Part 30 (2/2)
He s.h.i.+vered, partly at the memory of his own mealy-mouthed protest.
”Well,” he said, and there was an air of finality in his tone, ”I'm glad I stopped the whole infamous business.”
Mentally he decided to get Noonan on the telephone the first thing in the morning and make certain that the plan was abandoned. He continued his chat with Evans.
”But, Penny, why this agonizing of Noonan? What has he to lose by the better conditions in Kentwood? Why should he----”
Outside of a neat white dwelling in the suburbs of Whitewater, four figures were struggling in the night toward a vine-covered door--that door which appeared so attractively in the _Welfare Bulletin_ of the Toledo Blade Steel Company's publicity program as the ”prize garden home of J. Agricola, roller.”
A woman stood in the doorway, holding the door open. Two women, who had been carried by two men, from an automobile at the gate, were forced through. There the men left them with their hostess.
”I was only looking for one of yez,” she said, hospitably, ”but you're bote welcome. Now, ladies, I'm goin' to make you comfortable. It won't do no good to scream, so I'm goin' to take your gags off. And I hope you, lady, haven't been inconvenienced by a handkerchief. We could just as well have arranged for your comfort, too.”
”Madam,” gasped E. Eliot, who was the first to be released to speech, ”it is unimportant who I am. But do you know that this woman with me is Mrs. George Remington, the wife of the candidate for district attorney--Mr. George Remington of Whitewater? There has been a mistake.”
The hostess looked at Genevieve, who nodded a tearful confirmation. But the woman only smiled.
”My man don't make mistakes,” she said laconically. ”And, what's more to the point, miss, he's a friend of George Remington, and why should he be giving his lady a vacation? You are E. Eliot, and your friends think you're workin' too hard, so they're goin' to give you a nice rest.
Nothin' will happen to you if you are a lady, as I think you are. And when I find out who this other lady is, we'll make her as welcome as you!”
She went out of the room, locking the door behind her as the two women struggled vainly with their bonds. In an instant she returned.
”My man says to tell the one who thinks she's Mrs. George Remington that she's spendin' the week-end with Mrs. Napoleon Boneypart.” My man says he's a good friend of George Remington and is supportin' him for district attorney, and that's how he can make it so pleasant here.
”And I'll tell you something else,” she continued proudly. ”When George got married, it was my man that went up and down Smoky Row and seen all the girls and got 'em to give a dollar apiece for them lovely roses labeled 'The Young Men's Republican Club.' Mr. Doolittle he seen to that. My man really collected fifty dollars more'n he turned in, and I got a diamond-set wrist watch with it! So, you see, we're real friendly with them Remingtons, and we're glad to see you, Mrs. Remington!”
”Oh, how horrible!” cried Genevieve. ”There were eight dozen of those roses from the Young Men's Republican Club, and to think---Oh, to think----”
”Well, now, George,” cried Mr. Penfield Evans, ”just stop and think. Use your bean, my boy! What is the one thing on earth that puts the fear of G.o.d into Pat Noonan? It's prohibition. Look at the prohibition map out West and at the suffrage map out West. They fit each other like the paper on the wall. Whatever women may lack in intelligence about some things, there is one thing woman knows--high and low, rich and poor!
She knows that the saloon is her enemy, and she hits it; and Pat Noonan, seeing this rise of women investigating industry, makes common cause with Martin Jaffry and the whole employing cla.s.s of Whitewater against the nosey interference of women.
”And Pat Noonan is depending on you,” continued Evans. ”He expects you to rise. He expects you to go to Congress--possibly to the Senate, and he figures that he wants to be dead sure you'll not get to truckling to decency on the liquor question. So he ties you up--or tries you out for a tie-up or a kidnapping; and Benjie Doolittle, who likes a sporting event, takes a chance that you'll stand hitched in a plan to rid the community of a political pest without seriously hurting the pest--a friendless old maid who won't be missed for a day or two, and whose disappearance can be hushed up one way or another after she appears too late for the election.
”Just figure things out, George. Do you think Noonan got Mike the Goat to a.s.sess the girls on the row a dollar apiece for your flowers from the Young Men's Republican Club, for his health! You had the grace to thank Pat, but if you didn't know where they came from,” explained Mr. Evans cynically, ”it was because you have forgotten where all Pat's floral offerings from the Y.M.R.C. come from at weddings and funerals! And Pat feels that you're his kind of people.
”Politics, George, is not the chocolate eclair that you might think it, if you didn't know it! Use your bean, my boy! Use your bean! And you'll see why Pat Noonan lines up with the rugged captains of industry who are the bulwarks of our American liberty. Pat uses his head for something more than a hatrack.”
The two puffed for a time in silence. Finally the host said: ”Well, let's turn in.” Three minutes later George called across the upper hall to Penfield.
”The joke's on us, Penny. Here's a note saying that Genevieve is over with Betty for the night. We'll call her up after breakfast and have them both over to a surprise party.”
Penny strolled across to his friend's door. He was disappointed, and he showed it. He found George sitting on the side of his bed.
”Penny,” mused the Young Man in Politics, in his finest mood, ”you know I sometimes think that, perhaps, way down deep, there is something wrong with our politics. I don't like to be hooked up with Noonan and his gang. And I don't like the way Noonan and his gang are hooked up with Wesley Norton and the silk stockings and Uncle Martin and the big fellows. Why can't we get rid of the Noonan influence? They aren't after the things we're after! They only furnish the unthinking votes that make majorities that elect the fellows the big crooks handle. Lord, man, it's a dirty mess! And why women want to get into the dirty mess is more than I can see.” ”What a sweet valedictory address you are making for a young ladies' school!” scoffed Penny. ”The hills are green far off! Aren't you the Sweet Young Thing. But I'll tell you why the women want to get in, George. They think they want to clean up the mess.”
”But would they clean it? Wouldn't they vote about as we vote?”
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