A Poor Wise Man by Mary Roberts Rinehart (popular books of all time TXT) đ
- Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
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âDonât stop,â said Mr. Hendricks. âMerely friendly call. And for heavenâs sake donât swallow a tack, son. Iâm going to need you.â
âWhaffor?â inquired Willy Cameron, through his nose.
âDonât know yet. Make speeches, probably. If Howard Cardew, or any Cardew, thinks heâs going to be mayor of this town, heâs got to think again.â
âI donât give a tinkerâs dam whoâs mayor of this town, so long as he gives it honest government.â
âThatâs right,â said Mr. Hendricks approvingly. âOld Cardewâs been running it for years, and you could put all the honest government heâs given us in a hollow tooth. If youâll stop that hammering, Iâd like to make a proposition to you.â
Willy Cameron took an admiring squint at his handiwork.
âSorry to refuse you, Mr. Hendricks, but I donât want to be mayor.â
Mr. Hendricks chuckled, as Willy Cameron led the way to his room. He wandered around the room while Cameron opened a window and slid the dog off his second chair.
âGreat snakes!â he said. âSpargoâs Bolshevism! Political Economy, History of -. What are you planning to be? President?â
âI havenât decided yet. Itâs a hard job, and mighty thankless. But I wonât be your mayor, even for you.â
Mr. Hendricks sat down.
âAll right,â he said. âOf course if youâd wanted it!â He took two large cigars from the row in his breast pocket and held one out, but Willy Cameron refused it and got his pipe.
âWell?â he said.
Mr. Hendrickâs face became serious and very thoughtful. âI donât know that I have ever made it clear to you, Cameron,â he said, âbut Iâve got a peculiar feeling for this city. I like it, the way some people like their families. Itâs - well, itâs home to me, for one thing. I like to go out in the evenings and walk around, and I say to myself: âThis is my town. And we, it and me, are sending stuff all over the world. I like to think that somewhere, maybe in China, they are riding on our rails and fighting with guns made from our steel. Maybe you donât understand that.â
âI think I do.â
âWell, thatâs the way I feel about it, anyhow. And this Bolshevist stuff gets under my skin. Iâve got a home and a family here. I started in to work when I was thirteen, and all Iâve got Iâve made and saved right here. It isnât much, but itâs mine.â
Willy Cameron was lighting his pipe. He nodded. Mr. Hendricks bent forward and pointed a finger at him.
âAnd to govern this city, who do you think the labor element is going to put up and probably elect? Weâre an industrial city, son, with a big labor vote, and if it stands together - theyâre being swindled into putting up as an honest candidate one of the dirtiest radicals in the country. That man Akers.â
He got up and closed the door.
âI donât want Edith to hear me,â he said. âHeâs a friend of hers. But heâs a bad actor, son. Heâs wrong with women, for one thing, and when I think that all heâs got to oppose him is Howard Cardew - â Mr. Hendricks got up, and took a nervous turn about the room.
âMaybe you know that Cardew has a daughter?â
âYes.â
âWell, I hear a good many things, one way and another, and my wife likes a bit of gossip. She knows them both by sight, and she ran into them one day in the tea room of the Saint Elmo, sitting in a corner, and the girl had her back to the room. I donât like the look of that, Cameron.â
Willy Cameron got up and closed the window. He stood there, with his back to the light, for a full minute. Then:
âI think there must be some mistake about that, Mr. Hendricks. I have met her. She isnât the sort of girl who would do clandestine things.â
Mr. Hendricks looked up quickly. He had made it his business to study men, and there was something in Willy Cameronâs voice that caught his attention, and turned his shrewd mind to speculation.
âMaybe,â he conceded. âOf course, anything a Cardew does is likely to be magnified in this town. If sheâs as keen as the men in her family, sheâll get wise to him pretty soon. Willy Cameron came back then, but Mr. Hendricks kept his eyes on the tip of his cigar.
âWeâve got to lick Cardew,â he said, âbut Iâm cursed if I want to do it with Akers.â
When there was no comment, he looked up. Yes, the boy had had a blow. Mr. Hendricks was sorry. If that was the way the wind blew it was hopeless. It was more than that; it was tragic.
âSorry I said anything, Cameron. Didnât know you knew her.â
âThatâs all right. Of course I donât like to think she is being talked about.â
âThe Cardews are always being talked about. You couldnât drop her a hint, I suppose?â
âShe knows what I think about Louis Akers.â
He made a violent effort and pulled himself together. âSo it is Akers and Howard Cardew, and oneâs a knave and oneâs a poor bet.â
âRight,â said Mr. Hendricks. âAnd oneâs Bolshevist, if I know anything, and the other is capital, and has about as much chance as a rich man to get through the eye of a needle.â
Which was slightly mixed, owing to a repressed excitement now making itself evident in Mr. Hendricksâs voice.
âWhy not run an independent candidate?â Willy Cameron asked quietly. âIâve been shouting about the plain people. Why shouldnât they elect a mayor? There is a lot of them.â
âThatâs the talk,â said Mr. Hendricks, letting his excitement have full sway. âThey could. They could run this town and run it right, if theyâd take the trouble. Now look here, son, I donât usually talk about myself, but - Iâm honest. I donât say I wouldnât get off a streetcar without paying my fare if the conductor didnât lift it! But Iâm honest. I donât lie. I keep my word. And I live clean - which you canât say for Lou Akers. Why shouldnât I run on an independent ticket? I mightnât be elected, but Iâd make a damned good try.â
He stood up, and Willy Cameron rose also and held out his hand.
âI donât know that my opinion is of any value, Mr. Hendricks. But I hope you get it, and I think you have a good chance. If I can do anything - â
âDo anything! What do you suppose I came here for? Youâre going to elect me. Youâre going to make speeches and kiss babies, and tell the ordinary folks theyâre worth something after all. You got me started on this thing, and now youâve got to help me out.â
The future maker of mayors here stepped back in his amazement, and Jinx emitted a piercing howl. When peace was restored the F.M. of M. had got his breath, and he said:
âI couldnât remember my own name before an audience, Mr. Hendricks.â
âYouâre fluent enough in that back room of yours.â
âThatâs different.â
âThe people weâre going after donât want oratory. They want good, straight talk, and a fellow behind it who doesnât believe the countryâs headed straight for perdition. Weâve had enough calamity bowlers. Youâve got the way out. The plain people. The hope of the nation. And, by God, you love your country, and not for what you can get out of it. Thatâs a thing a fellowâs got to have inside him. He canât pretend it and get it over.â
In the end the F.M. of M. capitulated.
It was late when Mr. Hendricks left. He went away with all the old envelopes in his pockets covered with memoranda.
âJust wait a minute, son,â he would say. âIâve got to make some speeches myself. Repeat that, now. âSins of omission are as great, even greater than sins of commission. The lethargic citizen throws open the gates to revolution.â How do you spell âlethargicâ?â
But it was not Hendricks and his campaign that kept the F.M. of M. awake until dawn. He sat in front of his soft coal fire, and when it died to gray-white ash he still sat there, unconscious of the chill of the spring night. Mostly he thought of Lily, and of Louis Akers, big and handsome, of his insolent eyes and his self-indulgent mouth. Into that curious whirlpool that is the mind came now and then other visions: His mother asleep in her chair; the men in the War Department who had turned him down; a girl at home who had loved him, and made him feel desperately unhappy because he could not love her in return. Was love always like that? If it was what He intended, why was it so often without reciprocation?
He took to walking about the room, according to his old habit, and obediently Jinx followed him.
It was four by his alarm clock when Edith knocked at his door. She was in a wrapper flung over her nightgown, and with her hair flying loose she looked childish and very small.
âI wish you would go to bed,â she said, rather petulantly. âAre you sick, or anything?â
âI was thinking, Edith. Iâm sorry. Iâll go at once. Why arenât you asleep?â
âI donât sleep much lately.â Their voices were cautious. âI never go to sleep until youâre settled down, anyhow.â
âWhy not? Am I noisy?â
âItâs not that.â
She went away, a drooping, listless figure that climbed the stairs slowly and left him in the doorway, puzzled and uncomfortable.
At six that morning Dan, tiptoeing downstairs to warm his left-over coffee and get his own breakfast, heard a voice from Willy Cameronâs room, and opened the door. Willy Cameron was sitting up in bed with his eyes closed and his arms extended, and was concluding a speech to a dream audience in deep and oratorical tones.
âBy God, it is time the plain people know their power.â
Dan grinned, and, his ideas of humor being rather primitive, he edged his way into the room and filled the oratorâs sponge with icy water from the pitcher.
âAll right, old top,â he said, âbut it is also time the plain people got up.â
Then he flung the sponge and departed with extreme expedition.
It was not until a week had passed after Louis Akersâ visit to the house that Lilyâs family learned of it.
Lilyâs state of mind during that week had been an unhappy one. She magnified the incident until her nerves were on edge, and Grace, finding her alternating between almost demonstrative affection and strange aloofness, was bewildered and hurt. Mademoiselle watched her secretly, shook her head, and set herself to work to find out what was wrong. It was, in the end, Mademoiselle who precipitated the crisis.
Lily had not intended to make a secret of the visit, but as time went on she found it increasingly difficult to tell about it. She should, she knew, have spoken at once, and it would be hard to explain why she had delayed.
She meant to go to her father with it. It was he who had forbidden her to see Akers, for one thing. And she felt nearer to her father than to her mother, always. Since her return she had developed an almost passionate admiration for Howard, founded perhaps on her grandfatherâs attitude toward him. She was strongly partizan. and she watched her father, day after day, fighting his eternal battles with Anthony, sometimes winning, often losing, but standing for a principle like a rock while the seas of old Anthonyâs wrath washed over
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