington smoked in meditative silence, then answered:
”Well, Penny, I had to raise the devil of a row the other day to keep Pat from ribbing up Benjie Doolittle and the organization to a frame-up to kidnap this Eliot person.”
”Kidnap E. Eliot!” gasped the amazed Evans. ”Kidnap that very pest. And I tell you, man, if I hadn't roared like a stuck ox they would have done it! Fancy introducing 'Prisoner of Zenda' stuff into the campaign in Whitewater! Though I will say this, Penny, as between old army friends and college chums,” continued Mr. Remington earnestly, ”if a warrior bold with spurs of gold, who was slightly near-sighted and not particular about his love being so d.a.m.ned young and fair, would swoop down and carry this E. Eliot off to his princely donjon, and would let down the portcullis for two days, until the election is over, it would help some! Though otherwise I don't wish her any bad luck!”
The old army friend and college chum laughed.
”Well, that's your end of the story! I'm mighty glad you stopped it.
Here's my end. You remember two-fingered Moll, who was our first client?
The one who insisted on being referred to as a lady? The one who got converted and quit the game and who thought she was being pursued by the racetrack gang because she was trying to live decent?”
George smiled in remembrance. ”Well, she called me up to know if there was any penalty for renting a house to Mike the Goat and his wife and old Salubrious the Armenian, who had a lady friend they were keeping from the cops against her will. She said they weren't going to hurt the lady, and I could see her every day to prove it. I advised her to keep out of it, of course; but she was strong for it, because of what she called the big money. I explained carefully that if anything should happen, her past reputation would go against her. But she kept saying it was straight, until I absolutely forbade her to do it, and she promised not to.”
”Mike and his woman, and Old Salubrious!” echoed Remington. ”And E.
Eliot locked up with them for two days!”