I WERE 
 
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 A MAN 
 
 HARRISON ROBERTSON 
 
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 THE IVORY SERIES 
 
 Each, 16mo, gilt top, 75 cents 
 
 AMOS JUDD. By J. A. Mitchell, Editor of " Life ' 
 IA. A Love Story. By Q. [Arthur T. Quiller-Couch] 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB. By Robert Louis Stevenson 
 IRRALIE'S BUSHRANGER. By E. W. Hornung 
 A MASTER SPIRIT. By Harriet Prescott Spofford 
 MADAME DELPHINE. By George W. Cable 
 ONE OF THE VISCONTI. By Eva Wilder Brodhead 
 A BOOK OF MARTYRS. By Cornelia Atwood Pratt 
 A BRIDE FROM THE BUSH. By E. W. Hornung 
 THE MAN WHO WINS. By Robert Herrick 
 AN INHERITANCE. By Harriet Prescott Spofford 
 
 THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE BLACK STOCK. 
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 LITERARV LOVE LETTERS AND OTHER STORIES. 
 By Robert Herrick 
 
 A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT. By Francis Lynde 
 IN OLD NARRAGANSETT. By Alice Morse Earle 
 SEVEN MONTHS A PRISONER. By J. V Hadley 
 1 IF I WERE A MAN." By Harrison Robertson 
 SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES. By Anna A. Rogers. 
 
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 "IF I WERE A MAN
 
 & OffilF. LIBRAS*. LOS ANGELES 
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN 
 
 " 
 
 THE STORY OF A NEW-SOUTHERNER 
 
 BY 
 HARRISON ROBERTSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF " HOW THE DERBY WAS WON
 
 Copyright, 1899, by 
 Charles Scribner's Sons 
 
 TROW DIRECTORY 
 NEW YORK
 
 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 SPURLOCK sprang into the saddle, and with 
 loose reins rode slowly out the gravelled 
 driveway that wound, beneath great oaks 
 and greater elms, from the house to the turn- 
 pike. It was a still night in August, and, 
 though beyond the trees was the splendor of 
 the full moon, Spurlock's path was through 
 shadow so sombre that the mats of water- 
 lilies along the spring-branch were as dreams 
 of mist, and the drifting flight of the fire- 
 flies was mapped in continuous luminous 
 lines instead of merely flashing points. 
 
 Spurlock passed through the gate and 
 turned down the River Road. As he did so 
 he shook up his horse, but the animal soon 
 lapsed back into its lazy loaf, unnoted by its 
 master. Spurlock's eyes did not fall below 
 nor extend beyond the ears of his horse; 
 hence he did not see his Irish setter trotting 
 
 2137958
 
 2 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 by his side, in violation of the rule which he 
 was in the habit of enforcing against her ac- 
 companiment of him on his evening calls 
 at Judge Majendie's. He did not see the 
 beauty of the place and the hour : the level 
 road, always picturesque, now glorified by 
 the magic of the moonlight ; to the left, up- 
 land stretches of woodland and meadow, of 
 farm-houses glimmering through groves, and 
 dove-cote cottages nestled on ledge or perched 
 on hill-top ; to the right, the sheen of the 
 broad Ohio, spreading away from the bending 
 boscage of the Kentucky shore a sea asleep, 
 to stir drowsily in the far, dim billows of the 
 Indiana hills. Spurlock was conscious of none 
 of this, although apart from his consciousness 
 all of it entered into his mood ; for while 
 the earth was under the spell of this, the most 
 marvellous magic that falls upon it, there is 
 the spell of a still more marvellous magic 
 that falls upon man. That spell was upon 
 Spurlock now. He was in love ; he was on 
 his way to her ; he intended to tell her ; he 
 was confident of her consent to become his 
 wife. 
 
 Two miles farther down the road his horse 
 stopped of its own accord at a gate in front 
 of a house that stood back some fifty yards.
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 3 
 
 Spur lock hitched the horse and passed 
 through the gate, up the straight brick walk, 
 lined on either side with Norway spruces 
 and beds of verbenas and carnations. The 
 house was a two-story brick, whose time- 
 stains were partly concealed by the mass of 
 vines that clung to its walls. From the 
 main hall a short wing extended to the right 
 and a longer one to the left ; and in front of 
 the house, from the end of one extension to 
 the other, ran a wide veranda, upon which 
 the windows opened to the floor. East, 
 north, and west were exaggerated gables, un- 
 der which pigeons cooed and swallows chat- 
 tered. It was the residence of Judge Majen- 
 die, who held court in Louisville during the 
 day and, indeed, spent many of his nights in 
 that city, but who retained here the old home- 
 stead, with a few acres for Mrs. Majendie's 
 garden, cows, and fowls. 
 
 It was not often on summer evenings that 
 Spurlock found the veranda unoccupied; but 
 as he approached it now, he was pleased to 
 note that the chairs grouped upon it were all 
 deserted. It never disappointed him to miss 
 Judge Majendie, and although he thought 
 Mrs. Majendie the most lovable of women 
 after her daughter Innis he did not wish to
 
 4 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 see even Mrs. Majendie to-night. To-night 
 was for only Innis and himself. 
 
 Light shone through the windows of the 
 library, in the left wing. The judge was 
 there with his paper, Spurlock inferred ap- 
 provingly. But light also shone from the 
 windows of the drawing-room on the right, 
 and he knew that Innis was there; for a 
 Chopin nocturne drifted out to him, and 
 there was no one in all his world who could 
 play Chopin like Innis Majendie. 
 
 He stepped upon the veranda and leaned 
 against one of the pillars, with a glow of 
 happiness on his face. It was a favorite of 
 his that she was playing ; it was at his sug- 
 gestion that she had learned it ; it was as it 
 should be, he felt, that at this hour her music 
 was that which must be accompanied with 
 some thought of himself. 
 
 As he rested against the pillar, his smiling 
 eyes upon the filmy curtains that were the 
 only barriers between him and all that he 
 wanted of earth or heaven, the soft notes of 
 the musician's fantasy slipped as a trickling 
 rillet into the all-pervasive flood of the night's 
 symphony that flowed in upon all his senses. 
 The air below was still, but in the topmost 
 branches of the trees, especially the spruces,
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 5 
 
 was the rune of the primeval forest ; every- 
 where was the chant of the winged things of 
 the summer ; under the eaves was the fitful 
 murmur of half-awakened young swallows : 
 far away over the water sighed the strain of 
 a waltz from an excursion steamer; there 
 was the balm of carnations and honey-suckle 
 in the dew, and from somewhere fields of 
 white clover sent their tributes of incense to 
 night and love. 
 
 The music ceased, and Spurlock, with a 
 deep breath, as if to drain some rare draught, 
 took a step toward the window; but at that 
 instant the curtains were parted and Innis 
 Innis all in white was between them. 
 
 "Oh, it is Mr. Spurlock!" she cried, 
 with a pleased welcome in her voice. " How 
 long have you been there?" She poised for 
 the fraction of a second like a bird just 
 before flight, and then, with a slight, quick 
 lifting and flexure of the arm and a little 
 trip that in most people would have been 
 ridiculous, but in her was girlish grace itself, 
 she advanced to meet him, and gave him 
 her hand. 
 
 "Always, I think," Spurlock replied to 
 her question; "and I mean to stay just as 
 long."
 
 6 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " Oh-h ! Then I must give you a chair. 
 You must be tired after standing so long. ' ' 
 
 "Was I standing? I shouldn't like to 
 say positively. It seemed to me more like 
 well, like I was floating, what with the 
 charm of the night and the music it 
 was my nocturne you were playing, you 
 know." 
 
 " Yes," she answered, without appearing 
 to notice any significance in the way he said 
 it ; " and you showed such good taste in lik- 
 ing Chopin that I have been practising the 
 Grieg spring song you sent me. Come in 
 and let me try it for you." 
 
 He followed her through the window, and 
 stood over her as she played. His eyes 
 rested fondly on her hands as they flitted 
 over the keys like humming-birds skimming 
 and kissing some bank of bloom ; rested 
 fondly on the graceful lines of the slender 
 wrists from which the loose sleeves fell away; 
 on the delicate rose of arms and shoulder be- 
 neath the thin fabric of her gown ; on the 
 small head, with its soft, thick hair coiled 
 low upon the neck ; on the drooping lashes 
 shadowing the firm purity of the skin ; on 
 the spray of heliotrope rising and sinking at 
 her breast, and mingling its fragrance with
 
 "IF 1 WERE A MAN" 7 
 
 the subtler fragrance of all her presence and 
 her nearness. 
 
 " Bewitching ! " was his low-spoken com- 
 ment, as she ceased playing and glanced up 
 at him. But those up-lifted lashes swept 
 swiftly downward again, carrying with them 
 some telegraphed information which was im- 
 mediately answered below by faintly tinged 
 cheeks and a startled flutter of the two hum- 
 ming-birds along the keys into the wild Torch 
 Dance from " Henry VIII." Spurlock saw 
 she understood that his exclamation had not 
 been called forth by the music alone, and he 
 was glad she understood. 
 
 He watched her a little longer, and then 
 he abruptly stopped the fanfare of the music 
 by almost fiercely catching one of her hands 
 in his own. " Don't play such things as that 
 to-night!" with a blending of tenderness 
 and command in his voice which she had 
 never heard from him before. 
 
 She seemed at a loss for a moment how to 
 take it. The tinge in her cheeks quickened 
 into a flush ; she made a motion to rise, and 
 then sank back to her seat, withdrawing her 
 hand from his and looking up at him inquisi- 
 tively, the tense seriousness of her expression 
 suddenly breaking in a bewildered smile.
 
 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 " Why," she said, uncertainly, " what an 
 uncomplimentary way you have of showing 
 your dislike of my music." 
 
 " You know it is not that; but when you 
 play such things, it is the untamed side of 
 you that appears. Do you remember the day 
 when you went tearing on Madcap through 
 the woods and fields, over fences and ditches, 
 leaving me a long and lonesome ride on a 
 winded horse, in my attempt to catch you ? 
 You seemed to be running away from me on 
 Madcap again when I stopped your playing 
 just then." 
 
 "Dear old Madcap! " she said, with a 
 li ttle laugh of pleased retrospection . < There 
 was not a horse at Airdrie that could have 
 caught him that day. I am afraid he will 
 never give me another such ride. Since 
 father had him broken to harness, his spirit 
 seems broken too." 
 
 " I'm glad of it. He was not the horse for 
 a girl to ride "the truth being that it was 
 at Spurlock's earnest suggestion, unknown to 
 Innis, that Judge Majendie had ordered Mad- 
 cap to be put to regular work. " Besides," 
 Spurlock went on, with a new seriousness in 
 his voice, "I don't want you to run away 
 from me any more. Innis," his words low-
 
 " IF I WERE -A MAN " 9 
 
 pitched with feeling, ''I don't see why I 
 should keep silent longer. I love you. I 
 want you to know it. I want to hear you say 
 you love me. I want you to be my wife." 
 
 He had taken her hand it was with an 
 effort that he had restrained himself from 
 gathering her in his arms and stood looking 
 down at her with tenderness and expectation, 
 rather than inquiry, in his eyes. 
 
 She had risen as he spoke. There was a 
 droop in her usually erect figure. Her face 
 was aglow and very grave. For a little her 
 eyes were downcast, and when she raised 
 them to his they were clouded with emotion. 
 " I am so sorry," she said, simply and deeply. 
 " I did not look for this now. I did not 
 wish it." 
 
 His eyelids quivered, as before some physi- 
 cal blow aimed at him ; his face, at first a 
 blank, paled and aged; his hand, still hold- 
 ing hers, grew numb in her clasp. When he 
 found voice, it was halting and vacuous. 
 ' ' You mean surely you cannot mean that 
 you do not care for me? " 
 
 " I am afraid I do not not in that way," 
 she answered gently, releasing her hand from 
 his own nerveless grasp. "Oh! why did 
 you do this ? We were such good friends ! ' '
 
 io "IF 1 WERE A MAN" 
 
 She turned her head away to hide her eyes. 
 She tried to repress the welling tears, but 
 vainly. After a little it dawned upon Spur- 
 lock that she was crying in her handkerchief. 
 
 It was to him something like the pass with 
 which the hypnotist awakens his subject. 
 Spurlock brushed his hand across his fore- 
 head, the strained lines of his face relaxed, 
 and he took a quick step to her side. " I 
 did not think to distress you," he said, sor- 
 rowfully. " You must not let it disturb you. 
 Come," touching her arm and leading her to 
 a chair, "let us sit down. There are one or 
 two things I wish to say to you. After that, 
 if it is your desire, we will not speak of this 
 again." 
 
 They sat in silence for a little, he reflect- 
 ively studying the carved dragon on the arm 
 of his chair and waiting for her to regain her 
 composure. 
 
 " I do not deny," he began, " that I was 
 wholly unprepared for your answer; that I 
 was surprised as well as crushed " 
 
 "Surely, "she interposed, with a slight 
 gesture of deprecation, "you did not think 
 that I had " 
 
 "No, no!" he protested, emphatically; 
 " do not say it. I have never had any such
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" n 
 
 thought of you. I have never seen anything 
 of conscious coquetry in you. You must not 
 misunderstand me: I did expect something 
 very different from what you have told me 
 to-night, but you are not to blame for my 
 delusion. It would be easier for me if I be- 
 lieved that you were. I suppose it was all 
 because it seemed so natural that it should 
 be as I wished ; that we should always be to- 
 gether. We were such good comrades ; we 
 were so happy with each other; you filled all 
 my world with such radiance and restfulness, 
 such joy and content, that I did not stop to 
 reflect that in the end I might not be to you 
 all that you were to me. Because life with 
 you was all that it should be, all that I wished 
 it to be, I must have had, in the fulness of 
 it, no room for a realization that it might 
 be less to you. Because from the first you 
 satisfied so completely all my desires and 
 dreams, I did not pause to question my good 
 fortune; and if I had, I should not then have 
 been capable of the pessimism of believing 
 that a man could be created whose desires and 
 dreams such a woman as you alone could 
 satisfy, and yet be doomed by such a defi- 
 ciency in himself as to preclude any adequate 
 response from her. ' '
 
 12 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 His eyes fell again to the dragon as he 
 ceased speaking. The girl turned to him 
 a little dubiously and wistfully. He had 
 stumbled and hesitated in his words, which 
 were not as unambiguous as his speech with 
 her usually was. 
 
 " That of the past, however," he resumed, 
 meeting her eyes with a new concern in his 
 own; " you must allow me a word now of 
 the future. You have told me to-night that 
 you do not care for me. But I shall not 
 give you up I shall never give you up as 
 long as there is a possibility of your caring 
 for me, or rather as long as I do not know 
 that there is no impossibility of your caring 
 for me. Won't you tell me and, remem- 
 ber, it means everything to me now. wheth- 
 er you are certain that there is any such 
 impossibility ? If you are, that, of course, 
 is the end ; but if you are not, then I shall 
 live to win you yet." 
 
 She was gazing intently at the handker- 
 chief whose edge she was passing nervously 
 through her fingers. He waited, but she did 
 not reply. 
 
 " May I not ask that much of you? " he 
 said, gently. 
 
 She looked up at him now with eyes steady
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 13 
 
 and clear. " Yes," she answered, " you 
 have a right to ask me that. And I am not 
 conscious of of the impossibility of which 
 you speak. ' ' 
 
 It was little enough for a man who a few 
 minutes before had asked everything, but it 
 was new life to Spurlock, and his face and 
 voice showed it as he simply said, " Thank 
 you." 
 
 Then he rose and held out his hand. 
 " Good-night. And you must not be afraid 
 that I am going to to annoy you with un- 
 welcome insistence." 
 
 " No," she replied, trustfully, with a faint 
 smile; ''we are to be just the same good 
 friends as always." 
 
 She accompanied him out on the veranda 
 as she spoke, and stood beside him looking 
 down the avenue of spruces, over which the 
 moon now hung high in the zenith. " Be- 
 sides," she continued, "even if I felt other- 
 wise, I should not not marry now. I am 
 too young. I am only twenty-two, and I 
 do not intend to take any such step before 
 I am twenty-five. 
 
 "Three years!" Spurlock objected. 
 " That is a long time. You do not mean 
 we ought to understand each other to-night
 
 14 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 that I am not to speak to you again about 
 this for three years ? " 
 
 "Yes! Oh, yes! Don't you think that 
 would be best ? ' ' 
 
 " No, I do not think so. For me it would 
 be three years lost out of the best part of life. 
 Three years is an age to work and wait for 
 one without even a word of hope from her." 
 
 " Why not work " 
 
 They were now walking slowly up and 
 down the long veranda, and Spurlock allowed 
 her several seconds to finish her question. 
 " Why not what ? " he finally reminded her. 
 
 " Why not work for others, for your- 
 self?" She turned away from his sudden- 
 ly fixed gaze, on the pretext of breaking off 
 a sprig of honeysuckle that grew beside the 
 veranda. 
 
 "I am not sure that I quite understand," 
 he said, smiling. 
 
 " There is so much work in the world," 
 she explained, quickening a little both her 
 words and her steps, ' ' and you ' ' 
 
 " And I," with a slight laugh, " have not 
 done my share? Yes, I have been very 
 much of a drone among the workers, I must 
 admit." 
 
 " And you are capable of such good work,
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 15 
 
 I am sure," kindling, " and there is so much 
 more in life than than " 
 
 "Than love?" 
 
 " Oh, if I were a man ! if I were a man ! " 
 
 " And if you were a man? " 
 
 "I should do things ! " 
 
 Spurlock's laugh had something of its nat- 
 ural ring for the first time that evening. 
 
 " Things that ought to be done, and 
 must be done, but won't be done unless 
 men real men do them," she added. 
 
 That was a side of Innis which Spurlock 
 had never seen before. It amused him ; and 
 lightened for the moment the burden of his 
 own disappointment and pain. 
 
 They walked the length of the veranda 
 two or three times, and then Spurlock 
 swung back to the point of most immediate 
 interest to him. "I have made up my 
 mind about my course," he said. " I hope 
 you will not stand out for three years, but it 
 is not for me to argue that with you now. If 
 I am to observe your wishes and not speak 
 of this again for three years, I want you to 
 promise that should you, for any reason, 
 change during that time, and find that you 
 have learned to to like me better, you will, 
 in simple mercy, let me know."
 
 I( 5 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " Oh, I could not do that ! " 
 "Yes, you could; and you would if you 
 knew how much it would mean to me. 
 Think what three years must be to one who 
 is waiting for your love, and how inexpres- 
 sibly you may bless him by every hour you 
 lessen that time. There will never be a day 
 when I shall not long for some such sign 
 from you. And you will never doubt my 
 constancy ; for a woman like you, once she 
 knows that she has inspired such a love as 
 mine, would be quick and infallible in rec- 
 ognizing its weakening or withdrawal, if 
 either were possible. Here," taking a little 
 sardonyx seal from his fob, " is something of 
 yours which you did not know I had." He 
 stopped in the light of one of the library 
 windows and, opening the trinket, disclosed 
 a small wisp of hair curled therein. 
 
 Judge Majendie, looking up from his 
 paper on the other side of the curtains, saw 
 Spurlock hand the seal to Innis, and heard 
 him say: "I stole that one day last June 
 when I found you asleep in the summer- 
 house. Your embroidery scissors were near, 
 and I was a proud thief. I have no right to 
 it now. But if the time should ever come, 
 before the three years have passed, when you
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 17 
 
 feel more kindly to me and are willing to 
 let me keep it forever, simply send it back to 
 me, and I will hasten across the world to 
 claim you." 
 
 The two continued down the veranda; 
 then the judge heard Spurlock say good- 
 night a moment later and ride away. The 
 judge folded his paper and stared with a 
 frown through the window. "The silly 
 child ! " was the thought behind the frown. 
 " I do believe she has thrown him over."
 
 II 
 
 IF Innis Majendie had meant to speak in 
 words which would later distract Spurlock's 
 thoughts in some degree from his unhappy 
 fortune at her hands, she could have hardly 
 chosen anything more effective than her 
 chance remarks about her hypothetical 
 course as a man. Spurlock was not given to 
 self- analysis ; but there were moments, prob- 
 ably as often as once or twice a year, when 
 he had a discommoding but passing con- 
 sciousness of his idleness. He had been at 
 the time more amused than anything else at 
 Innis's unpremeditated suggestion, but in 
 the month that followed there was never a 
 day when he did not feel its force. He felt 
 it all the more, perhaps, because he had 
 never suspected so serious a bent in the 
 girl's mind. His intimacy with her had 
 been wholly of the spring and summer ; of 
 rides through the country lanes, boating on 
 the river, romps in the woods, a picnic now 
 and then at Fincastle, an occasional game of 
 18
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 19 
 
 golf at the club links near by, tennis on the 
 lawn, and lounging on the veranda. He had 
 had no thought of his own shortcomings 
 when with her. It had been but a long 
 sunny day, with the blue of the sky and the 
 green of the leaves, the lilt of the birds and 
 the croon of running water ; and Innis and 
 he had been in and of it all. He had not 
 looked forward to the ending of such a day. 
 Why should it end while they had each 
 other ? Why probe beneath the beauty of 
 the sward for the grime beneath ? He had 
 not done so ; he had never dreamed that In- 
 nis had. 
 
 But he knew that she was right. What 
 was he to inspire a woman's love? What 
 had he to offer when he asked such a love ? 
 A comfortable home and an ample income, 
 it is true ; but women accept homes, they 
 give themselves to men. ' ' If I were a man, ' ' 
 she had said. And what of a man was he ? 
 He was accounted well-to-do, but he had 
 nothing that his father had not left him. He 
 spent money freely, but he had never earned 
 a dollar. He had never done anything to 
 prove that he could fight his way among 
 men, on his own merits, and with even 
 chances. He had never done anything to
 
 20 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 show that he had any of that power which 
 shapes the moral and material progress of 
 the world, and which, in some development, 
 must be the basis of woman's surrender to 
 man. 
 
 Poor Innis ! That light-hearted girl prob- 
 ably would have been much surprised if she 
 had known that her words had caused any 
 such train of reflections by Spurlock. 
 
 That Spurlock had not always counted 
 on being an idler had been indicated by 
 the zeal with which he had applied himself 
 to the law course after he had taken his 
 academic degree. But there had been no 
 immediate necessity for his going to work 
 at anything on leaving college. He had 
 wished to see the world, and he had seen it. 
 He had found life pleasant, and he had taken 
 it as he found it. With an occasional run 
 abroad, two or three months in Ne\v York 
 and New Orleans in winter, and his fishing 
 and hunting trips to the West in summer, the 
 years had drifted by until they had carried 
 him into the thirties ; and he had not yet be- 
 gun the practice of his profession, or even 
 spent much of his time at Airdrie, the home 
 which his dead father had made for him. 
 
 Airdrie was a familiar name less than a
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 21 
 
 generation ago among those interested in the 
 thoroughbred horse, and lovers of the beau- 
 tiful who never saw that great mare run in a 
 race have missed something which thousands 
 in her day travelled across counties and States 
 to see. There have been many things as 
 beautiful as Airdrie in her stable, but few as 
 beautiful as Airdrie in a race. She had a 
 way of running that was all her own. She 
 was about as big and brown as a wren, and 
 as demure, but in her races she skimmed the 
 course with the swiftness and grace of a swal- 
 low. Airdrie was in no way conspicuous in 
 the paddock; but on the track, once the start- 
 er's flag had fallen, it was, as Tot Waugh so 
 often sang of her at such times, 
 
 " Sail away, lady, sail away! " 
 
 That was Airdrie. Other horses ran with 
 high leaps, with mighty plunges, with strain- 
 ing strides ; Airdrie simply sailed and 
 sailed away. Her motion was apparently 
 without the least effort. At the finish of her 
 races it was her wont to sail in with an easy 
 lead, never seeming to have " turned a hair " 
 (Tot Waugh) or quickened a breath, her 
 ears pointing meditatively forward instead of 
 pressing strenuously backward, and her eyes
 
 22 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 set serenely on the far horizon, while in her 
 swirling wake whipped and struggled, stag- 
 gered and swerved her competitors, like so 
 much hopeless flotsam on the waves she had 
 stirred. 
 
 That was the argosy that brought Spur- 
 lock's father his fortune. Airdrie swept 
 the big two-year-old stakes ; she did well as 
 a three-year-old ; as a four-year-old she was 
 invincible ; and when she was retired, a few 
 months later, old David Spurlock had added 
 to his modest acres many others, had built 
 upon them a big mansion, and had given to 
 his now valuable stock farm the name of the 
 mare to whom he owed it. After his death 
 one of his men had continued to manage it, 
 by arrangement with the younger Spurlock, 
 whose taste did not run to race-horses, and 
 who was satisfied with the arrangement, as it 
 yielded him an income more than sufficient 
 for his desires. That was how it was that 
 Spurlock came and went as he pleased, pleas- 
 ing to remain so little at Airdrie. 
 
 He had remained all this spring and sum- 
 mer because he had found Innis Majendie his 
 neighbor. Innis had been away at school 
 for six or seven years, and Spurlock had 
 never known her before. And Airdrie, with
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 23 
 
 Innis a mile or two down the road, and Air- 
 drie, with Innis unknown, were two very 
 different matters. 
 
 Most of the month following his interview 
 with Innis Spurlock had passed among the 
 Northwestern lakes, but there was little zest 
 in the fishing this year, and he had run down 
 to Chicago. Chicago was no better. One 
 of his friends was bustling off to Honduras to 
 start a coffee plantation, and another was in 
 the thick of a fight over a street - railway 
 franchise. He returned to Airdrie and spent 
 an afternoon wandering among the stables 
 and paddocks. Next morning he set his 
 manager to wondering by going carefully 
 over the books with him. In the afternoon 
 he went to call on Innis Majendie, but learned 
 that she was out on the river in John Hil- 
 born's launch. That night he took down one 
 of his law books, and, looking over it, was 
 surprised to find how much of it he had not 
 forgotten. Walking along West Jefferson 
 Street, in Louisville, next day, he saw stand- 
 ing near the entrance of a saloon a fashion- 
 ably dressed man, with a flower on his coat, 
 talking to a shabbily dressed man with a 
 flower on his nose. The fashionably dressed 
 man was Judge Majendie, who smiled a cor-
 
 2 4 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 dial greeting to Spurlock as he passed. " Oh, 
 Ogden," he called, can you wait for me 
 just a minute ? I'd like a word with you if 
 you are not too busy." 
 
 Spurlock stepped to the edge of the side- 
 walk and stopped. The judge was a hand- 
 some figure as he talked with his rough 
 companion. Six feet tall, broad shoulders, 
 deep chest, narrow hips, every line betok- 
 ened grace and strength. His fine head 
 was thickly covered with prematurely white 
 hair, which he had his barber carefully train 
 to fall just within his high collar. His clear- 
 cut features were unconcealed by a closely 
 cropped Vandyke beard; he had the com- 
 plexion of a boy and the dark, soft eyes of a 
 woman. But his eyes were too near together, 
 and his mouth was too small. He was affa- 
 bility itself to the man beside him, and that 
 individual was palpably pleased at the situa- 
 tion in which he was publicly figuring. 
 
 The man was nodding affirmatively over 
 and over; the judge dropped a coin into 
 his palm and shook his hand in parting ; the 
 man disappeared into the saloon, and the 
 judge, with springy step, joined Spurlock. 
 
 How are you, Ogden, my boy?" he 
 said in his beaming way, linking his arm in
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 25 
 
 that of Spurlock. " I was just thinking of 
 you," he continued, as they walked up the 
 street. " Dolliver was asking me about you 
 only this morning. The boys have taken 
 up the idea that you would be a good man 
 to send to the Legislature from the county. 
 Stop, now ; don't try to laugh me out of 
 court, and don't say anything until you 
 have thought it over. I know it is not con- 
 sidered much of an honor to go to the Leg- 
 islature nowadays, but there'll be a fine 
 chance there for a good man for a young 
 man like you, with a career to make. You 
 would take the lead of our delegation at 
 once. Between you and me, you know," 
 dropping his voice, " it's a pretty mangy 
 lot that the city of Louisville sends to 
 Frankfort, and there's a great opportunity 
 for a man of of character and endowments, 
 like yourself. Weigh the matter well, weigh 
 it well, before you decline. You will have 
 my influence and assistance, of course. 
 Dolliver will see that you get the nomina- 
 tion without any trouble, and a nomination 
 means an election. Come in and drink a 
 phosphate, and we'll talk it over." 
 
 But the vicinity of a soda fountain on a 
 warm day was no place for such a confer-
 
 26 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 ence. The judge was soon the bowing and 
 radiant centre of a group of women, and 
 Spurlock, promising to discuss the question 
 some other time, made his escape. 
 
 There seemed less to laugh at in Majen- 
 die's suggestion the more Spurlock thought 
 of it. The State's need of a better class of 
 men in the Legislature was undoubtedly 
 great ; and if he ever intended to shake off his 
 old habits and begin life in earnest, a term 
 m the House of Representatives might be a 
 good start. That was the view he was dis- 
 posed to take of the matter when, two days 
 later, sitting under the trees at Airdrie with 
 a law book before him, he saw Dolliver and 
 Tot Waugh approaching in a buggy. 
 
 Dolliver was a captain among the pol- 
 iticians, little and big, of Louisville and 
 even Kentucky, the little ones acknowledg- 
 ing his leadership because they knew and 
 admired his power, the big ones because 
 they knew and feared it ; both classes be- 
 cause they sought to profit by it. With 
 him the game of politics was a passion. 
 He played it as a thoroughgoing gamester 
 -for the love of it and for its spoils rather 
 than for personal advancement. He sought 
 no office himself, but he was happy only
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 27 
 
 when working night and day to put his men 
 into office and keep all others out. He was 
 especially strong in the lower wards of 
 Louisville, and with the "machine" ele- 
 ment generally. Once or twice there had 
 been a temporarily successful revolt in his 
 own party against him, but in a short time 
 it would be found that the new "organiza- 
 tion ' ' was as completely under the control 
 of Dolliver as the one it had supplanted. 
 ' ' Reformers ' ' fought him desperately one 
 year and courted his alliance the next. He 
 had a good income from his saloons and his 
 "books" on the races. He was a little 
 man, with mild, sleepy eyes. His face, with 
 its attenuated skin and scant beard, was sug- 
 gestive of a squab ; his nose was suggestive 
 of a hawk. He usually stood around or 
 walked around with his hands clasped be- 
 hind him. He never seemed to be in a 
 hurry ; and yet he seemed to be everywhere 
 that a political consultation was to be made, 
 a direction given, or a report received. 
 
 Tot Waugh regarded Dolliver as one of the 
 three greatest living men, the other two be- 
 ing Taral, the jockey, and Ogden Spurlock. 
 As a lad Tot had been Spurlock's playmate 
 and vassal. The son of a stable-hand, his boy-
 
 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 hood had been spent at Airdrie, his one am- 
 bition having been to become a jockey, and 
 to one grief being that he had grown so fast 
 and so heavy that he had been compelled to 
 abandon forever all hope of the career he 
 craved. With this blight upon him, he had 
 wandered off to town and drifted into a job 
 i a pool-room. Naturally, he had been 
 drawn into municipal politics, for which he 
 had shown such aptitude that he was now 
 a member of the City Council from the 
 Thirteenth Ward. He had been attracted 
 Dolhver, first, because of Dolliver's envied 
 light weight, and then because of Dolliver's 
 prowess as a -boss." Dolliver had found 
 him useful in the Thirteenth Ward, and had 
 made him the manager of some of his busi- 
 ess enterprises. In appearance Tot was 
 stocky, with a long trunk, and with legs so dis- 
 proportionately short that he always seemed 
 * m a mincing hurry, however slow was 
 his gait He had the arms of a bear and 
 the head of a bull-dog, with a face as good- 
 humored as it was ugly, and a voice which, 
 hough loud and rough, was boyishly fresh 
 and buoyant. 
 
 Spurlock went forward to meet the two as 
 they left the buggy.
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 29 
 
 "Ah, there, Ogden ! how' re they corn- 
 in' ?" There was nothing intentionally flip- 
 pant in Tot Waugh's greeting. On the 
 contrary, his manner to Spurlock was one of 
 hearty deference and proud proprietorship. 
 " Mr. Dolliver, this is my friend, Mr. Spur- 
 lock ; Ogden, this is my friend, Mr. Dolli- 
 ver," and Tot swung his hand with a lateral 
 and backward sweep that was adequate if not 
 graceful. 
 
 Spurlock and Dolliver shook hands, and 
 Tot added: "Now come over here, Mr. 
 Dolliver, and I'll show you somethin' that's 
 worth comin' a thousand miles to see." He 
 led the way to a corner of the lawn marked 
 by a stone slab over the grave of Airdrie. 
 Tot stood before it in the attitude he usually 
 assumed when he meant to be thoughtful or 
 dignified, his hands in his pockets and his 
 short legs spread wide. " There, Mr. Dol- 
 liver," he said, with unaffected earnestness, 
 "is the grandest filly that ever looked 
 through a bridle. But I don't reckon I can 
 tell you anything about Airdrie, even if I 
 was raised with her." 
 
 Dolliver was not a talkative man, but he 
 related a reminiscence of Airdrie's regnancy, 
 and then said, with characteristic directness :
 
 30 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " Mr. Spurlock, we have drove out to ask 
 you to become a candidate for the House of 
 Representatives from the county. We are 
 anxious for you to do so. I have talked to 
 a majority of the committee, and they have 
 authorized me to feel you on the subject, 
 and to tell you that they hope, for the good 
 of the party and the district, you will ac- 
 cept." 
 
 Tot Waugh was grinning happily and, 
 standing on one leg, was nervously kicking 
 one heel with the other a way he had when 
 he was mildly excited. 
 
 "Judge Majendie told me you were 
 thinking of me," Spurlock replied, "and I 
 will let you know my decision before the 
 week is out." 
 
 "We want to bring out good men this 
 year, Mr. Spurlock," Dolliver assured him. 
 "It ain't always been possible to bring out 
 the best men, and the party has suffered. 
 You don't want to have no doubt about your 
 nomination or election. Just let us put your 
 name on the ticket, and the rest will be 
 easy." 
 
 ' There is one point I should like to be 
 certain about," Spurlock said, looking at 
 Dolliver steadily. If I go to Frankfort, I
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 31 
 
 shall not consider myself under any obliga- 
 tion in any quarter, except to do what I 
 think is right and best." 
 
 Dolliver's bluish skin had a fleeting touch 
 of pink, and there was a smile in his eyes as 
 he answered, with a slight increase of ani- 
 mation, "Of course, Mr. Spurlock. That 
 is why we want you on the ticket. We 
 picked you out because we knowed you was 
 that sort of a man." 
 
 They talked it over for a few minutes 
 longer, and then Dolliver, feeling sure that 
 Spurlock would consent, left in good spirits. 
 "Say, Ogden," Tot Waugh called to him 
 as they drove off, " you stick to Mr. Dolli- 
 ver. With him for you and me for you, say, 
 Airdrie herself couldn't beat you." 
 
 Several days later Spurlock, returning 
 from Louisville, saw Innis Majendie in her 
 yard among the flowers, and went in to ask 
 one for his button -hole. 
 
 "I will tell you something that may 
 amuse you, if you will give me a carnation," 
 he said. " I am a candidate for the Legis- 
 lature." 
 
 " You ! Are you ? ' ' she cried, brightly ; 
 and then, with that arch poise and quick 
 step which he had not seen in her since that
 
 3 2 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 night when she came through the window to 
 greet him on the veranda, she ran to him 
 and took his hand. Why, I'll g i ve you a 
 dozen carnations ! I think it will be fine ! " 
 " So do I, Spurlock." It was John Hil- 
 born, emerging, with his hands full of flowers, 
 from a clump of rose-bushes, where Spurlock 
 had not noticed him before. "There's 
 nothing we need as much as we need good 
 men in politics. I hope I can be of some 
 real service to you in the campaign."
 
 Ill 
 
 Six weeks later the election came on. 
 Spur lock made a thorough ''campaign," not 
 so much because he thought it necessary to 
 his success at the polls, as for the purpose of 
 becoming acquainted with his district and 
 qualifying himself to act as its representative 
 in fact as well as in name. Dolliver and the 
 party ' ' workers ' ' had assured him that he had 
 a "walkover," and seemed to be satisfied with 
 the part he had played when he paid the as- 
 sessments made upon him for "the campaign 
 fund." But the result was a great surprise 
 for Dolliver and the workers ; for not only 
 was Spurlock's majority very small, but for 
 the first time in the State a Republican Gov- 
 ernor was elected, and the Republicans, in- 
 stead of having, as before, a fifth or a fourth 
 of the members of the Legislature, now had 
 sixty-eight, within one of half the entire 
 membership of that body. 
 
 The vote was so close that it was several 
 days after the election before it was known 
 33
 
 34 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 whether the Legislature would be controlled 
 by the Republicans or the Democrats; but 
 when the returns were all in they showed 
 that, while the Democrats had a majority of 
 the Senate and the Republicans a majority 
 of the House of Representatives, the two 
 branches on joint ballot would stand : Dem- 
 ocrats, 68 ; Republicans, 68 ; Populists, 2. 
 The situation thus presented was unprece- 
 dented in the State ; for not only had the 
 Republicans never before had a majority of 
 either branch of the Legislature, but neither 
 the Republicans nor the Democrats had now, 
 without the aid of the two Populists, a ma- 
 jority on joint ballot. 
 
 This at once made the Kentucky Legislat- 
 ure the centre of political interest, both in the 
 State and the Nation, for to this Legislature 
 fell the election of a United States Senator ; 
 and the United States Senate was so evenly 
 divided between the two great parties that 
 both deemed it of vital importance to secure 
 the new Senator from Kentucky. Hence, 
 although the Legislature would not meet for 
 two months yet, the contest over the Sena- 
 torship began earnestly at once. It was pat- 
 ent that, with all the members voting, neither 
 the Republicans nor the Democrats would be
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 35 
 
 able to elect the Senator without the help of 
 the two Populists, and it was confidently as- 
 sumed that this help would eventually be 
 given to one side or the other. These two 
 holders of "the balance of power" were, 
 therefore, assiduously plied by both parties 
 with all the arts applicable to such an emer- 
 gency. In the meantime, candidates for the 
 Democratic and Republican caucus nomina- 
 tions were active, Spurlock's experience be- 
 ing that Major Golladay and his friends 
 were especially so. Golladay had long been 
 working for the office. It was believed gen- 
 erally that he would easily obtain the Dem- 
 ocratic nomination, and that the two Popu- 
 lists in the Legislature were favorably inclined 
 to him. To the overtures of the major, 
 however, Spurlock frankly replied that he 
 could not vote for his nomination in caucus. 
 In Spurlock's opinion, Golladay's views on 
 the most important question then before the 
 country were radically wrong and vicious. 
 Golladay had "stumped" the State for a 
 year in agitation of those views, and sought 
 election for the avowed purpose of embodying 
 them in legislation. He believed he had played 
 the winning card, and, so far as his own 
 party was concerned, it looked as if he had.
 
 3 6 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 Spurlock, although he had not thus com- 
 mitted himself, was classed as one of Judge 
 Majendie's supporters for the Senate. Ma- 
 jendie had announced his candidacy shortly 
 after Spurlock had agreed to stand for the 
 Legislature ; and so dexterous was the judge 
 in such emprise that, although it was not 
 thought he had any chance to get the nom- 
 ination, his strength in the caucus was ranked 
 as second to that of Golladay. 
 
 Majendie had never directly asked Spur- 
 lock to vote for him, but it was apparent 
 from the judge's easy and genial air of pro- 
 prietorship that he did not question Spur- 
 lock's fealty. Besides, Spurlock was the 
 judge's neighbor; the judge had been in- 
 strumental in "bringing him out; " to say 
 nothing of the fact that Spurlock was counted 
 one of the Louisville delegation, all of whom 
 were regarded as the judge's stanch par- 
 tisans. 
 
 "Tot," asked Spurlock of Tot Waugh 
 soon after Majendie came out for the Senate, 
 " why was it that Dolliver pitched upon me 
 to make this race? " 
 
 "Didn't you know? Why, Judge Ma- 
 jendie put him on to you. But say, there's 
 two crackajacks, ain't they? When Judge
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 37 
 
 Majendie and Sam Dolliver pull together, 
 how can they beat 'em ? " 
 
 Spurlock smiled. He knew Majendie, and 
 he knew now why that far-seeing politician 
 had halted him that day on Jefferson Street. 
 
 Tot Waugh himself was one of Majendie's 
 most vociferous advocates, Tot having been 
 elected a colleague of Spurlock in the Leg- 
 islature, as Dolliver had decided that Tot 
 was one of the "good men" who should 
 represent Louisville in that body. Tot's 
 honors sat proudly upon him. He shaved 
 twice a week now instead of on Saturday 
 nights, as before; and not only did he begin 
 wearing neckties regularly, but a diamond 
 pin glittered thereon. It was no small thing 
 to rise from a City Councilman to a State 
 Representative ; it was no small thing to 
 rise with the confidence and co-operation of 
 such a man as Sam Dolliver ; it was no small 
 thing to rise step by step with such a man as 
 Ogden Spurlock. Certainly it was no small 
 thing to read one's name in the papers as 
 "the Hon. Tottenham Waugh." There 
 was still something in life, even if so much 
 had gone out of it with the dissipation of 
 his youthful aspirations to become the com- 
 peer of Taral, the jockey.
 
 38 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 The Legislature convened the first week 
 in January. Balloting for United States 
 Senator would begin a fortnight later. In 
 the interval Frankfort was a storm-centre. 
 All the candidates for the Federal Senator- 
 ship were promptly on the ground, each with 
 his following of friends and workers, every 
 one of whom was consulting, counselling, 
 pleading, manoeuvring, dickering night and 
 day to gain some advantage in the game 
 that all were trying to win. 
 
 Largest and most energetic of all was the 
 retinue of Golladay. In it were, first, his 
 personal friends, of whom his jovial nature 
 had won him many hearty, noisy, positive 
 fellows, with a keen appreciation of a good 
 joke and a good julep, the last one of them 
 enthusiastic for " Dan," as they affection- 
 ately called Golladay, brooking no doubt of 
 his election to the Senate and willing to 
 make any sacrifice to insure it. With these 
 were most of the " politicians " in the party, 
 men guided alone by their desire to further 
 their own interests, and who, ever equal to 
 accepting or rejecting any principle or policy 
 that might serve them for a moment, and of 
 acknowledging any leader whose star seemed 
 to be in the ascendant, had flocked to Golla-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 39 
 
 day because, believing he would win, they 
 wanted to be " on the winning side." Then 
 there were " the boys " the old boys from 
 '''way back," who, whatever their knowl- 
 edge or ignorance of party tenets, thought 
 everything was right that bore the party 
 name and everything wrong that bore any 
 other. These and their sons, the younger 
 " boys," who held the same faith because 
 they had been "raised" that way, were 
 boisterous for Dan Golladay and intolerant 
 of all opposition. To them Golladay had 
 endeared himself as a great party leader by 
 his accomplishments as a " mixer ; " by the 
 gallant swash of his manner ; by the sono- 
 rous sweep of his oratory, with all the splen- 
 dor of its sentiment, the audacity of its facts, 
 and the magnificence with which he glorified 
 his own party and gave the other fellows 
 "hell." 
 
 And yet against all these odds one man 
 had made such headway that there were those 
 who believed he had a " fighting chance " to 
 defeat Golladay in the caucus. Besides Gol- 
 laday there were three or four candidates for 
 the Democratic nomination, but only Judge 
 Majendie was thought to be strong enough 
 to give the result any element of doubt. Ma-
 
 4 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 jendie had not warned Golladay's forces by 
 making a campaign of oratory; he had not, 
 as Tot Waugh expressed it, hunted ducks 
 with a brass band. But he had covered so 
 much ground so unostentatiously; he had set 
 to work so many wheels within wheels; and, 
 above all, he had such efficient assistance, or 
 rather management, from Dolliver, that by 
 the time the Legislature met, and before 
 Golladay suspected that he would have any 
 serious opposition, there was a formidable 
 Majendie following to be reckoned with. 
 Majendie had made no move which Dolliver 
 had not either planned or sanctioned. Dolliver 
 had taken the whole work of ' ' organization ' ' 
 into his own hands. On the opening of the 
 Legislature he had accompanied Majendie to 
 Frankfort, and made that point the base of 
 his operations. He had an effective engine 
 of offence and defence in the Louisville dele- 
 gation, of which he was generally presumed 
 to be in every sense the "engineer." He 
 was credited with having nominated and 
 elected that delegation, and with the power 
 to throw it solidly for any man or measure 
 he chose. This was no weak vantage, and 
 Dolliver used it shrewdly, agreeing to deliver 
 the Louisville vote for or against any pro-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 41 
 
 posed legislation or any office to be filled by 
 the Legislature, in return for votes for Ma- 
 jendie, wherever such a trade could be made. 
 
 Spurlock was included in the "Louisville 
 delegation," and it was not long before he 
 became aware that his vote was thus being 
 bargained away in the interest of Majendie. 
 He promptly went in quest of the judge, and, 
 while hunting him, was found by him and 
 Dolliver. 
 
 "We've been looking for you, Ogden," 
 Majendie said, taking his arm and walking 
 off with him, Dolliver keeping step on the 
 other side. " There's another vote for us in 
 sight," the judge explained, in his radiant 
 confidence. ' ' You know Palgrave, of Kemp- 
 land County, wants to go to Congress from 
 the Fifteenth District, and he wants to make 
 the majority safe by gerrymandering the dis- 
 trict. He is willing to vote for me if our 
 delegation will vote for his gerrymander, but 
 he says he has sounded you on the subject and 
 that you balked." 
 
 " I did balk," Spurlock replied, in a tone 
 that was not to be mistaken. " I told Pal- 
 grave that on no account would I vote for 
 his scheme; that it was grossly unfair, and 
 that I would do what I could to defeat it."
 
 42 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 Dolliver, who was walking, as was his habit, 
 with his eyes earthward, suddenly raised and 
 fixed them on Spurlock's face. Majendie's 
 response to Spurlock was at first a mild laugh. 
 "You'll soon get over that sort of thing, 
 Ogden," he said. "This is your first term, but 
 it won't be long before you'll understand that 
 Palgrave's gerrymander is politics; and poli- 
 tics, you know, are what we are engaged in." 
 
 "That's the game," Dolliver observed. 
 "It's fair and square to take all the tricks 
 when you hold the cards. When the cards 
 run to the other side, the other side' 11 do 
 the same. ' ' 
 
 "With me, gentlemen, the point cannot 
 be argued," Spurlock answered, in perfect 
 good humor. " I shall never help Palgrave 
 with his gerrymander." 
 
 " But, Ogden " the judge's reproach was 
 affectionately paternal " you forget, my 
 boy, that it means a vote for us." 
 
 " Judge " Spurlock paused, standing still 
 for a moment in the earnestness of his words 
 " it is evident that you and I take very dif- 
 ferent views of this; and I don't know that 
 you will believe me, but I would not vote 
 for Palgrave's bill if by so doing I could 
 make myself United States Senator."
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 43 
 
 It was not often that Spurlock had heard 
 Dolliver laugh ; and Dolliver laughed now, 
 with soft gusto. But the judge's face was 
 grave, and his voice was grieved as he re- 
 plied, sweetly : 
 
 "I am very sorry; very sorry, indeed." 
 
 They continued their walk for a few steps 
 in silence ; then the judge repeated : 
 
 " Very sorry, indeed." 
 
 "Yes, we certainly had banked on you, 
 Mr. Spurlock," Dolliver said, with a touch 
 of reproof in his equably pitched words. 
 " We ain't never had the slightest idea that 
 you would fail us at any time, and specially 
 in such a chance as this." 
 
 " Judge " Spurlock hesitated, then spoke 
 with an effort to make his words the gentler 
 because of their firmness " I was on my 
 way to see you when we met. For some 
 time I have been aware that you assumed 
 I would vote for you, although nothing has 
 passed between us to that effect. But I 
 think it only fair to you, as well as to my- 
 self, that you should know I have not yet 
 decided for whom I shall vote. ' ' 
 
 " Why, Spurlock, you do astonish me ! " 
 Majendie's face flushed with something more 
 than astonishment, though beyond a momen-
 
 44 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 tary hardening of his soft eyes and voice he 
 did not betray his emotion. 
 
 " I can't believe such a thing ! Certainly 
 
 not of Ogden Spurlock ! " Dolliver scouted. 
 
 "It it never would have occurred to 
 
 me ! " Majendie declared. " Why, I should 
 
 not have felt surer of my own son." 
 
 " Yes, we always headed our list with 
 your name," Dolliver asserted. 
 
 Spurlock colored a little at Majendie's last 
 remark. It might have meant nothing, and, 
 again, it might have meant more than Dol- 
 liver would understand. Knowing Majen- 
 die, Spurlock knew there was such a possi- 
 bility ; and he felt resentful, as he had felt 
 before, that such a girl as Innis Majendie 
 should be the daughter of this man. I 
 am sorry, Judge, to disappoint your expec- 
 tations," Spurlock replied ; " and I am sorry 
 that you should think personal preferences 
 should be sufficient to govern one in voting 
 for a public official like that of United 
 States Senator. But if my own father were 
 in your place, Judge, I could not vote for 
 him without knowing more of his public 
 views than I know of yours. ' ' 
 
 " You don't mean to say that you will 
 vote for Golladay ? " Dolliver asked.
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 45 
 
 " On the contrary, I mean to say I shall 
 not vote for Golladay ; and I am able to say 
 that because Golladay has left nobody in 
 doubt as to where he stands. If Judge Ma- 
 jendie will be as frank as Major Golladay, 
 I can then say whether I shall vote for Judge 
 Majendie ! " 
 
 "My dear Ogden " the judge's smile 
 had returned to his face and the unction to 
 his voice " you really do amuse me in the 
 enthusiasm of your political inexperience. 
 I am trying to beat Golladay, not by play- 
 ing his own game, but a better. He has 
 repelled such votes as yours ; I want all the 
 votes I can get. I have carefully avoided 
 going to extremes. Upon this unfortunate 
 question, which is so disturbing and threaten- 
 ing to divide our party, I have steered a con- 
 servative course, aiming to alienate none and 
 conciliate all. I am in politics to win, not 
 to make a quixotic martyr of myself. I 
 want to get to the Senate, and after I am 
 there surely you have enough confidence in 
 me to believe I will do what is right." 
 
 " I am not questioning your intention to 
 do what is right, Judge ; I simply ask to be 
 told what you think is right." 
 
 " For one thing, I think it is right to
 
 46 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 avert a fatal division in the Democratic 
 party, to make sure of the election of a 
 Democrat, and to save Kentucky and the 
 South the disgrace of a Republican Senator 
 from this proud Commonwealth. That I 
 hold to be the first duty before us. ' ' 
 
 " I know you have made your canvass on 
 that platform, but it seems to me that it is 
 more important just now that our next Sen- 
 ator shall vote right on the issues before the 
 country than that he shall be called by the 
 name of one party or another. Before you 
 announced for the Senate, Judge, it was my 
 understanding that you were opposed to the 
 theories which Golladay is pressing ; but 
 since I have reached Frankfort I have heard 
 from those who agree with Golladay that you 
 are as ' orthodox ' as he on those theories, 
 while I have heard just as positively from 
 the anti-Golladay men that you are as ' or- 
 thodox ' as anybody against those theories. 
 You see, Judge, as I have had no informa- 
 tion from yourself, I am somewhat in the 
 dark, or rather you are. ' ' 
 
 Majendie's laugh was loud and genuine. 
 " You flatter me, Ogden ! " he cried ; " you 
 do, indeed ! I'm delighted to hear you say 
 I have been so successful in holding the boys
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 47 
 
 in line. If I can keep that up, I shall unite 
 the party and win yet." 
 
 "Then I am to understand," Spurlock 
 asked, " that you will make no declaration 
 of your views before the election ? ' ' 
 
 "Look here, Ogden," Majendie answered, 
 seriously, " suppose I were to tell you that 
 I believe as you do on these matters, would 
 that satisfy you ? ' ' 
 
 " Would you be willing to tell the public 
 that, Judge, so that the people who sent me 
 here may know for what I am voting if I 
 vote for you ? ' ' 
 
 " There you go up into the air again, 
 Ogden ! You will forget the practical side 
 of politics. If I make any such public dec- 
 laration as that, how am I to get any of the 
 Golladay crowd ; and if I do not get that, 
 how am I to be elected to the Senate, where 
 I can work and vote for the principles in 
 which you and I believe? " 
 
 Spurlock was silent for several steps. Then 
 he said, in a tone of finality, "Well, Judge, 
 I am inexperienced in politics, as you say, 
 but this seems a very simple matter to me ; 
 and I hope you will feel that it is impersonal 
 considerations which actuate me, when I 
 frankly tell you that until you make some
 
 48 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 public declaration on public questions I 
 cannot promise to vote for you." 
 
 There was a quick compression of Majen- 
 die's lips, and he clenched his fist hanging 
 by his side ; but he held himself under good 
 control, and little evidence of agitation was 
 notable as he replied : 
 
 " Of course, Ogden, of course ; I under- 
 stand all that. And I'm confident you'll 
 see things in a clearer light after a while, and 
 that I'll get your vote yet. Anyway," and 
 he unclenched his fist and offered the hand 
 to Spurlock, ''we'll continue to befriends, 
 whatever happens." 
 
 "Now, here, Mr. Spurlock" Dolliver 
 addressed him with more than usual spirit 
 " you know I've took a good deal of interest 
 in you, and I'd hate to see you copper your 
 prospects right at the start ; but I'm afraid 
 you haven't considered all the consequences 
 of such a play as cutting loose from all your 
 friends and the party organization in your 
 own county. You take a day or two to think 
 over the matter." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Dolliver," Spurlock 
 replied. "I should hate to lose any real 
 friends, but I cannot say anything on this 
 subject different from what I have just said
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 49 
 
 to you and Judge Majendie. And, by the 
 way, Mr. Dolliver, I have heard of two in- 
 stances in which you have pledged my vote 
 with that of the Louisville delegation for 
 measures now before the Legislature. That's 
 a mistake of yours, Mr. Dolliver. It is not 
 safe for one to predict how I am going to 
 vote on any proposition until I know myself; 
 and as I have not looked into the merits of 
 either of these two bills, I am not able to say 
 now whether I shall vote for or against 
 them. ' ' He had stopped on the curbing and 
 had taken out his watch. " Excuse me, 
 gentlemen ; I have an appointment here." 
 
 He crossed the street. Majendie and 
 Dolliver stood where he had left them, and 
 when 'he had disappeared in a law office each 
 turned and fixed his eyes upon the other. 
 
 "The damn tenderfoot! " Dolliver ex- 
 claimed. "How in blazes did you fall 
 down so when you had me put him on the 
 ticket?" 
 
 Majendie's dark face betokened thoughts 
 stronger than Dolliver 's language. " We 
 must "play him a little line," the judge 
 growled, as they walked on; "we need his 
 vote, and must have it."
 
 rv 
 
 THE night of the fateful Democratic caucus 
 had come. Both Golladay and Majendie 
 were loudly claiming that they would get the 
 nomination, and each seemed as confident as 
 he was boastful. It was thought, however, 
 that Majendie had cut into Golladay's forces 
 somewhat within the week preceding the 
 caucus. The judge had been ' < smoked out. ' ' 
 He had been driven to change his tactics, 
 and to make, what he would not consent to 
 make at Spurlock's suggestion, a public dec- 
 laration of his " position." He had persist- 
 ed in the part of a "straddler " as long as 
 his friends would let him; but it became 
 clear to them that this was not a Legislature 
 in which a "straddler" could win. The 
 feeling on leading national issues was so in- 
 tense, that no man whose record or whose 
 purpose relative to those issues was equivocal 
 could hope to receive from a Democratic 
 caucus the nomination for the Senate. The 
 great majority of the Democratic members 
 50
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 51 
 
 held the same view's that Golladay cham- 
 pioned ; and Majendie was forced to realize 
 that by continuing further his non-committal 
 policy he would lose votes he had counted 
 on, instead of gaining votes from Golladay. 
 There was only one thing to do. Dolliver 
 saw it, and spent an entire night in Majen- 
 die's room. Next day the papers published 
 a "card" from Majendie, in which the 
 judge proclaimed that, to his surprise, there 
 seemed to be some uncertainty as to his atti- 
 tude on the dominant questions of the day ; 
 that there was no excuse for such misinfor- 
 mation or misrepresentation ; that his record 
 was an open book ; that his convictions were 
 rock -rooted and uncompromising ; and that 
 they would ever dictate his unfaltering course 
 in the Senate; concluding with a "restate- 
 ment" of those convictions, which showed 
 them to be all that Golladay, in his most 
 robust radicalism, had ever claimed for his 
 own, and which caused that bold campaigner 
 to gasp at the audacity of " Dolliver's acro- 
 batic puppet." 
 
 It was a transparent trick ; but transpar- 
 ent tricks often win in politics. This one 
 stayed the threatened desertion of some of 
 Majendie' s adherents, and gave Dolliver a
 
 5 2 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 firmer base from which to cast and draw his 
 nets in Golladay's waters. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding this, Majendie and 
 Dolliver had not despaired of securing Spur- 
 lock's vote in the caucus. They had ap- 
 pealed to his gratitude for partiality shown 
 him and favors done him, to his hopes of 
 future advancement, to his sense of party, 
 State and "Southern" pride. Many were 
 the influences brought to bear on him. 
 Majendie clubs in his district and in Louis- 
 ville passed resolutions for his guidance ; 
 a committee representing organized labor 
 waited on him and urged him to stand by 
 the " workingman's friend; " petitions from 
 farmers were presented him, praying him to 
 hold up the hands of " the poor man's 
 friend;" letters from commercial houses 
 were written him, asking him not to desert 
 "the business interests' friend;" a round 
 robin drawn up on Symposium Club paper 
 was forwarded, begging him to support " the 
 friend of the better elements; " the Daugh- 
 ters of the Circle that is to be Squared sent 
 a fair delegation to implore him to come 
 to the help of Woman's friend ; the party 
 organization, otherwise known as the all- 
 powerful "Dolliver machine," was set to
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 53 
 
 work grinding out appeals, protests, and 
 indirect threats ; while Tot Waugh, at first 
 incredulous of such folly, flouted, then 
 blustered, then blubbered his disapproval. 
 
 "My stars, Ogden ! " he cried, "you 
 ain't goin' to go broke the first out o' the 
 box ! You ain't goin' to go back on the 
 boys and pull out from Sam Dolliver ! 
 Maybe I don't see yo' finish! Why, you 
 might as well go jump off the bridge and 
 be done with it ! You might as well be a 
 white man in a cake-walk all the rest of yo' 
 days! " 
 
 Nevertheless, when the night of the cau- 
 cus came, it was generally known that Spur- 
 lock still held out against voting for Majen- 
 die, Golladay, or anyone who insisted on 
 committing the party to the particular theo- 
 ries on which they had pitched their can- 
 vass. Indeed, as the only Democratic can- 
 didate for the nomination who had opposed 
 those theories had developed such little 
 strength that he had withdrawn, there were 
 intimations that Spurlock might not go into 
 the caucus at all. Such intimations, how- 
 ever, were not considered very seriously ; for 
 most of those who discussed them were party 
 men, and in the code of the party man the
 
 54 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 crime of "bolting" is the rarest, as it is 
 the greatest, in politics. 
 
 But when the caucus had assembled, had 
 organized, and the chairman had made his 
 " ringing " address, with Spurlock nowhere 
 in the chamber, the Majendie men, who had 
 hoped to the last for his vote, were scowling 
 as they muttered his name ; while Tot 
 Waugh sat low in his chair, with his head 
 sunk between his shoulders and his face 
 drawn down, misery speaking in every line 
 of posture and feature. 
 
 It was then, when the chairman had just 
 resumed his seat, with the words, " It is 
 now in order, gentlemen ' ' that there was 
 a stir at the door, caused by the entrance of 
 Spurlock, which was followed by a murmur 
 running through the crowd, a round of hand- 
 claps by Majendie' s supporters, and a whoop 
 from Tot Waugh as he jumped to his feet 
 and waved his hat on high. Tot's cheer 
 was taken up, though with less spirit, by 
 some of the Majendie men ; and as it died 
 away Spurlock was standing in front of the 
 chairman with his hand uplifted for recog- 
 nition. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman," he was saying, " may 
 I ask to be heard for a few moments upon a
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 55 
 
 matter mainly personal and, therefore, hardly 
 in order, except through the indulgence of 
 the caucus ? ' ' 
 
 "Are you going to abide by the action 
 of the caucus?" shouted one of Golladay's 
 adherents. 
 
 "Let him speak! " "Out with it! " 
 " Go ahead ! " came from all parts of the 
 hall. 
 
 "I thank the caucus," Spur lock went on, 
 " for this courtesy. I have asked it because 
 this is a party caucus, and because, as what 
 I would say concerns my party relations, I 
 would say it here, as the proper place, rather 
 than upon the floor of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, whose privileges I do not expect 
 to claim on other than the public business." 
 Then, with no attempt at oratory as it was 
 understood by most of his auditors, but with 
 straightforward words and calm earnestness, 
 he explained why he could not in advance 
 bind himself to accept the nominee of 
 the caucus. A very great majority of the 
 members of the caucus had subordinated 
 all other considerations to the advocacy of 
 certain propositions of national polity which 
 he regarded wrong in principle and ruinous 
 in effect. It was evident that no man not
 
 56 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 pledged to those propositions could be nom- 
 inated by the caucus ; no man not so pledged 
 was now a candidate before the caucus ; as 
 he could not surrender his own convictions, 
 the only honorable course for him was to 
 take no part in the proceedings of the cau- 
 cus. 
 
 He knew he would be called a bolter ; but 
 he did not think he would be any the less a 
 Democrat. He had been a Democrat ever 
 since he had been able to discriminate be- 
 tween political creeds. He was still the 
 same sort of Democrat that he had been al- 
 ways. The friends of Major Golladay and 
 Judge Majendie assured him that the doc- 
 trines avowed by those gentlemen would be 
 formally affirmed by the next national con- 
 vention of the party. It was his understand- 
 ing, however, that until then the authority 
 of the last preceding national convention 
 held. He and his Democratic associates in 
 the Legislature had been elected upon a State 
 platform expressly reapproving the platform 
 of the last national convention, which plat- 
 form, instead of embodying the theories of 
 Major Golladay and Judge Majendie, had 
 not been adopted until a proposition to incor- 
 porate them in it had been voted down by the
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 57 
 
 convention. How was it, then, that his col- 
 leagues pronounced him a bolter for standing 
 on the only existing platform of his party, and 
 refusing to vote for the principles which the 
 supreme party authority had rejected when 
 making that platform ? But he did not care 
 to argue that point. If it should come to 
 the alternative that he must vote for a policy 
 that he believed would be disastrous to the 
 country, or be classified as a bolter, he 
 would not hesitate to incur the classifica- 
 tion. 
 
 In conclusion, he was as desirous as any- 
 one to see a Democrat elected to the Senate ; 
 and he promised the caucus that he would 
 gladly vote for its nominee, if it would nom- 
 inate a man who would stand on the present 
 Democratic platform, instead of on a possible 
 future platform. 
 
 As Spurlock spoke, he was listened to at 
 first with quiet intentness ; then with an oc- 
 casional ejaculation of impatience or protest ; 
 followed toward the last by a groan here and 
 a hiss there ; and as he finished and left the 
 room there was a fusillade of derisive catcalls 
 and angry jeers of ' ' Bolter ! " " Traitor ! ' ' 
 " Benedict Arnold ! " " Go to the Repub- 
 licans, where you belong! "
 
 58 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 Then it was that Tot Waugh sprang upon 
 a desk and, his arms thrashing the air and 
 his face red and awry with passion, made his 
 "maiden speech." 
 
 "You fellows, you!" his roar quickly 
 silencing the hubbub. " I ain't got but one 
 thing to say to you, and I'm goin' to say it 
 now!" notwithstanding the vain raps of 
 the chairman's gavel. "You're a nice lot 
 to be readin' Ogden Spurlock out of the 
 party, you are ! I want to say right here 
 that I know Ogden Spurlock from silk to 
 shoe-leather, and I'm not goin' to hear him 
 run down. He's the finest gentleman in 
 Kentucky and I ain't nobody, but that never 
 cut no ice with him. We was playmates 
 together, and it was share and share alike. 
 He's got brains, he's got learnin', he's got 
 grit. What's more, he's a square man, he's 
 a white man, and what he says I'll go broke 
 on. What he says is right, goes. What he 
 says is a Democrat, goes. If he's a bolter, 
 then a bolter's good enough for me. I let 
 you men know right now that I belong to 
 the same party that Ogden Spurlock does, 
 and I'm goin' to vote the same way he 
 does; and to bally whack with you and yo' 
 cockus ! ' '
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 59 
 
 He leaped from the desk and plunged tow- 
 ard the door, and before any of Majendie's 
 dazed partisans could lay detaining hands on 
 him he was out and away. 
 
 He rushed on through the deserted streets 
 of the town, and did not stop until he had 
 reached his room in the hotel. He quickly 
 locked the door, and began pacing the floor 
 of his little cage. His face was woe-begone, 
 his eyes were red and moist, and there was a 
 stertorous sniffle in his breathing. After a 
 few turns of the room, he paused at the door 
 and laid his hand on the knob. A moment 
 of hesitation, then he drew himself away and 
 crossed the room again, only to wheel sud- 
 denly, hasten back to the door and snatch 
 the key from the lock. He held it in his 
 hand, looking about as if for some place to 
 put it. Then he pressed the button of the 
 call-bell, and Jimp, soon responding with a 
 pitcher of ice-water, was admitted. 
 
 " That's what I wanted, Jimp," Tot said, 
 seizing the pitcher and gulping down the 
 water. " Say, Jimp, when do you go off 
 watch? " 
 
 " At six o'clock in de mawnin', Mr. 
 Waugh." 
 
 " All right, Jimp. Now, you take this key,
 
 60 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 lock my door when you go out, put the key 
 in yo' pocket, don't let nobody know you 
 got it, don't answer if I ring, tell anybody 
 that calls for me that I'm not in my room, 
 come back here before you leave in the morn- 
 in' and throw the key through the transom, 
 and don't blab a word about the whole 
 business, and I'll give you a quarter and put 
 you on to a dead-sure thing at the Louisville 
 spring meetin'. You see, I got to git one 
 good night's sleep, and I don't want nobody 
 comin' in here and nobody goin' out of 
 here." 
 
 "All right, Mr. Waugh," grinned Jimp. 
 Then, as the negro went out and locked the 
 door, Tot Waugh dropped to a seat on the 
 side of the bed, drew his sleeve across his 
 perspiring face, and fixing his eyes a little 
 wistfully upon the empty key-hole, told him- 
 self: 
 
 " That'll keep any doldrummed fool from 
 gittin' out of here before that cockus adjourns, 
 anyhow." 
 
 A few minutes later, when there was a 
 pounding on the door, followed by the rasp- 
 ing, excited voice of Dolliver calling Tot's 
 name and demanding to know if he was in, 
 Tot, who had gone to bed, shivered and,
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 61 
 
 holding his breath, drew his head under the 
 blanket. 
 
 He was not to take part in the caucus, and 
 for weeks he had looked forward to the cau- 
 cus as the one great event of his political 
 career.
 
 NEXT day the three men in Kentucky 
 most talked about were Majendie, Spurlock, 
 and Waugh. Majendie, despite Spurlock's 
 refusal to enter the caucus, and Waugh 's 
 abandonment of it, had finally defeated 
 Golladay and won the nomination. The 
 credit for the "coup" which effected this 
 belonged to Dolliver. The balloting had 
 gone on until after midnight. Golladay was 
 leading Majendie three or four votes, and 
 about a dozen votes were divided between 
 the other two candidates. When a motion 
 to drop the hindmost candidate prevailed, 
 Lintz, one of Majendie's men, rose, at a 
 signal from Dolliver, and read a paper, 
 signed by Kane and Fossett, the two Popu- 
 list members of the Legislature, binding 
 themselves to vote for the election of 
 Judge Majendie if he should be nominated. 
 This, as the reporters put it, was the explo- 
 sion of a bomb in the Golladay camp. Gol- 
 laday had been confident that, if the Popu- 
 62
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 63 
 
 lists voted at all with the Democrats, it would 
 be for himself. Indeed, one of the strongest 
 pleas he had made in his own behalf was that 
 the votes of Kane and Fossett would be nec- 
 essary to elect a Senator, and that he was 
 the only Democrat who could get those 
 votes. When, therefore, the agreement of 
 Kane and Fossett to vote for Majendie was 
 read, the Golladay forces were thrown into a 
 panic. There were from them jeers of deri- 
 sion, indignant clamor for the regular order, 
 and cries of "Fraud!" and "Fake!" 
 Lintz, however, had only cast his first bomb. 
 He shouted that not only were Messrs. Kane 
 and Fossett outside, ready to acknowledge 
 their signatures, but that they were willing 
 to come into the caucus, vote, and stand 
 by whatever nomination should be made. 
 That settled the contest. Kane and Fossett 
 were welcomed into the caucus, and on the 
 first ballot thereafter Majendie was nomi- 
 nated. 
 
 Interest now centred on Spurlock and Tot 
 Waugh. With the sixty-eight Democrats in 
 the Legislature and the two Populists voting 
 for Majendie, he would have the exact num- 
 ber necessary to elect. There had been sev- 
 eral Democratic absentees from the caucus
 
 64 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 besides Spurlock ; but none of these had de- 
 clared his intention to withhold his vote from 
 the nominee, and there were no fears that any 
 of them would fail to fall into line when the 
 time came. But Spurlock had openly an- 
 nounced that he would not vote for Majen- 
 die, and Tot Waugh's secession had been 
 so unexpected and so vehement that it had 
 left his future course in some doubt, although 
 it was generally believed that Dolliver would 
 have little trouble in bringing him back into 
 the fold. It was generally believed, also, that 
 Spurlock' s vote would not be lacking at the 
 critical time. His vote was indispensable to 
 Majendie ; and it was not thought that a 
 man of Spurlock's antecedents and connec- 
 tions, elected as a Democrat and represent- 
 ing a Democratic district, would take the 
 responsibility of defeating the Democratic; 
 party in a struggle which meant so much, 
 and in which so many and such powerful in- 
 fluences would operate against such ingrati- 
 tude and infidelity. 
 
 The party press for several days after the 
 caucus was full of Spurlock. It published 
 and discussed his speech, alleging all sorts of 
 motives for his action, and hazarding all 
 sorts of speculations as to his future course.
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 65 
 
 Some of the more extreme papers denounced 
 his "treachery" with a profuse display of 
 adjectives and capitals. They "branded" 
 him as a " Judas ; " they charged him with 
 selling out to " Plutocracy ; " they exposed 
 him as holding out for a bribe ; they adver- 
 tised him as seeking a dicker by which to 
 exact some big office for himself. The more 
 politic publications adopted a conciliatory 
 tone, refusing to believe that after due con- 
 sideration he would at the same time stab his 
 party and commit suicide, and reiterating 
 confidence that when the balloting in the 
 Legislature began he would be found in the 
 closed ranks of the Democrats, loyally sacri- 
 ficing his personal preferences to the good of 
 the party and the people, which could only 
 be achieved through the election of the party 
 nominee. 
 
 Majendie encouraged his followers in this 
 course. With him a caucus was supreme, 
 and he professed to feel sure that Spurlock 
 would yet vote for him in the Legislature. 
 He expressed that faith when in the presence 
 of Spurlock, as well as of all with whom he 
 spoke on the subject. His manner to Spur- 
 lock was unchanged. He was the same 
 genial, gracious companion and patron that
 
 66 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 he had ever been ; and Dolliver, looking on, 
 was proud of his distinguished prottge, and 
 shared his sanguine spirit. 
 
 That spirit did not seem to be any the less 
 sanguine when the Legislature began voting 
 for Senator, and Majendie's repeated assur- 
 ance that he would win on the second ballot 
 was unrealized. The nominee, making al- 
 lowance for several scattering "complimen- 
 tary" votes on the first ballot, had claimed 
 positively that he would receive the solid 
 Democratic vote, with the two Populist 
 votes, on the second ballot, and be elected. 
 But the second ballot did not differ from the 
 first, in which Majendie had the two Popu- 
 list votes and all the Democratic votes except 
 eight ; Spurlock, followed by Tot Waugh, 
 voting for Thaxter, a Democrat whose public 
 record and teachings antagonized all that 
 was embraced in " Golladayism," while six 
 others, who had not gone into the caucus, 
 divided their votes among almost as many 
 favorites. 
 
 The balloting went on daily ; but at the 
 end of the first week of it Majendie was no 
 nearer the required majority than he had 
 been at the beginning, eight Democrats still 
 standing out against him, most of whom
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 67 
 
 were now voting with Spurlock and Waugh 
 for Thaxter. 
 
 But Majendie gave it out Saturday, with 
 mysterious emphasis, that he would most 
 assuredly be elected Monday.
 
 VI 
 
 THE intervening Sunday was spent by 
 Spurlock in Louisville. Frankfort was not 
 particularly attractive to him in those days. 
 He had few acquaintances outside the Legis- 
 lature, and his relations with his own party 
 in the Legislature were anything but pleas- 
 ant. But there were other relations which 
 were far more disturbing to his peace of 
 mind. Innis Majendie was the daughter of 
 the man to defeat whom Spurlock had defied 
 his party. How did she look upon his con- 
 duct? Men called it trickery, treachery, 
 and corruption ; could he expect a woman, 
 with all a woman's intensity of partisanship 
 and lack of information upon the public 
 questions which had dictated his course, to 
 be any more liberal than men ? And could 
 he expect a daughter, believing in her father 
 and sympathizing with his high ambition, 
 to weigh with justice the motives of a pro- 
 fessed friend, a confessed lover, who delib- 
 erately blocked that ambition ? It was not 
 68
 
 "IF 1 WERE A MAN" 69 
 
 human nature; it was not woman nature. 
 And it was because he thought he realized 
 this, that the threats of Spurlock's own 
 political undoing and the malignant persecu- 
 tion of which he was the victim were insig- 
 nificant factors of his unhappiness during 
 these first days of his experience as a 
 " bolter." 
 
 Spurlock had not seen Innis since the 
 Legislature had convened. He had called 
 the evening before he had gone to Frank- 
 fort, and had found and left John Hilborn 
 with her. She had said good-by with such 
 sweet friendliness, and had wished him suc- 
 cess in all his plans for the session with such 
 sympathetic sincerity and confidence, that 
 he had been moved by a premonition of the 
 disappointment and pain it might be his lot 
 to inflict upon her ; for even then he doubted 
 that he should aid her father in his effort to 
 reach the Senate. 
 
 Now, nearly a month afterward, he had 
 not only refused that aid, but was recognized 
 as the leader of those Democrats who with- 
 held their votes from Judge Majendie and 
 thus prevented his election, which would 
 otherwise be assured. Would Innis listen to 
 him if he sought to explain? And if she
 
 70 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 listened, could she be expected, considering 
 her own relations to the case, to understand 
 and to judge him fairly ? 
 
 He was full of such thoughts as the train 
 bore him from Frankfort to Louisville that 
 Saturday afternoon, but, keenly as he real- 
 ized his own situation, his thoughts were 
 more for her than for himself. He felt that, 
 though he had but done what he should have 
 done, yet in doing it he had been compelled 
 to hurt her whom he loved ; and this, to a 
 man like Spurlock, brings an anguish far 
 greater than any that can follow whatever 
 fate may befall himself. 
 
 It was late when Spurlock reached Louis- 
 ville, and he did not go out to Airdrie until 
 Sunday morning. Saturday evening, how- 
 ever, he dropped in at Julia Page's. Julia 
 was Innis Majendie's most intimate friend ; 
 and it was not the first time that Spurlock 
 had dropped in at Julia's more, perhaps, 
 because she was Innis Majendie's friend than 
 because she was Julia Page. 
 
 There were several in the room, and as 
 Spurlock entered he was conscious of a mo- 
 mentary hush of the conversation ; he was 
 conscious, too, of Innis Majendie's beautiful 
 eyes fixed upon him with a look of startled
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 71 
 
 inquiry, and something more was it hostil- 
 ity and challenge ? while the color deepened 
 in her cheeks. Then Julia rose to greet him, 
 after which he crossed over to Innis, whose 
 manner, if changed, as he felt it to be, must 
 have been irreproachable in the eyes of the 
 others. But there was no change in the 
 grasp of John Hilborn's honest hand nor in 
 his wholesome voice, and Spurlock warmed 
 to him as never before. There were two 
 others present, young men so young, in- 
 deed, that they were unable to conceal their 
 awe born of what they conceived to be a 
 social crisis, and lapsed into silent expectancy 
 of developments. 
 
 They waited in vain, however. Julia was 
 at her best as a hostess ; John Hilborn alone 
 could have carried through a far more serious 
 crisis than the young men believed even this 
 to be ; while Innis, if to Spurlock her vivac- 
 ity seemed a little forced, to the lads seemed 
 unusually charming, and when they left, 
 nothing, to their disappointment, had been 
 said or done to indicate that the situation was 
 in the least strained. After their departure 
 there were a few minutes of general conver- 
 sation, when Hilborn also took his leave. 
 Then Innis, instead of resuming her seat,
 
 72 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 turned to a cabinet at her elbow and set the 
 head of a carved mandarin to nodding. She 
 watched it with a thoughtful face, which she 
 raised as the outer door was heard to close 
 behind Hilborn. "Julia," she said, cross- 
 ing the room, " I am going to ask you and 
 Mr. Spurlock to excuse me for the rest of 
 the evening." 
 
 It was like a sentence suddenly passed 
 upon Spurlock, but he stepped forward and 
 extended his hand. "You do look tired." 
 He spoke gently, as his serious eyes sought 
 hers. " Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Spurlock." 
 
 She gave him her hand, but it was limp 
 and unresponsive ; and Spurlock rejoined 
 Miss Page, feeling that what he had feared as 
 the inevitable had come to pass, his heart 
 full of sympathy for the girl he loved and of 
 rebellion that it should be his lot to bring 
 to her anything but happiness. 
 
 He did not remain long. It was too great 
 an effort to keep up appearances, even with 
 one he knew so well as Julia Page ; and he 
 soon found his way to the streets, which he 
 walked for miles before going to his room at 
 the hotel. There he sat till dawn, thinking 
 over and over all the things he had thought
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 73 
 
 over and over on his long walk. Once he 
 almost decided that he would go to Innis 
 and demand an opportunity to make clear 
 to her the motives which had impelled him 
 in his opposition to her father, but he 
 quickly abandoned that idea. What was 
 there to explain that he had not already ex- 
 plained to the public ? To make any further 
 explanation would be to imply in Innis some 
 interpretation of his conduct which it would 
 be unmanly to attribute to her and unmanly 
 to repel. The more he pondered over the 
 point the firmer was his conviction that 
 Innis Majendie's present attitude to him was 
 one which could not be changed by explana- 
 tions. He did not pretend to much knowl- 
 edge of the labyrinths of the feminine mind, 
 but he believed he had seen enough of it to 
 understand that often its most inaccessible 
 depths lie in its most accessible shallows, 
 and he felt that it would be worse than use- 
 less for him to try to reason away Innis's un- 
 spoken and not-to-be-spoken resentment. 
 
 The street-cars were clattering beneath his 
 window and the chamber-maids were chat- 
 tering in the corridor when he rose from the 
 chair in which, with hardly a motion, he had 
 sat out the night. After a cold bath and a
 
 74 "IF 1 WERE A MAN" 
 
 light breakfast, he went out and found some 
 violets, which he sent to Innis with his card, 
 on which he wrote: " With whatever has 
 been or may be always my love. ' ' 
 
 Then he got a horse and rode out to Air- 
 drie.
 
 VII 
 
 MAJENDIE'S assurance that he would be 
 elected Monday was not confirmed. Still, 
 the expectation of his friends that "some- 
 thing would happen " was not wholly dis- 
 appointed; for one of the Democrats who had 
 not entered the caucus, and who had been 
 voting for Thaxter, changed his vote to Ma- 
 jendie. This was jubilantly welcomed by 
 the followers of the judge, and his newspaper 
 organs exultantly heralded it as " the begin- 
 ning of the end." 
 
 The truth is, that Majendie had known 
 that this man had been "whipped into line," 
 and would vote for him Monday, and had 
 hoped that his " break " would be followed 
 by the other insubordinate Democrats. It 
 was reasonable to believe that it would be fol- 
 lowed by some of them soon ; for the pressure 
 brought to bear on them was such that few 
 who wished to remain in politics, or to re- 
 tain their social positions, could withstand. 
 For the next two weeks this pressure was 
 75
 
 76 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 desperately increased. All the devices of 
 the party machinery, all the ingenuity of the 
 party engineers, all the influences of party 
 prejudice and caste, all the promises of party 
 reward, and all the threats of party punish- 
 ment were employed to force these men to 
 vote for the party nominee. Indignation 
 meetings were held in their districts, hot 
 speeches were made, fierce resolutions were 
 passed, calling upon them to vote for Ma- 
 jendie or resign. Newspapers denounced, 
 reviled, slandered them, not stopping in their 
 persecution at an unscrupulous and lying in- 
 vasion of their private affairs. Political ruin 
 and social ostracism menaced them, if they 
 dared to continue directing their courses in 
 accordance with their consciences, instead of 
 in obedience to the chance decree of a cau- 
 cus. Spurlock had thought that every re- 
 source had been exhausted to make him vote 
 for Majendie in the caucus ; he found how 
 greatly he had underestimated the resources 
 of the nominee and his partisans when they 
 began plying him to vote for Majendie in 
 the Legislature. 
 
 He recognized the leadership of Dolliver 
 in much of this siege, and several days after 
 his return from Louisville he took some com-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 77 
 
 fort in the belief that he had rid himself of 
 at least further personal attention from that 
 individual. 
 
 He was alone in his room one afternoon 
 when Dolliver found him. Dolliver took a 
 chair and drew it near Spurlock without 
 invitation. Beyond an occasional common- 
 place he said nothing for a few seconds, 
 seeming rather preoccupied with a medita- 
 tive study of Spurlock's face. 
 
 "Mr. Spurlock." he finally began, "I 
 just come up from Louisville to have a little 
 talk with you about a affair of the greatest 
 importance." 
 
 "Yes? " answered Spurlock, with a smile 
 in his eyes, wondering what new scheme 
 Dolliver was about to spring on him now. 
 
 "You know, we elect Congressmen this 
 year, and in our district there is already 
 half a dozen candidates ; but they are all 
 ciphers or mossbacks, and the party can't 
 stand much more of that sort of thing." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, we want a man who ain't a cipher 
 or mossback a new man, a clean man, a 
 strong man, without much handicapping 
 record, but who has proved he's got the right 
 stuff in him."
 
 78 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " I should like to have the opportunity to 
 vote for such a man, Mr. Dolliver. ' ' 
 
 " Well, Mr. Spurlock, a lot of us has had 
 a conference about the matter a majority 
 of the committee and several of the party 
 leaders in the district and they all agreed 
 that you are just the man, and sent me here 
 to ask if you would accept the nomination." 
 Spurlock laughed. " Is this a joke ? ' ' 
 "I don't never joke about such matters, 
 Mr. Spurlock. We want you to run. We 
 promise you the nomination, and we are 
 certain to elect you. We don't know where 
 to find another man that'll fill the bill like 
 you." 
 
 " But you regard me a bolter, and surely 
 you do not mean to nominate a bolter ?" 
 
 A weak smile spread over Dolliver's face. 
 He got up and drank a glass of water, and 
 then came back to his chair before reply- 
 ing: 
 
 " You see, we done made allowances for all 
 that. We talked it all over, of course, and 
 we come to the conclusion that you would 
 be certain to square your record before the 
 session is over. The fact is, we all agreed, 
 like the rest of your friends, that as soon as 
 you think you have voted against Judge Ma-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 79 
 
 jendie long enough to fully make your point, 
 you will turn in and bow to the will of the 
 majority and vote for the regular nominee." 
 
 " And in that case I shall be eligible for 
 the nomination to Congress ? ' ' 
 
 " Why, certain, Mr. Spurlock. Our idea 
 is that the best party man is the one who has 
 got a head to think for himself, and yet who 
 has got the grip to shut down on his own 
 opinions for the good of the party." 
 
 Spurlock was looking at Dolliver steadily 
 through narrowing eyes, and the lines of his 
 lips were straightening. " Then I am to 
 understand," he said, calmly, "that if I 
 vote for Judge Majendie I am to have the 
 nomination to Congress, and if I do not 
 vote for him I am not to have the nomina- 
 tion?" 
 
 " Of course, Mr. Spurlock ; it would be 
 suicide for the party to nominate you unless 
 you had squared your record." 
 
 Spurlock rose to his feet as he replied. 
 " Dolliver, I will say this much for you : I 
 believe you and your friends are able to give 
 me this nomination, and that you will keep 
 your word if I will carry out my part of the 
 bargain. But go to those who sent you and 
 tell them that, although I have been sub-
 
 8o "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 jected to about every other indignity since I 
 came to Frankfort, this is the first direct ef- 
 fort to bribe me, and that should they have 
 any other such proposition to make to me I 
 shall be very much obliged to them if they 
 will present it in person. As for you ' ' 
 crossing to the door and holding it open 
 " if I thought you capable of really compre- 
 hending the part you have played in this 
 thing, instead of showing you out, I fear I 
 should be tempted to pitch you into the 
 gutter." 
 
 There was a venomous flash in Dolliver's 
 eyes, but only for an instant. He got up, 
 laughing softly and insipidly, took another 
 gulp of water, and shambled out of the 
 room. "Well, Ogden Spurlock," he said, 
 as he left, "your're a raw one. I'm afraid 
 you won' t never make much headway in our 
 business until you cut a few wisdom teeth. ' '
 
 VIII 
 
 LESS than half an hour after Dolliver's 
 exit Tot Waugh entered Spurlock's room. 
 Tot's lot had been a sorrowful one since his 
 sudden self-elimination from the caucus. He 
 had not only missed the rare fun of the cau- 
 cus itself, but his life ever since had been 
 acutely unhappy. He had always looked 
 upon a bolter as a political pariah, to be 
 shunned as a leper ; and he was now a bolter. 
 With him party creed had been nothing, 
 party associations everything. To be barred 
 outside the party pale, to be disowned by 
 his party co-workers, to be denounced in 
 the party press as an ingrate and a traitor, 
 meant far more to him than it would have 
 meant if he had had any resources within him- 
 self to fall back on, any intelligently ground- 
 ed conviction to inspire and sustain his ac- 
 tion. And being educated solely in the 
 school of " practical politics," the penalties 
 with which he was threatened and the re- 
 wards with which he was tempted were very 
 81
 
 82 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 serious things, indeed. But so far he had 
 stood it out stubbornly. He had loyally 
 followed Spurlock's lead, and at every ballot 
 in the Legislature had cast his vote for 
 Thaxter. And through it all, sorely as he 
 had been tried, he had not even had one 
 fight. 
 
 Tot found Spurlock writing. Taking the 
 chair which Dolliver had vacated, he strad- 
 dled it, facing its back, across which he 
 rested his arms. 
 
 "Say, Ogden?" was his greeting. 
 
 " Hullo, Tot ! " Spurlock laid down his 
 pen and turned to his visitor. 
 
 " Say, Ogden, I want to ask you a ques- 
 tion." 
 
 "All right, Tot." 
 
 "And I want you to put yo' answer right 
 over the plate." 
 
 "Out with the question, then." 
 
 " Say, are you goin' to keep this song 
 and dance up all through the session ? " 
 
 " What song and dance, Tot ? " 
 
 " Or-r ! this here votin' agin Judge Ma- 
 jendie." 
 
 " Yes ; I expect to vote against Judge 
 Majendie as long as he is a candidate." 
 
 Tot's chin dropped to his arms across the
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 83 
 
 chair-back, and his eyes studied the carpet 
 sadly before he spoke again. 
 
 "That's the way I had you down," he 
 confessed, dejectedly. 
 
 " What's up now, Tot ? ' ' Spurlock asked. 
 
 " Nothin' special. Only Lishe Nagle, he 
 come up from Louisville to see me to-day 
 with a good thing to give me, if I said the 
 word." 
 
 Spurlock waited silently, knowing that 
 Tot would continue in his own time. 
 
 " Lishe, he's leased the Pleasure Palace 
 Beer Garden, and he's goin' to run her wide 
 open, and he wants somebody to run her for 
 him. It's velvet good pay and a fat rake- 
 off extry." 
 
 Spurlock waited again. 
 
 " Lishe come up to see if I would take the 
 job, long as Sam Dolliver has fired me for 
 boltin' Judge Majendie, and I'm likely to be 
 on my uppers when the Legislature's over." 
 
 "Well, what answer did you give him? " 
 
 " I told him I'd give him my answer to- 
 night. Lishe said it would hurt his trade to 
 put it in the hands of a bolter, so he couldn't 
 afford to give me the place unless I squared 
 my record by votin' for Judge Majendie be- 
 fore the session ends. ' '
 
 84 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " Lishe is a friend of Sam Dolliver's, isn't 
 he, Tot?" 
 
 "They're regular bobbyshalies. I guess 
 Sam's puttin' up most of the stuff for the 
 Pleasure Palace." 
 
 " It is very like Sam's way of doing bus- 
 iness. He made a somewhat similar prop- 
 osition to me to-day." 
 
 "He did? Nor! The nerve of him! 
 What did you say? " 
 
 " I believe I said something about it be- 
 ing too much like bribery, and that it would 
 not be entirely unjustifiable under such cir- 
 cumstances to pitch him into the street." 
 
 "Did you? On the dead? It's odds 
 on that you did ! Well, that's the talk, and 
 you're the reel thing, every time! " Tot's 
 doleful visage had suddenly lighted up and 
 his eyes were dancing. "So long," he 
 added, springing to his feet. " I gotter git 
 a move on me ; and, say, I guess I'll have 
 Lishe Nagle's answer ready for him." 
 
 He was out and away so swiftly that he 
 did not hear, or heed, Spurlock's call to 
 him to wait a moment. Spurlock, smiling, 
 turned to his desk; but in half a minute 
 again dropped his pen and, putting on his 
 hat, went out to overtake Tot Waugh.
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 85 
 
 He was not quick enough for that, how- 
 ever. Tot's short legs clipped off space so 
 rapidly that they had carried him to the 
 hotel in which he had left Lishe Nagle 
 before Spurlock got in hailing of him. 
 
 Nagle, a heavy, loud-voiced man, in good 
 but soiled clothes, was standing on the 
 sidewalk in front of the hotel, gesticulat- 
 ing and talking to a group of idlers. Tot 
 Waugh, breathing harder and growing red- 
 der at each step, went straight to Nagle and, 
 clutching his collar, cut him off in the 
 middle of a sentence, jerking and dragging 
 him to the edge of the pavement and send- 
 ing him sprawling into the street. 
 
 Nagle scrambled up and, tugging at his 
 hip-pocket, started toward Tot Waugh, 
 while the on-lookers scattered to cover ; but 
 before Nagle could draw his weapon, Tot's 
 fist lunged out and knocked him again into 
 the dust. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Tot, standing on the 
 curbing and addressing the faces that peered 
 around corners and tree - boxes, " that 
 geezer," pointing to Nagle, who had once 
 more gained his feet and, shaking his head 
 in sullen menace, was retreating into the 
 hotel, "that geezer tried to bribe me ! "
 
 86 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 The papers next day made flaring " feat- 
 ures ' ' of the affair. The tone of the Ma- 
 jendie press may be indicated by these dis- 
 play head-lines, in big type, taken from one 
 of the dailies : 
 
 DASTARDLY OUTRAGE! 
 
 Tot Waugh, the Notorious Bolter, Bully, and 
 Bum at his Old Tricks Brutally Assaults 
 an Estimable Gentleman on the Streets of 
 Frankfort Colonel Elisha Nagle, One of the 
 Best-Known and most Public-Spirited Cit- 
 izens of Kentucky, the Victim The Louis- 
 ville Gutter-Snipe Posing as an Apostle of 
 Purity in Politics The Whole Thing a 
 Foul Conspiracy to Injure Judge Majendie, 
 by Charging One of His Friends with an 
 Attempt at Bribery Is it a Scheme of Og- 
 den Spurlock's ? Waugh, a Star Member 
 of that Milk- White Patriot and Reformer's 
 Crew of Party Cut-ThroatsTot Waugh 
 Refuse a Bribe? And Away Flew the 
 Woodcock 1 
 
 And these are the head-lines from one of 
 the anti-Majendie papers : 
 
 RESENTS A BASE INSULT. 
 
 The Hon. Tottenham Waugh's Patience 
 Tried Too Far Indignantly Repels an 
 Impeachment of His Honor Knocks Down
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 87 
 
 Lishe Nagle, the Malodorous Lobbyist of 
 Majendie and Pal of Dolliver Went to 
 Frankfort to Buy a Vote for Majendie, but 
 Bought a Raw Beefsteak for a Black Eye 
 Mr. Waugh on His Mettle, and Says He 
 does not Propose to Stand any more Perse- 
 cution from the Garroters' Gang.
 
 IX 
 
 THE session of the Legislature was now 
 within two weeks of its close. It was an- 
 other of those days which Judge Majendie 
 had set for his election, "sure." This 
 time, however, the judge's confidence seemed 
 to have infected all his supporters, and it 
 was a confidence which now impressed every- 
 one as genuine, not feigned, as it had been 
 more than once before. The Democrats 
 were cheerful to radiance, while the Repub- 
 licans were correspondingly depressed. Bets 
 with heavy odds on Majendie's election had 
 that morning been freely offered, with no 
 takers. It was well understood that the judge 
 expected to make his ' ' supreme effort ' ' 
 to-day, and the claim of those "on the 
 inside" that the result would be all they 
 wished it to be was evidently for once made 
 Honestly. 
 
 There wa an unusual animation about the 
 old capitol. In the corridors and cloak- 
 rooms were groups of men holding whispered
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 89 
 
 conferences or exchanging pertinent gossip. 
 The galleries of the House of Representa- 
 tives were filled, men having come from 
 distant parts of the State to be present at the 
 close of so long and remarkable a struggle. 
 Rumors were everywhere. One, with some 
 foundation, was that the Republicans had 
 intended to prevent an election by breaking 
 a quorum a rumor which was quickly dis- 
 missed when it was learned that they had 
 asked and been refused Spurlock's assistance. 
 It was necessary that the Republicans should 
 have the co-operation of two Democrats in 
 order to break the quorum ; and if Spurlock 
 had declined, no one believed that they could 
 find two other Democrats who would help 
 them. The Majendie men, when they heard 
 of Spurlock's refusal, looked significantly 
 wise and pleased. 
 
 When the Senate filed into the chamber of 
 the House for the joint session there was an 
 air of expectancy over all, which was stilled 
 into tense silence as the balloting began. 
 As the roll-call was ended with no change 
 from the last preceding ballot there was a 
 murmur of surprise in the galleries and a stir 
 of relief among the Republicans of the Legis- 
 lature ; but before the result of the ballot
 
 90 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 was announced, Colquitt, one of the Demo- 
 crats who had been voting with Spurlock for 
 Thaxter, rose to his feet and sought the rec- 
 ognition of the presiding officer. Instantly 
 there was wild confusion in the chamber, the 
 Republicans demanding that the ballot be 
 announced and the Majendie men breaking 
 into cheer after cheer. When order was re- 
 stored, the Republicans settling back into 
 seats with glum resignation, and the Demo- 
 crats leaning forward with glowing faces, 
 Colquitt said : 
 
 " For nearly two months I have been cast- 
 ing my vote for Mr. Thaxter, whom I believe 
 to be one of the soundest and ablest of living 
 Democrats. I have voted as I thought, and 
 still think, for the best interest of my people 
 and party. But the time has come when I 
 must decide whether I shall longer vote for a 
 Democrat of my own choice who cannot be 
 elected, or for a Democrat I should not 
 have chosen, but who may be elected. We 
 have already wasted the greater part of the 
 session, and neglected the public business in 
 this struggle ; and it is plain that somebody 
 must give way, or there will be no election. 
 As it is evident that the Majendie men won't 
 come to us, and as it is now the election of
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 91 
 
 no Democrat or of Judge Majendie, I sur- 
 render to the majority of my party, throwing 
 upon them the responsibility, and change my 
 vote from Thaxter to Majendie." 
 
 Then chaos came again. The Majendie men 
 yelled and danced for joy, gathering around 
 Colquitt and hugging him, drowning out the 
 thumps of the gavel and the calls for order, the 
 demands for the announcement of the ballot, 
 and the motions for adjournment. At the first 
 lull another of the Thaxter Democrats arose 
 and changed his vote to Majendie, and almost 
 simultaneously three more did the same. 
 Spurlock and Tot Waugh were the only 
 Democratic members now who had not voted 
 for Majendie, and their votes would elect 
 him. The chamber by this time was more 
 like that of a crazy political convention than 
 that of a legislative assembly. But little 
 attempt was made to control it, and no 
 attention was paid to that. Men were shout- 
 ing, laughing, crying, embracing each other. 
 The storm below was answered by another 
 storm from the galleries, from which the 
 handkerchiefs of women fluttered, and over 
 the railing of which someone was waving a 
 flag exultantly. Majendie' s happy followers 
 were swarming around Tot Waugh, begging
 
 92 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 him, pulling, pushing him, winding their 
 arms about him. Tot, very red, both from 
 his self-consciousness as the object of such 
 pronounced attentions and from his effort to 
 restrain himself from joining in the infectious 
 enthusiasm of his colleagues, kept his eyes 
 fixed eagerly upon Spurlock, who remained 
 in his seat, quietly observant of all that was 
 going on. 
 
 It was not long before he, too, was sur- 
 rounded by Majendie's jubilant partisans. 
 " Tot Waugh says he will vote with us if you 
 will ! ' ' one of them cried, running over to 
 him from Tot. Other invocations followed 
 fast. 
 
 " It all depends on you now, Spurlock ! " 
 
 " It's up to you now, old man ! " 
 
 " Come on, Ogden; say the word, and save 
 the day! " 
 
 " For God's sake, old fellow, you won't 
 go back on us now ! ' ' 
 
 " Help us out, Ogden, and, by the Lord 
 Harry, nothing can keep you from being our 
 next Governor ! ' ' 
 
 Spurlock made no answer, but looking over 
 that tempest-swept assembly, noted that all 
 faces seemed turned to him, the Democrats' 
 shining with hope, the Republicans' set with
 
 " IF I WERE A MAN " 93 
 
 foreboding. Up in the ladies' gallery he saw 
 one face that made his heart sink. Pale and 
 drawn, with eyes strained upon himself as 
 she leaned forward, it was the face of Innis 
 Majendie, sitting between Julia Page and 
 John Hilborn. For a moment, far away were 
 the insistent throng and the excited assembly, 
 and only near and real was the dear, sweet 
 presence in the gallery. He had not seen 
 her since she had left him that night at Julia 
 Page's. She had probably come with her 
 friends on the morning train from Louisville, 
 as others had come, to witness the expected 
 triumph of her father; and here were the 
 Legislature, the State, the party, but far 
 more to him than all these, this girl, waiting 
 for him to say whether such a triumph was 
 to be. A profound impulse of tenderness and 
 sympathy impelled him to go to her and take 
 her in his arms. "Up with you now, old 
 chap; you can't hold out against us any fur- 
 ther ! " Somebody had seized him on one 
 side, and somebody else on the other, and 
 between the two they lifted him bodily to his 
 feet. He could not help smiling at this pro- 
 ceeding, and the Majendie men, seeing that 
 he had risen, and seeing the smile, broke into 
 a rousing roar, which quickly sank into the
 
 94 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 absolute silence with which his words were 
 awaited. Tot Waugh, his face grotesque with 
 joy, advanced half-way down an aisle and 
 stood with eyes intent and mouth open. 
 
 "I do not wish to obstruct the election 
 of a Democratic Senator," Spurlock said, 
 calmly; "I have never wished to do that. 
 I am at any time willing to change my vote 
 from Mr. Thaxter to any good man who be- 
 lieves in the same sort of Democracy. There 
 was no reason why I should say anything at 
 all to-day. Besides being out of order, I 
 have nothing to add to what I said in the 
 caucus. As I explained then, I will vote 
 for any Democrat who will uphold the last 
 Democratic platform." 
 
 As Spurlock took his seat those who had 
 gathered around him fell away and a sibilant 
 hiss sounded through the hall, which was 
 quickly suppressed by some of Majendie's 
 more politic lieutenants ; while Tot Waugh, 
 with downcast eyes and bent head, collapsed 
 into the nearest seat. 
 
 The ballot was then announced : Majen- 
 die, 68 ; Foxall (Republican nominee), 68 ; 
 Thaxter, 2 ; necessary to an election, 70.
 
 AFTER adjournment Spurlock walked 
 through the outskirts of the town, toward 
 the greening hills. Although several ballots 
 had been taken, all with the same result, he 
 had noticed shortly after the first ballot of 
 the day had been announced that the seats 
 of Innis Majendie's party were vacant. As 
 he left the State-house he was hailed by John 
 Hilborn, who grasped his hand, it seemed to 
 Spurlock with even a warmer pressure than 
 ever, and who explained that he was remain- 
 ing over in Frankfort on business, having 
 just put Miss Majendie and Miss Page on the 
 train for Louisville. ' ' Spurlock, ' ' he added, 
 before hurrying on his way, " I wish I knew 
 how to tell you I hope you will let me say 
 this much that I have some idea of the 
 fight you are making, and that I do not be- 
 lieve I know another man who would be 
 equal to it." 
 
 Spurlock' s walk might have been through 
 the bleakest barrens instead of through the 
 95
 
 96 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 beautiful country around Frankfort in the 
 early spring. He noted little of the soft 
 sunlight on the uplands, the answering flush 
 of the peach orchards, the mellow fragrance 
 of the upturned loam, the tender freshness 
 of the turf, dappled with the delicate blos- 
 soms of the dog-tooth violet and the wake- 
 robin. He felt not the buoyant stir that 
 pulsed sod and bough and wing-cleft air. 
 His thoughts were of the turbulent events of 
 the session, of the part he had played in 
 them, and, most of all, of the white, pained 
 face he had seen in the gallery. He under- 
 stood the consequences of his refusal to elect 
 Majendie that day the increased oppro- 
 brium and persecution it would bring him, 
 the stronger contempt of those who honestly 
 believed he had betrayed his party and 
 proved false to his friends, the multiplica- 
 tion of the charges of corruption that had 
 already been uttered against him. The joint 
 session had hardly adjourned before he had 
 rushed up to Tot Waugh and pulled him 
 away from a man whom Tot was about to 
 strike for insinuating, Tot afterward ex- 
 plained, that Spurlock was playing to elect, 
 and would yet openly vote for, Foxall, the 
 Republican nominee ; although it was no-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 97 
 
 torious that Foxall was as unsound as Ma- 
 jendie on the very questions in consideration 
 of which Spurlock had withheld his vote 
 from the judge. 
 
 But it was not such reflections as these 
 that did most to shut in Spurlock from the 
 breaking spring as he walked the fields this 
 afternoon. What disturbed him more than 
 all the penalties that could be visited upon 
 him by the enemies he had made was the 
 knowledge that he had pained Innis Majen- 
 die. Since he had known her the truest 
 pleasure he had felt was to minister to her 
 pleasure, and the ever-present desire possessed 
 him to seek and do those things which 
 would add to her happiness. Nothing had 
 ever stabbed him so poignantly as the look 
 he had caught on her face while she leaned 
 over the gallery railing. And beyond all 
 that, he was very human, and, after a little, 
 thoughts of self commingled with thoughts 
 of her to deepen his depression. The bar- 
 rier he knew he had placed between himself 
 and Innis was ever before him. It was all 
 well enough to say that his defeat of her 
 father could not modify a man's relations 
 with a just woman. There could be no just 
 woman in such a daughter's place. And
 
 98 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 consider it as he might from the lofty plane 
 of duty, Spurlock was sure to be dragged 
 down to the lower plane of self. 
 
 And John Hilborn. " If I were a man," 
 Innis had said, " I should do things." Spur- 
 lock could not help recalling that little 
 speech as he thought of John Hilborn. Hil- 
 born was a man, and he did things. He 
 had made his way in the world, and he had 
 made it wide enough for many others to 
 travel with comfort. He was at the head of 
 a prosperous business; but his employees 
 prospered as he prospered, and he had their 
 respect and friendship, as well as their fidel- 
 ity and co-operation. Nor did he live with- 
 in his business. It was he who, when the 
 most beautiful park land in Louisville was 
 about to be cut into building lots, bought 
 and gave it to the city. It was he who orig- 
 inated and carried through the movement 
 that resulted in the erection of the splendid 
 Auditorium and Conservatory of Music at 
 Fourth and Broadway ; and there was a say- 
 ing about town that Hilborn's public spirit 
 would even yet secure for Louisville a hotel 
 in which a civilized wayfarer could get a din- 
 ner at a civilized dinner-hour. In addition 
 to being a man who did things, Hilborn was
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 99 
 
 a gentleman ; and in addition to believing 
 in himself, he believed in women. And 
 with it all, he was still young, and he adored 
 Innis Majendie. 
 
 Spurlock felt that he could not have a 
 more worthy and more dangerous rival, at a 
 more inopportune time.
 
 XI 
 
 ON the closing day of the session Majen- 
 die played his last card. 
 
 It was a contemptible play ; but the play- 
 er being more a politician than a man, it was 
 not beneath him, although he did not resort 
 to it until everything else had failed to se- 
 cure for him Spurlock's vote. 
 
 The session of the Legislature ended on 
 Tuesday ; Sunday night Majendie spent at 
 his own home, running down to Louisville 
 on an evening train, and returning to Frank- 
 fort the next morning. 
 
 " Innis," he had said, having found an 
 opportunity to speak alone with his daugh- 
 ter, " I don't know how to make out Ogden 
 Spurlock's conduct; it is simply inexplic- 
 able. And I was surer of him than of any 
 other man in the Legislature. It is certainly 
 most strange." 
 
 Innis looked at him a little curiously, a 
 slight color coming into her face. "I'm 
 more disappointed than you can be, father,"
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 101 
 
 she answered, in a voice low with sympathy. 
 " I had set my heart on your winning." 
 
 The judge was leaning comfortably back 
 in his big easy-chair, his hands clasped be- 
 hind his head, and his eyes apparently scan- 
 ning the titles on the topmost row of his 
 book-shelves. "I thought, maybe," he 
 said, " it might be something ar personal 
 between him and you. I'm sure he can 
 have nothing personal against me." 
 
 " Oh, I don't think that ! " in quick sur- 
 prise and protest. 
 
 " I had an idea last summer that you and 
 he were great friends. Did anything hap- 
 pen to break your friendship ? " 
 
 She studied his impassive profile in a wist- 
 ful, puzzled way. " We were good friends 
 last summer, and I had no reason to believe 
 we were not good friends when he left for 
 Frankfort this winter." 
 
 " I ar fancied there was something 
 more than friendship at least on his part. 
 And some men in in love are easily miffed, 
 you know." 
 
 " Father ! " in startled reproach. 
 
 The judge unclasped his hands, and, rest- 
 ing them on the arms of his chair, leaned 
 forward and met the troubled gaze of his
 
 102 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 daughter. " My child, it is as a father that 
 I speak to you. I was not blind last sum- 
 mer. I saw how things were going, and I 
 was pleased; I could not have been better 
 pleased at any choice you could have made. 
 But something happened some misunder- 
 standing came up and Ogden is allowing it 
 to rankle, and to warp his better nature. All 
 his high talk about duty and principle is 
 poppycock to conceal his real wound. My 
 dear, don't let a foolish lovers' quarrel ruin 
 your happiness and my future. Make it up. 
 You will make it up some time make it up 
 to-morrow. Send him some message, some 
 token, something. Send it now, for unless 
 I win this race to-morrow or next day, child, 
 I'm likely to be a ruined man." His voice 
 sank and trembled he had been a successful 
 jury lawyer before he was elected to the 
 bench and he waited for her answer in sus- 
 pense that would have appeared to an on- 
 looker almost pathetic. 
 
 Innis had stared at him first with incredu- 
 lity, then amazement, and but what her 
 eyes might have shown after that was hidden 
 by fallen lids. There was no color in her 
 face now ; there seemed to be no life in it. 
 She sat motionless and silent for a little after
 
 " IF I WERE A MAN " 103 
 
 the judge had spoken ; then she rose, and, 
 looking down on him as if he were far away, 
 she said, calmly : 
 
 " I would have done anything for you, 
 father anything but that." She passed 
 him and left the room with a dignity that 
 was graver than was usually hers. She 
 walked across the hall and ascended the 
 stairs slowly, as if in a dream. But once 
 beyond the turn of the stairway, she sank 
 weakly down and, throwing her arms across 
 a step, buried her face in them, shaking with 
 suppressed sobs. It is not difficult for a man 
 like Majendie to deceive the women of his 
 family. To Innis he had always been her 
 ideal of nobility and honor. The mask had 
 been suddenly lifted, and it would have been 
 easier for her if the tomb had closed upon 
 him. 
 
 Judge Majendie lighted a cigar and, smok- 
 ing it, gazed reflectively through the win- 
 dow the same window through which he saw 
 once before, as now, Spurlock take the little 
 sardonyx seal from his fob and give it to Innis. 
 
 The judge left early next morning, with- 
 out seeing Innis again. When he reached 
 Frankfort he found that little city in the 
 throes of an upheaval. In obedience to the
 
 104 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 order of the Republican Governor, troops 
 had taken possession of the State-house, guard- 
 ing its approaches, its doorways and halls. 
 It was an unprecedented proceeding in Ken- 
 tucky, and had greatly incensed the Dem- 
 ocrats. They denounced it as a high-handed 
 usurpation of power, a prostitution of the 
 military arm of the State to the aid of the 
 Republican candidate for Senator, and gath- 
 ered in public meeting to express their indig- 
 nation. The Democratic members of the 
 Court of Appeals refused to hold court in the 
 Capitol while the militia remained on duty 
 there ; the Democratic State Senate declared 
 that it would enact no legislation, but threat- 
 ened to imprison the Governor under au- 
 thority which it claimed, ending, however, 
 in only censuring his action. 
 
 This extraordinary situation was one of 
 the many extraordinary developments of the 
 desperate partisan struggle over the election 
 of a United States Senator. A few days be- 
 fore, the Republican majority of the lower 
 house of the Legislature had voted to unseat 
 a Democratic member and admit the Repub- 
 lican contestant. The Democrats charged 
 that this was simply a partisan trick to elect 
 Foxall, the Republican nominee for United
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 105 
 
 States Senator. The Democratic majority in 
 the State Senate had threatened that for 
 every Democrat turned out of the House two 
 Republicans would be turned out of the Sen- 
 ate, and when the Democrat was unseated in 
 the House two Republicans were at once un- 
 seated in the Senate. Several deputies were 
 also, appointed by the Sergeant-at-arms of the 
 Senate to see that the expelled members 
 should not enter the House and take part 
 in the joint sessions for the election of a 
 Federal Senator. The authority to make 
 these appointments, and for that purpose, 
 was disputed by the Republicans, who were 
 further inflamed by the character of the new 
 deputies. These men were all aggressive 
 lobbyists for Majendie ; had come to Frank- 
 fort at the beginning of the session to "work" 
 for the judge, and had faithfully, and often 
 offensively, fulfilled their mission to the end. 
 In the vernacular of their kind they were 
 alleged to have hailed " from the head-waters 
 of Bitter Creek," were always " loaded for 
 "b'ar," which is to say, they were always 
 well armed with knives or pistols, and were 
 ready to use them on the slightest provoca- 
 tion. That, at least, was their reputation, 
 of which they seemed to be proud, and there
 
 106 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 were few of them who did not bear on their 
 persons the scars of " personal difficulties" 
 of which they had been the heroes. The 
 Republicans asserted that these men were ap- 
 pointed because they were supposed to be 
 bullies, and were to play the part of bullies. 
 Feeling on both sides was fierce ; most of 
 the members of the Legislature went to the 
 Capitol armed ; and there was undoubtedly 
 danger that the tension would at any mo- 
 ment break in acts of violence and blood- 
 shed. The Governor insisted that the Mayor 
 and the Sheriff could not or would not pre- 
 serve the peace, and that it therefore de- 
 volved upon himself to do so by means of 
 the militia. 
 
 This unexpected action of the Governor, 
 and the manner in which it had been taken 
 the troops having been called out at nine 
 o'clock Sunday night by the alarm bells and 
 hurriedly stationed in the Capitol had cre- 
 ated such excited resentment and such fierce 
 conflict of discussion as to the Governor's 
 authority to resort to it, that it overshadowed 
 on Monday even the interest in the contest for 
 United States Senator; although, on Tues- 
 day, as the time drew near for the last joint 
 session, the ' ' Senatorial dead-lock ' ' again
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 107 
 
 occupied first place in the public mind. 
 There was a persistent rumor that Majendie 
 at last had his race won. His adherents were 
 again radiantly confident, and justified their 
 confidence with the claim that Spurlock, 
 shocked and disgusted by the Governor's 
 " usurpation of power " in furtherance of the 
 election of Foxall, would effectually rebuke 
 it by voting for Majendie. The papers 
 were full of this argument, and one journal 
 which had stood faithfully with Spurlock in 
 his opposition to Majendie had delighted 
 the judge's followers by formally surrender- 
 ing and urging that it was now the duty of 
 all Democrats, whatever their differences on 
 other points, to unite on Majendie for the 
 vindication of constitutional democracy and 
 the repudiation of this unscrupulous, unholy, 
 and undemocratic conspiracy of militarism. 
 Judge Majendie had been shrewd enough 
 long ago to abandon further personal so- 
 licitations of Spurlock, but he made it a 
 point this morning to watch for and over- 
 take the young man on his way to the Cap- 
 itol. Outwardly he had always been as 
 genial in his manner to Spurlock as if they 
 were the best of friends. " Well, Ogden," 
 he said, taking Spurlock by the arm, as of
 
 io8 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 old, " this is the last day of the session, and 
 I suppose you are as glad of it as I am." 
 
 " I cannot say that I regret it, Judge." 
 
 " It will be a great relief to me when it 
 is all over a great relief. Ah! " with a 
 breath that was like a sigh, " it is a hard, 
 hard life, this one of politics, Ogden. Here 
 am I, not far from sixty, with the fever of it 
 still burning in my veins as if I were your 
 own age, and staking all that I have accom- 
 plished, all that I have saved, all my future 
 hopes and usefulness, upon this day's work 
 in a Legislature that to-morrow will be dis- 
 persed to the four winds and next day will 
 be forgotten. It is a critical day for me 
 and mine a critical, critical day. As for 
 myself, I hope I am stoic enough to stand 
 the worst, but I am concerned for my party, 
 and I am deeply, deeply concerned for " 
 dropping his voice almost tremulously 
 " for my loved ones, to whom my success or 
 failure means so much ah, so very, very 
 much more than the world will ever suspect 
 or understand." 
 
 Spurlock turned his head and looked at 
 the man, whose eyes held to the pavement. 
 
 " But I feel more cheerful to-day than at 
 any time since since the caucus," the
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 109 
 
 judge continued. "They tell me it's all 
 right now. Do you know what they are 
 saying, old fellow? Everybody, the whole 
 State, says that this last outrage of the Re- 
 publicans ends the race ; that it unites our 
 party beyond peradventure ; that all minor 
 differences are swallowed up in the greater 
 question of the impediment of constitution- 
 al government ; and that at such a crisis 
 Ogden Spurlock, who has already made so 
 splendid a reputation for conscientiousness, 
 independence, and courage, will still further 
 distinguish himself and at the same time en- 
 dear himself to his country and his party by 
 rising to the new heights upon which the 
 issue is now joined, and, where he had here- 
 tofore consistently opposed, now as consist- 
 ently elect, his party's nominee." 
 
 " Judge Majendie," Spurlock began, 
 with a quiet smile, " does it not seem clear 
 that " 
 
 "But, but, but," the judge laughed, 
 waving his disengaged hand authoritatively, 
 "I did not join you to talk of politics, my 
 boy ! Quite the contrary. I know that 
 you will do what you think right, and I am 
 more than satisfied to leave the whole ques- 
 tion with you. What I did want to say to
 
 no "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 you, Ogden, was, that in spite of our past 
 political variances, and whatever course you 
 may take to-day whether you make me or 
 break me politically our future personal re- 
 lations must not suffer any change. You 
 must not think that of me. We are very 
 fond of you, old fellow, in our family, and 
 after this infernal Legislature adjourns we 
 want you to come among us just as always." 
 
 Spurlock flushed. " You are generous, 
 Judge, and I certainly hope " 
 
 " I came up only yesterday spent Sun- 
 day night at home. It would do you good 
 to see the River Road now, Ogden. Spring 
 is coming very fast along that thoroughfare, 
 and as for Innis's yard, why, it's worth go- 
 ing across the continent just to see the 
 crimson magnificence of that hawthorn clump 
 of hers. Mrs. Majendie inquired after you 
 affectionately, and Innis oh, by the way, I 
 brought something back with me for you, 
 Ogden," fumbling in his pockets. "I 
 ought to have delivered it before this I 
 say, Lintz," calling to a man in advance of 
 them just going up the State-house steps, 
 " wait there ; I want to speak with you, 
 Lintz but," to Spurlock again, "I didn't 
 have a chance to see you yesterday. What
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" in 
 
 in the world have I done with it ? " search- 
 ing through other pockets, as he paused at 
 the foot of the steps. " Ah ! I remember 
 now. I changed my clothes this morning, 
 and it is in the pocket of another vest. I'll 
 get it for you when I go to the hotel this 
 afternoon. It is that little sardonyx seal of 
 yours, Ogden, which you used to wear on 
 your fob, you recollect, and which I was 
 very glad to have an opportunity to restore 
 to you. Excuse me now, please ; I want a 
 word with Lintz." And the judge, well- 
 dressed, well-barbered, light-footed, sprang 
 up the steps and went off arm in arm with 
 Lints.
 
 XII 
 
 "HELLO, Spurlock ! " Someone greeted 
 him, from behind, a moment after the judge 
 had left him. " I was just having a bet with 
 myself whether you were, like the snake that 
 made the track in the jungle, ' going forward 
 or coming back.' " 
 
 Spurlock was standing where the judge 
 had paused as he spoke those last strange 
 words before joining Lintz. One foot was 
 upon the bottom step, and he had an air of 
 indecision that fully warranted the doubt as 
 to the direction he would take. He turned 
 as he was addressed, with a look which, for an 
 instant, was what Tot Waugh, who passed 
 and scanned him solicitously, pronounced 
 
 "groggy-" 
 
 Then Spurlock smiled distantly and walked 
 on into the Capitol with the member who 
 had accosted him. "That's a track," he 
 answered, " which is supposed to be much 
 travelled by men as well as snakes, is it not ; 
 at least, by men in politics ? ' ' 
 112
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 113 
 
 They went on into the house together, 
 talking commonplaces; but when Spurlock 
 took his customary seat in the chamber he 
 could not easily have recalled anything that 
 had passed between them. His ears were 
 ringing with the words Judge Majendie had 
 spoken as he had felt in his pockets for 
 the sardonyx seal, and all through the morn- 
 ing session Spurlock sat staring at nothing, 
 taking no part in the proceedings except to 
 answer to his name absently on some unimpor- 
 tant roll-call. Observing so little himself, he 
 was closely observed by all others, whose 
 interest in his action to-day was kindled 
 afresh by the unexpected aspect which the 
 troops had given the situation, and by the 
 reports from every quarter, that in view of 
 this new turn of affairs he would now fall 
 into line and elect Judge Majendie. 
 
 " Spurlock seems to be hard hit," said one 
 of Majendie's men to another, as the two 
 eyed " the bolter ' ' a few seats away. " Well, 
 it must go pretty rough with him to lose out 
 at the very last, after the fight he has made 
 all through the session. But we've got him 
 sure enough this time; it's as plain as the 
 look on his face. It'll be Senator Majendie 
 before we go to dinner."
 
 114 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 Spurlock's first impulse, when Judge Ma- 
 jendie had announced himself the bearer of 
 the seal, was one of stilling surprise and ex- 
 ultant joy. 
 
 That now, of all times, he should receive 
 that all-significant token from Innis Majen- 
 die, seemed so impossible that the judge's 
 assurance had left Spurlock in that arrested 
 attitude from which the man of the snake- 
 track reminiscence had aroused him, while 
 under his exterior tense calm coursed the tu- 
 multuous current of his realization of all that 
 the judge's assurance meant. For it was in- 
 evitable that to any suggestion of his seal's 
 return, however and whenever such a sugges- 
 tion might be made, the first, if fleeting, re- 
 sponse of his senses should leap to the infer- 
 ence that she whom he loved had taken him 
 at his word, and had thus signified her will- 
 ingness that he should again plead his cause. 
 But with him now that response was fleeting, 
 indeed; for reason quickly asserted itself and 
 laid bare the unyielding improbability of any 
 such inference as that which for a moment 
 had so whelmed him. He had not seen or 
 heard from Innis since her cool reception of 
 him at Julia Page's, and there was absolutely 
 nothing to warrant the hope that she cared
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 115 
 
 more for him now than she had when he had 
 given her the seal the preceding summer. On 
 the other hand, so far as there were any out- 
 ward signs, they indicated the contrary. But 
 even if it were otherwise if it could be that 
 Innis had relented and, in order to shorten 
 the ban of silence under which she had virt- 
 ually placed him, had brought herself to 
 take the method which he had urged upon 
 her, she was not the girl to do so at this 
 particular time, in view of the relations 
 between himself and her father, and the 
 influence on those relations which her ac- 
 tion might be misconstrued as intended to 
 effect. 
 
 Spurlock was in his seat in the House when 
 this thought crossed his mind, and his chin 
 sank inward in self-contempt that such a 
 thought could come to him, even involuntar- 
 ily. He was sure that Innis Majendie was 
 incapable of attempting to move him as her 
 lover, or even as her friend, in favor of her 
 father, as devoted to her father as Spurlock 
 knew her to be; but while spurning all idea 
 of such an explanation of the return of the 
 seal at this time, he scorned himself because 
 he was conscious of it long enough to spurn 
 it. If no man is a hero to his valet, how
 
 n6 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 much less is any man with a normal brain a 
 hero to himself? 
 
 Spurlock could find no key to Judge Ma- 
 jendie's words. He tried to recall them 
 precisely, in order that he might weigh them 
 more accurately. He was almost certain the 
 judge had not literally said that Innis had 
 sent the seal, but that was the only inference 
 that had been impressed upon Spurlock by 
 what the judge did say, and that was the 
 only inference, the premises considered, that 
 could be drawn. No one knew, Spurlock 
 reasoned, that he had given Innis the seal 
 no one but herself, unless she had chosen to 
 share her knowledge with someone else. Had 
 she told her father? Had she made him her 
 messenger ? The judge had said he had 
 brought back the seal ; his manner had in- 
 dicated that he knew the import of its res- 
 toration to Spurlock. Did he? Was the 
 part the judge was taking incidental and 
 honest, or was it another of his paltry tricks 
 to serve his own ends ? Surely it was too 
 inexpressibly small, too base, although Spur- 
 lock had come to believe that hardly any- 
 thing was too small or too base to serve the 
 ends of those who had plied the arts of 
 "politics" at Frankfort for the last few
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 117 
 
 weeks. After all, improbable as it was, the 
 most probable assumption was that Innis had 
 returned the seal to him through her father, 
 and that the only thing it could mean, in 
 view of the implied understanding with 
 which she had accepted it, was that she had 
 yielded to his prayer and thus confessed to 
 him her readiness to reconsider the answer 
 she had given him when he had asked of her 
 everything. 
 
 If that was true, if that glory was to be 
 his ! but why had she chosen this time to 
 impart it to him ; why had she chosen this 
 man through whom to impart it? Could 
 it be that in her love for her father, blind- 
 ed and directed by the strongest of par- 
 tisanship, that of the feminine heart, she in- 
 nocently believed that her lover's personal 
 relations to herself would and should de- 
 termine his public relations to her father? 
 Spurlock impatiently drew his hand across 
 his face, as if to clear the cobwebs away. 
 His mind was groping in a circle. It had 
 staggered back to the very point where at 
 the beginning it had indignantly rejected 
 the unbidden thought of Innis Majendie's 
 possible complicity in any plan to influence 
 his vote.
 
 Ii8 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " May God forgive me ; I did not know 
 I was so unworthy of her ! ' ' was almost 
 on his lips as he arose, oppressed, as by the 
 close atmosphere, and started toward the 
 door. 
 
 As he reached it a detaining hand was 
 laid upon his arm, and looking around he 
 saw the serious face of Tot Waugh raised in 
 anxious inquiry. " What's the matter ? Are 
 you sick?" Tot whispered. "You ain't 
 goin' to leave now, are you ? Look at the 
 clock; it's time for the joint session ! " 
 
 "That is true, Tot; I had not noticed 
 it." 
 
 Already there was the tramp of the State 
 Senators as they filed into the House for the 
 last joint session to ballot for a United 
 States Senator, and Spurlock turned and 
 went back to his seat. 
 
 As the roll-call for the ballot began there 
 were few eyes in the chamber that were not 
 fixed upon Spurlock. A deaf man across the 
 hall from Spurlock preferred to watch Tot 
 Waugh. "I've a little scheme," he 
 chuckled to a member sitting near him. " I 
 can't hear Spurlock' s vote unless he an- 
 nounces it through a megaphone, but I'll 
 know as soon as anybody in the house
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 119 
 
 whether he votes for Majendie. All I've 
 got to do is to keep Waugh's face in sight. ' ' 
 
 As the call progressed this is what the 
 deaf man saw : Tot's restless eyes, with lids 
 rapidly and irregularly batting, ranged to 
 and fro between the clerk and Spurlock ; he 
 fast bit to pieces an unlighted cigar, sputter- 
 ing the fragments to the floor j the dull red 
 of his complexion gave place to a dull gray; 
 the perspiration seeped out on his forehead. 
 Suddenly the remnant of the cigar fell from 
 between his teeth, his gaze quickly deserted 
 the clerk and fastened upon Spurlock, he 
 leaned far forward and waited intently for 
 two seconds; then he started loosely, as a 
 man sometimes does when struck unexpect- 
 edly between the shoulders from behind, his 
 lower lip fell, the moisture on his forehead 
 seemed to have got into his eyes, when, 
 with a shuffle of his shoes on the floor as he 
 drew himself more erect in his seat, he 
 slowly reached for his handkerchief and 
 helplessly blew his nose. 
 
 " That settles it ! " said the deaf man, 
 aloud. " Majendie will never be Senator." 
 
 It was not necessary to look upon the 
 blank faces of the Majendie men for con- 
 firmation. Spurlock and Waugh voted for
 
 I2O 
 
 Thaxter to the last, and the Legislature ad- 
 journed without electing a United States 
 Senator.* 
 
 * This story makes no pretensions to historical 
 accuracy. While there has been in Kentucky a 
 Senatorial contest in some respects similar to that of 
 this narrative, facts have here been freely modified 
 for the purposes of fiction. The characters which 
 figure by name in the tale are, with one minor and 
 partial exception, imaginary, and it must not be as- 
 sumed that they are intended as either portraits or 
 caricatures of real persons.
 
 XIII 
 
 BY midnight Spurlock was back at Airdrie. 
 He had taken the first train from Frankfort 
 after the adjournment of the Legislature, his 
 one thought now being to see Innis Majendie 
 and learn from her the real meaning of the 
 seal's return. It had not crossed his mind 
 as of any consequence that the seal had not 
 yet been returned. Whatever part the judge 
 had played in the matter, and however petty 
 it might be, that he had deliberately lied 
 had not been suspected by Spurlock. Not 
 that Spurlock believed him incapable of 
 lying to serve his political plans, but in this 
 instance his possession of the seal was an 
 assumption naturally following his disclosure 
 that he knew anything about it, and his inti- 
 mation that he was aware of its significance. 
 Spurlock had not seen him since they had 
 parted at the entrance of the Capitol that 
 morning ; his only object now was to go di- 
 rectly to Innis. 
 
 It was at an early hour next day that after 
 121
 
 122 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 a brisk gallop he dismounted at the Majen- 
 die gate. As he walked up the avenue of 
 spruces, between the old-fashioned beds of 
 old-fashioned flowers, the smooth sward 
 broken by the deeper green of the shrubbery 
 which he knew was Innis's care, and the 
 breeze gently stirring the dainty curtains at 
 the windows which he knew were hers, Spur- 
 lock for the moment was near forgetting all 
 else except that he was surrounded by sug- 
 gestions of her the things she daily saw and 
 touched and loved and that he was return- 
 ing to her. But the jangle of the door-bell 
 as he rang it recalled him discordantly to 
 the real nature of his doubtful mission, and 
 as the door opened and closed upon him it 
 was as if it had shut out the Innis he knew 
 the Innis of the summer time and the open 
 air and had shut him in with the chill 
 uncertainties of the Innis he was seeking to 
 know. 
 
 He waited in the dim light while the ser- 
 vant went to announce him, but instead of 
 Innis, for whom he had asked, Judge Ma- 
 jendie came in to receive him. 
 
 The judge paused in the doorway, adjust- 
 ing his glasses to his nose, and then crossed 
 to the windows and threw open the blinds.
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 123 
 
 He turned and inspected Spurlock in the 
 light thus admitted before speaking. 
 
 "Ah! good-morning, Mr. Spurlock," he 
 said. " The servant insisted it was you, but 
 I was not sure. In fact, I had very serious 
 doubts that it could be you." 
 
 The change in the judge's manner was 
 not great, but it was not imperceptible. He 
 had never before addressed Spurlock as " Mr. 
 Spurlock," and while his face wore its usual 
 smile and his tones were softened by their 
 usual suavity it was easier to see now that 
 his smile was a mask and his suavity an af- 
 fectation. 
 
 "Yes," answered Spurlock, who had risen 
 and was not again invited to sit down, " I 
 should like very much to see Miss Innis this 
 morning." 
 
 " That is ar unfortunate, I am afraid. 
 Innis wishes me to say that she hopes you 
 will excuse her." 
 
 Spurlock flinched slightly, although there 
 was nothing to indicate that the judge had 
 noted it except perhaps a glow of genuine- 
 ness which came into his smile. Redden- 
 ing a little, and slowly, Spurlock stared in 
 silence at the judge, as if awaiting some 
 qualifying addition to his words. But none
 
 124 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 came, and with an expression of regret Spur- 
 lock bade his host good-morning and turned 
 to leave. 
 
 "One moment, Mr. Spurlock," the judge 
 requested. " I am glad you came by to-day, 
 for it gives me an opportunity to say to you 
 that I ar was mistaken about the little mat- 
 ter of which I spoke to you when I saw you 
 last. You remember? the ar watch-seal. 
 Well," laughing, "when I mentioned it to 
 you the other day, I was under the impression 
 that it was yours. I ar found it in a 
 crack of the old veranda flooring, out there 
 in front of the library window, and thinking 
 that you had lost it on some of your visits 
 here for I was quite sure I had seen you 
 wear one very much like it I put it in my 
 pocket with the intention of' restoring it to 
 you the first time I ran across you. But " 
 and the judge suspended his words in his 
 laughter at what he seemed to regard an 
 amusing joke on himself " but, on my re- 
 turn from Frankfort, when I happened to 
 mention my find to Innis, why, to my dis- 
 comfiture, she informed me that it was her 
 own property, and seemed to be positively 
 annoyed that I should have thought of giv- 
 ing it to you. ' '
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 125 
 
 Spurlock could not help smiling at the 
 littleness of the role the man was playing. 
 
 "But," the judge continued with anoth- 
 er interjection of laughter, " but, seeing she 
 did not relish my comedy of errors, I was 
 judicious enough not to tell her the whole 
 of it. I did not confess I had taken her 
 ar jewelry, ha ! ha ! to Frankfort for the 
 purpose of turning it over to you. And I 
 did not own up that I had actually informed 
 you in so many words that I had brought 
 it up for you. Fact is, Spurlock, she doesn't 
 know that I have ever said a word to you 
 about it. I am too old a lawyer to volun- 
 tarily incriminate myself, aha ! ha ! " 
 
 Spurlock left feeling sure that in most of 
 what Majendie had said about the seal he 
 had lied. Habitual dissembler that he was, 
 he had completely failed in making much 
 impression of sincerity in this instance. 
 Spurlock did not believe the judge had 
 found the seal. He did not believe now 
 that he had taken it to Frankfort at all. 
 About all of the story he did believe was that 
 Innis was ignorant of the trick her father had 
 tried to play through his proposition to re- 
 turn the seal. That Majendie had learned 
 something of the significance of the seal,
 
 126 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 which Spurlock had supposed was known 
 only to Innis and himself, was evident. 
 How it had been learned Spurlock did not 
 know, and probably never would know. 
 Nor did he concern himself much about 
 that, for he realized now that the incident 
 was but one of the strategical manoeuvres of 
 the " Honorable " candidate for the United 
 States Senate, and he realized further that 
 Innis not only had not sent for him, but 
 that she had declined to see him when he 
 called.
 
 XIV 
 
 WITH the exception of a distant glimpse 
 of her a month later, Spurlock did not see 
 Innis Majendie for two years and a half. 
 The exception was as he rode out from Lou- 
 isville one afternoon. He had opened a law 
 office in the city, between which and Air- 
 drie he went to and fro daily. Twice a day 
 it was necessary for him to pass the home of 
 the Majendies, but Innis had been nowhere 
 visible until this particular afternoon. Then, 
 when the house came into view two hundred 
 yards up the road, he saw her sitting on the 
 veranda. His eyes strained toward her, and 
 even that far away he fancied he could see 
 the play of her soft hair in the April breeze. 
 He knew he could see the flickering sunlight 
 as it sifted down on her through the young 
 leaves, and he was sure he recognized the 
 dress she wore. It was one in which he 
 remembered her under the flickering sun- 
 light and young leaves of the preceding 
 spring, in the days when he had first known 
 127
 
 128 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 and loved her. Just then someone passed 
 and spoke to him, and when he turned his 
 eyes again to the veranda all that he beheld 
 of Innis was a segment of the dress swiftly 
 disappearing in the doorway. He did not 
 doubt that she had hastily vanished at sight 
 of him. He looked off to the left, along the 
 vista of the river, burnished by the horizon- 
 tal sun and stretching vaguely between undu- 
 lant reaches of shadowily wooded shore till it 
 seemed to melt in mist into the opalescent 
 clouds of the eastern sky. But it was all lost 
 on Spurlock now ; for he had a sudden feel- 
 ing of impatience that where the river wound 
 around to the left there was not a road that he 
 could use in passing the Majendies. For the 
 moment he was visited with a grim conceit 
 that he was a trespasser on even any public 
 road that took him in the unwelcome sight 
 of the girl. 
 
 Already he was encouraged to believe he 
 would make some headway in the law. His 
 service in the Legislature had advertised him 
 well, and his course had won him admirers, 
 two or three of whom had thrown some busi- 
 ness in his hands. About this time a pros- 
 perous merchant, who had originally come 
 to Louisville from the mountains, and whose
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 129 
 
 kinsmen had inherited a family feud, sought 
 Spurlock, whom he took, as he explained, to 
 be "a man of sand, as well as sense," and 
 employed him to go up into one of the 
 mountain counties and prosecute three or 
 four of the notorious Raintrees, who had been 
 under indictment for murder several years, 
 but who had thus far escaped even trial, hav- 
 ing killed one prosecuting attorney and in- 
 timidated other officers of the court. Spur- 
 lock was over two months in bringing the 
 Raintrees to justice, and when he got back 
 from the mountains he learned that Mrs. 
 Majendie had died, and that Innis had gone 
 for a long trip abroad with Julia Page and 
 her mother. And in less than a year Judge 
 Majendie, who seemed to have entirely aban- 
 doned political ambition, had married a rich 
 and ever-bediamonded woman, who, scarcely 
 six weeks before, had secured her divorce and 
 alimony in his court. When this took place 
 Spurlock for once was glad that Innis was on 
 the other side of the world. 
 
 Spurlock, grubbing away at his law, had 
 seen nothing of Sam Dolliver since that in- 
 dividual had been shown from Spurlock' s 
 room at Frankfort. But one day, a little 
 over a year after the adjournment of the
 
 130 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 Legislature, Dolliver blandly walked into 
 Spurlock's office and greeted him as if they 
 were upon the pleasantest terms. 
 
 " Howdydo, Mr. Spurlock ? " he said, 
 drawing a chair nearer to Spurlock, and sit- 
 ting down. " I'd like to have a little talk 
 with you if you've got a few minutes to spare." 
 
 Spurlock contemplated his visitor silently 
 at first, a smile coming into his eyes. Then 
 he inquired, 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "You see, it's this way, Mr. Spurlock. 
 Some of your friends is wondering why, after 
 you made such a brilliant record last year in 
 the Legislature, you don't keep on in pol- 
 itics." 
 
 "Out with it, Dolliver. What is it you 
 want now ? ' ' 
 
 "I don't want nothing myself, Mr. Spur- 
 lock ; but there's a chance for you to do the 
 party a good turn, and we all take you to be 
 the man to do it. You see the convention 
 is coming on pretty close now, and it ain't 
 no small job to get the right men for so many 
 offices. It's only a county and city elec- 
 tion, and no national issue don't cut no fig- 
 ure in it, and so we ought to be able to get 
 the two wings of the party together. We got
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 131 
 
 to get them together to win, and it's mighty 
 important for us to win, with every paying 
 office in the county to be filled." 
 
 " I see," answered Spurlock, " there is no 
 principle at stake, and so we must all stand 
 together for the local offices." 
 
 " A party that don't go in for everything 
 in sight, Mr. Spurlock, won't be able long 
 to get nothing. Party workers has got to 
 see something to work for, and when there is 
 anything good to be passed round, a party 
 has got to do its best to get it for its own 
 supporters, or it won't have supporters enough 
 long to carry local or any other sort of elec- 
 tions. What we want now is to get the best 
 men of both wings of the party on our ticket, 
 and harmonize the party, and we'll sweep 
 everything, from the judges and the mayor 
 down to the councilmen and the constables. 
 You are recognized as a leader of one wing, 
 Mr. Spurlock, and there is a a general desire 
 that you help close the split, and go on the 
 ticket. Now, there is the chancery judge- 
 ship. It's a nice berth, with a good salary, 
 and you will be doing the party a service by 
 accepting the nomination. There's twenty 
 fellows anxious for it, but it's waiting for 
 you, if you'll say the word."
 
 132 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " Why not the commonwealth's attorney- 
 ship, Dolliver ? " asked Spurlock, levelling 
 his eyes upon Dolliver, and smiling in a con- 
 templative way. 
 
 There was that in the question or the smile 
 which seemed to disturb Dolliver somewhat. 
 He crossed and recrossed his legs. " Well," 
 he replied, stooping down and picking up a 
 pin from the floor before continuing, "you 
 see, we've done promised that is, Yates 
 already has such a lead for that place that it 
 would be impossible to head him off. But 
 chancellor is a better thing, anyway." 
 
 Spurlock's smile broadened. " Dolliver," 
 he said, "didn't Colonel Oilman tell you I 
 would have nothing to do with your ticket?" 
 
 " Colonel Oilman did tell me you would 
 not consent to run, bufl was in hopes that 
 when you'd come to think it over you would 
 reconsider. Colonel Gilman and Colonel 
 McLemore and General Coburn and James 
 B. Strobe and nearly all the prominent Thax- 
 ter men have buried the hatchet and are with 
 us, and both sides is going to reunite and 
 pull together for victory. And they are all 
 counting on you to help." 
 
 "It is not a question of Thaxter or anti- 
 Thaxter men. So far as I can see, it is not
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 133 
 
 a question of one faction or another, or even 
 of one party or another. As you have said, 
 there is no national issue involved. It seems 
 to me simply a question of good government 
 or bad government ; of whether the people 
 of the city and the county shall choose their 
 own officials or whether Samuel Dolliver shall 
 dictate and control them." 
 
 Dolliver stuck two or three times 'into the 
 leather-covered arm of his chair the pin which 
 he had picked up, his eyes fixed upon the 
 operation, and a low, nervous laugh parting 
 his lips. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Spurlock," he replied, "that's 
 the old story that my enemies always falls 
 back on, and you certainly ain't got no call 
 to be one of them. I think it's the duty of 
 every good citizen to take a active part in 
 politics, and that's what I'm trying to get 
 you to do." 
 
 "Dolliver," Spurlock said, settling him- 
 self comfortably in his chair> "I'm pretty 
 sure I understand you, and I want you to 
 understand me. I do not wish to wound 
 your sensibilities, and I should not speak if 
 I thought I should do that. I know you 
 very much better now than when you came 
 to me over a year and a half ago and asked
 
 134 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 me to run for the Legislature. I know that 
 those who regard you as wholly bad wrong 
 you ; for many poor people love you. You 
 spend your money generously, whatever may 
 be the methods by which you get it. You 
 stand by your friends, and you keep your 
 promises ; but the trouble is that you look 
 upon all public offices, whether elective or 
 appointive, as legitimate assets for the set- 
 tlement of your personal debts; and many 
 of those who style themselves ' the better 
 elements ' share with you the same views. 
 That is not the worst, however. You pursue 
 the game of what you call politics not only 
 as a pleasure, but as a business. You not 
 only delight in the power to parcel out ' pat- 
 ronage,' but you make it pay you. You 
 want no office yourself, but you have ac- 
 quired wealth by putting men in office men 
 who will do your bidding. You claim to be 
 a strict party man because you know that it is 
 through strict party organization that you 
 must work for the rewards of success. You 
 profess to be a Democrat, and yet you are no 
 more a Democrat than you are a Republican 
 or a Prohibitionist. You call yourself a Dem- 
 ocrat because the Democrats have long been 
 the strongest party here ; if the Republicans,
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 135 
 
 or the Carlists, had been the strongest, you 
 would have been a Republican or a Carlist. 
 You know nothing of the principles of any 
 party, and you would sacrifice the principles 
 of all parties to win a thousand dollar office 
 for some confederate of yours, or to put some 
 agent of yours in an unsalaried seat in the 
 City Council. You sent Colonel Oilman to 
 me because you thought a request from him 
 that I go on your ticket would have more 
 weight with me than if made by any of your 
 gang. You use men like Colonel Gilman in 
 your game to give it an appearance of respect- 
 ability, and they try to use you because they 
 believe it is necessary to fight fire with the 
 devil when they set forth as political reform- 
 ers. You must have thought me as ignorant 
 of what was going on as I was when I once 
 went on one of your tickets. But I have 
 been expecting this visit for several days, 
 Dolliver. I happened to have heard of a 
 certain meeting, one rainy night not long 
 ago, over a certain saloon, in which you and 
 two or three of your crew, with a stool pig- 
 eon or two from the better elements, blocked 
 out the whole ticket that is to be nominated 
 by the convention. I know that every name 
 you wished on that ticket was agreed to, and
 
 136 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 that if it be nominated and elected you will 
 retain all your power as the puppet-puller of 
 our local government, and you and all your 
 business enterprises will be safe until the next 
 election. I know especially that, notwith- 
 standing all your talk about the importance 
 of winning a party victory, you would rather 
 see the whole ticket beaten than see it elected 
 without men of your own choosing for cer- 
 tain offices, notably that of commonwealth's 
 attorney. If you want to elect me common- 
 wealth's attorney, Dolliver, go ahead. I 
 promise you that I would do my best to en- 
 force the laws, and I am confident that if I 
 should succeed in enforcing them a good 
 many of your friends in the city government, 
 as well as yourself, would be transferred to 
 the penitentiary. Will you smoke? " 
 
 Spurlock offered Dolliver a cigar and 
 lighted one himself. Dolliver gave the pin 
 a final shove and left it sticking up to its 
 head in the leather as he rose. He took the 
 cigar and said, as he puffed away in the 
 blaze of the match : 
 
 " Well, young man, I see you ain't learned 
 nothing in the last year, and I'm afraid there 
 ain't no use talking common-sense to you 
 yet."
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 137 
 
 "Perhaps I ought to add, Dolliver," 
 Spurlock finished, " that I am going to do 
 what little I can to defeat your ticket." 
 
 Dolliver, who had reached the door, 
 paused and turned, his oily face wrinkled by 
 one of his soft laughs. " If you were not so 
 hard to learn you wouldn't do that," he 
 said. " You are too green in politics to put 
 up much of a fight against the whole organi- 
 zation of a great party. Besides, most peo- 
 ple will call your opposition a case of sour 
 grapes when they hear that you wanted the 
 nomination for commonwealth's attorney, 
 but was turned down." 
 
 Spurlock could not help laughing at this. 
 "You score the first trick, Dolliver. Take 
 another cigar."
 
 XV 
 
 SPURLOCK lost no time in getting to work 
 against what was already known as Dolliver's 
 "slate." The convention was less than a 
 month away, and while Spurlock realized 
 the apparently absolute hopelessness of trying 
 to prevent the nomination of the ticket, he 
 believed that a fight against it in the con- 
 vention would at least serve to weaken it be- 
 fore the people by exposing the undemocratic 
 character of its origin. He found in the 
 city, and in the county, a strong, but inac- 
 tive and unorganized sentiment against 
 " Dolliverism." " Good citizens " were 
 emphatic in their protestation against the 
 lawless rule of Dolliver, yet were passive 
 in their submission to it. Representatives 
 of "the business interests" complained of 
 the burden with which they were inflicted by 
 Dolliver's prostitution of power, and yet 
 confessed that they did not even take the 
 time to go to the polls, as they felt sure that 
 their votes against "the gang" would not 
 138
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 139 
 
 be counted. Many worthy and respected 
 men denounced the " Dolliver ring" as 
 "infamous," and insisted that the only way 
 to combat it was with its own weapons of 
 bribery, fraud, and force. Members of the 
 Municipal Reform Club listened sympathet- 
 ically to Spurlock and invited him to join 
 the club, which gave annual banquets at 
 which thoughtful papers on good city gov- 
 ernment were read and discussed. Among 
 all these, however, Spurlock met some who 
 were earnest enough and practical enough to 
 co-operate with him in a zealous and system- 
 atic effort to get out a representative attend- 
 ance at the ward conventions which were 
 to select the delegates to the county con- 
 vention. 
 
 This effort was so successful that several 
 of the ward meetings were much larger than 
 usual, containing many faces new in such 
 gatherings. In two of the wards the anti- 
 Dolliver men were so strong that no attempt 
 was made by the Dolliverites to name the 
 delegates to the county convention ; in an- 
 other ward less than a dozen of Dolliver's 
 retainers seceded and held a separate meet- 
 ing ; while in a fourth ward, one of Dolli- 
 ver's ruffians rushed up and tried to knock
 
 14 " IF I WERE A MAN " 
 
 from the platform the regularly elected chair- 
 man and was himself knocked from it by the 
 Hon. Tottenham Waugh, who, though no 
 longer a resident of the city, had come in 
 from Airdrie, where he held the sinecure of 
 Assistant Manager, to look on at the delib- 
 erations of one of the ward primaries. 
 
 When the county convention met, how- 
 ever, the Dolliver men so outnumbered their 
 opponents that the anti-Dolliver delegations 
 from all four of these wards were summarily 
 thrown out and Dolliverites were as sum- 
 marily seated in their places. This was such 
 a flagrant and even needless outrage that it 
 greatly incensed and increased the opposition 
 to the Dolliver Slate, and the fight against 
 it, which had been started by Spurlock and 
 his associates prior to the convention, was 
 continued with all the more energy after- 
 ward. Even the Municipal Reform Club 
 held a special meeting, sans banquet and 
 treatises, and resolved to put a " Citizens' 
 Ticket" in the field, and, as one of the 
 speakers expressed it, " take off our coats and 
 work for it till the polls close on Election 
 Day." Spurlock espoused this ticket. There 
 was no other choice. It is true that the 
 Republican "machine" had also nominated
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN " 141 
 
 a ticket, but there was little difference be- 
 tween it and that of the Democrats, either 
 in origin, personality, or purpose, while the 
 Citizens' Ticket, made up of reputable men 
 of all parties, most of whom had never sought 
 and did not care for office, was certainly one 
 to command the approbation of those who 
 desired that public affairs should be admin- 
 istered for the public good instead of for the 
 profit of the administrators. 
 
 Spurlock threw himself into the campaign 
 for this ticket with zest and energy. He 
 was a novice in such work and he had little 
 conception of the difficulty of carrying to 
 success an "independent" ticket in oppo- 
 sition to the regular party organizations con- 
 trolling the election machinery, and under 
 an election law devised to discourage such 
 opposition. Simply believing that the ticket 
 should win and that the others should be 
 beaten, he did what he could to effect those 
 results. 
 
 He soon found that he had taken the lead 
 in this work. The Municipal Reform Club 
 seemed to rely more upon the indignation 
 which Dolliver's convention had aroused 
 and upon the merits of the Citizens' Ticket 
 itself than upon any active efforts in its be-
 
 142 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 half, and it devolved upon Spurlock, aided 
 by those who had stood with him in the 
 fight against Dolliver before the meeting of 
 the convention, to form an organization for 
 systematically pushing the canvass. This 
 done, he took the " stump," making a series 
 of speeches which Tot Waugh pronounced 
 " the greatest that ever come down the pike." 
 But wishing to reach a wider audience than 
 he could secure in this way, it was not long 
 before he had started a newspaper. Both 
 the other tickets had advocates among the 
 journals of the city, but the Citizens' Ticket 
 was without an " organ " until Spurlock be- 
 gan the publication of The Standard. The 
 Standard was launched as a weekly, but its 
 second number had not been issued before 
 Spurlock realized that in such work as he 
 had to do the press was not a hammer that 
 drove the nails of truth home at one stroke, 
 or a few strokes, but that to be most effective 
 its blows must be frequent as well as con- 
 stant. Hence The Standard became a daily. 
 It was a big undertaking for one who had 
 no journalistic experience outside of his col- 
 lege magazine, but Spurlock had sense 
 enough to employ trained newspaper men to 
 take the executive places on The Standard,
 
 " IF I WERE A MAN " 143 
 
 while he devoted himself to the editorial 
 page, bringing to it a straightforward force 
 and fairness that undoubtedly accomplished 
 much for the Citizens' Ticket. Indeed, it 
 so disturbed some of Dolliver's nominees 
 that Dolliver himself, though in no sense 
 alarmed, began to believe that he had made 
 a mistake in allowing his convention to 
 ruthlessly eject the opposition delegates. 
 There were many to say that in permitting 
 that action Dolliver, shrewd politician that 
 he was, for once had stupidly blundered, al- 
 though they should not forget that he had 
 reason for such confidence in his own re- 
 sources that he felt he could safely indulge 
 his followers in their desire to wreak this 
 petty vengeance upon the " Silk Stockings " 
 and "White Wings," an indulgence which 
 at the same time served to inflame the ardor 
 of the party " workers," on whom so much 
 depended.
 
 XVI 
 
 The Standard was about two months old 
 when Colonel Cash Bulliard came to town 
 on the loudly avowed mission to "do up 
 the hell-spawned sheet." Dolliver was dis- 
 posed to pooh-pooh the paper, but to many 
 of his satellites it was clearly a source of 
 irritation and apprehension. Spurlock had 
 reason to know this, for there were few mails 
 that did not bring him badly written, anony- 
 mous notes, warning him to do, or not to do, 
 this or that, on penalty of the horse-whip, or 
 of tar and feathers, of arson, or assassination. 
 Spurlock paid less attention to these than 
 Dolliver professed to pay to The Standard, 
 going on with his work and keeping it up to 
 the high plane upon which he had pitched 
 it from the first, shunning all personality of 
 a private nature and ignoring all shafts or 
 bludgeons of personal vilification and men- 
 ace aimed at himself. But Colonel Cash 
 Bulliard was not a man to hide behind 
 anonymous notes. From time to time since 
 144
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 145 
 
 the birth of The Standard there had come 
 up from " the Pennyrile," where Colonel 
 Cash Bulliard ranged, ominous rumblings of 
 what he was going to do to " that bastard 
 hand-bill" when he arrived in town. And 
 now Colonel Bulliard had arrived ; for Spur- 
 lock had been informed by Tot Waugh that 
 he had seen with his own eyes the colonel, 
 in full voice, occupying two chairs, where 
 chairs were in great demand by the local 
 and country statesmen known as the Patch- 
 work Club, which for years had maintained 
 the rights of squatter sovereignty on the 
 pavement in front of a certain hotel, within 
 unobstructed and stimulating view of those 
 Meccas of " party-line" patriots, the court- 
 house, the city hall, and the jail. 
 
 Colonel Bulliard had been a fellow- cam- 
 paigner with Dolliver on many a hard-fought 
 political field, and was an extravagant ad- 
 mirer of the Louisville "boss." He be- 
 lieved that in his own party everything was 
 right, and in all other parties everything 
 was wrong. It was his boast that he took 
 his liquor and his politics "straight," and 
 it was his creed that if anything was worse 
 than a " Mugwump " it was a bolter. He 
 considered Spurlock both. " The fellow is
 
 146 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 a fish-blooded Mugwump, ' ' the colonel had 
 been known to characterize Spurlock "a 
 Mugwump because he manufactures his own 
 principles, which he grades as better than 
 anybody else's, and a bolter because he pro- 
 fesses to belong to the Democratic party and 
 yit kicks out of the traces the fust time the 
 road don't run to suit him." Colonel Bul- 
 liard had learned to abhor Spurlock during 
 the Majendie campaign at Frankfort. He 
 had been a conspicuous member of the 
 judge's lobby, and in his interest had re- 
 mained at the capital throughout the session 
 of the Legislature. He was violently de- 
 monstrative when displeased, and it had 
 been generally credited at Frankfort that 
 only the cooler counsel and vigilant inter- 
 position of men like Dolliver and Majendie 
 had prevented the colonel from seeking 
 Spurlock and making good the threat to 
 "carve his heart out." From one end of 
 the State to the other, Colonel Cash Bull- 
 iard had the reputation of being "a dan- 
 gerous man." It was not known how 
 many people he had killed ; indeed, it was 
 not known that he had killed any; but 
 there were many grewsome rumors of the 
 "mortalities" which marked the path he
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 147 
 
 had mowed through life, and there was a 
 prevalent belief that there were few States 
 in the Southwest in which he had not left 
 some slice of the human beings he had 
 "carved" in his various "personal ren- 
 counters." There were stories to fill a vol- 
 ume told of his prowess, one of the most re- 
 cent being of the day at the race-track when, 
 disgusted at the poor odds offered against 
 the horse he wished to back, he drew his 
 knife a beautiful cross between a razor and 
 a bowie and "went down the line," driv- 
 ing from his box every bookmaker until he 
 reached one who had posted more liberal 
 figures than the others, to whom the colonel, 
 after placing his bet, presented the wonder- 
 ful knife, " with the compliments of Colonel 
 Cash Bulliard to the only man in the ring 
 who wouldn't use it to trim odds or peel 
 apples. ' ' 
 
 It was between two and three o'clock 
 on the night following the day when Tot 
 Waugh had reported the appearance in the 
 city of Colonel Cash Bulliard. Spurlock, 
 in his office on the top floor of The Stand- 
 ard building, had finished his work and 
 had picked up a foreign paper in which he 
 had discovered, and was reading over and
 
 148 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 over, a paragraph announcing the arrival in 
 Antwerp of Mrs. and Miss Page and Miss 
 Majendie. The telephone in the corner 
 rang several times before he rose and an- 
 swered it. 
 
 " Hello ! is this The Standard?" came 
 in an unrecognizable voice over the wires. 
 
 " Yes," Spurlock replied. 
 
 " Is Spurlock there? " 
 
 "This is Spurlock." 
 
 "Oh! Are you at leisure for a few 
 minutes ? ' ' 
 
 " If you come in the next half hour." 
 
 " You are in yo' own office, are you ? " 
 
 "lam." 
 
 " Is er is anybody else there ? " 
 
 "There is not." 
 
 " Not likely to be no one else soon ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of." 
 
 "Good! It's a private matter, you 
 know, and I wanted to be sho' befo' climb- 
 in" them stairs." 
 
 Spurlock went back to his seat and to the 
 paper which he had dropped. He found the 
 paragraph again, but about that time Tot 
 Waugh came in and, seating himself on one 
 corner of Spurlock's desk, asked if "we" 
 were going to have anything "great" in
 
 " IF I WERE A MAN " 149 
 
 the morning's Standard. Tot was decidedly 
 the "we" of The Standard. Whether it 
 was among the populace of the streets or in 
 the office of the paper, it was always " we " 
 when Tot spoke of The Standard. It was 
 " we are goin' to have a great editor'al to- 
 morrow," or, " that was hot stuff we had 
 to-day." It was his delight to read a galley 
 proof of Spurlock's leader for the next morn- 
 ing and then go out among the groundlings 
 and boast of the main points of " the corker 
 we're goin' to have in The Standard to- 
 morrow ; " while his scorn for anyone who 
 had not read the corker we had in The 
 Standard to-day, or yesterday, or last week, 
 was supreme. 
 
 He was no longer at Airdrie. It was im- 
 possible that he should remain in the coun- 
 try while a political campaign was going on 
 in town. He had, therefore, resigned his 
 sinecure of Assistant Manager of Airdrie, and 
 Spurlock had provided another sinecure for 
 him as night watchman of The Standard. 
 Hence, in sharing the editorial "we" of 
 that journal, he did not speak as one with- 
 out authority. 
 
 He was sitting on Spurlock's desk, swing- 
 ing his heels against its side by way of punct-
 
 150 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 uating the story he was telling of the "slick 
 work ' ' he had done that day in ' ' sowing 
 tacks", under one of Dolliver's "rubber- 
 tired " excursions into the Thirteenth Ward, 
 when the door was opened and Colonel 
 Cash Bulliard, followed by Councilman 
 Clum Koots, entered. Colonel Bulliard was 
 a man of about forty-five, large and well- 
 made, but who would have been more im- 
 pressive physically if his flesh had been of 
 a firmer texture. His long head seemed 
 lengthened further still by his thick, iron- 
 gray hair, which bristled straight up from 
 his forehead. His florid face was given a 
 fierce cast by the manner in which he wore 
 his beard, his chin and lower jaws being 
 shaven and his " mutton-chops," instead of 
 having the usual downward growth, being 
 trained aggressively upward. He was clad 
 in a suit of tow - linen, and would have 
 looked neat enough but for the immense 
 watch-chain that swung across his stomach 
 and for the diamonds and dirt he wore on 
 his expansive white shirt-bosom. Council- 
 man Columbus Koots, known throughout 
 the city as Clum Koots, was shorter than 
 the colonel, thick and square-shouldered, 
 with a neck of great circumference and no
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 151 
 
 length, on which was set a mansard-roofed 
 head, punctured by small eye-sockets very 
 near the line where his hair began. Clum 
 Koots was a hopeful disciple of Colonel Bul- 
 liard, and only a few days before had adopted 
 some of the colonel's tactics. Being a can- 
 didate for re-election to the City Council on 
 Dolliver's ticket, and The Standard having 
 produced conclusive proof of the sale of 
 his vote in the Council in favor of one of 
 Dolliver's jobs, resulting in Clum's indict- 
 ment by the grand jury, he had publicly 
 proclaimed that he would go to the office of 
 The Standard and "make that blackmailin' 
 sheet eat its lies, or would cut off the ears of 
 OgdenSpurlock." 
 
 As the colonel and Clum came in, Tot 
 Waugh, recognizing them over his shoulder, 
 slid from his perch and faced them, his eyes 
 sparkling with anticipation of the " fun " at 
 hand. Spurlock, keeping his seat, looked 
 up inquiringly. 
 
 " Well, young man," was Colonel Bull- 
 iard's greeting in somewhat shortened 
 breath, "I'd either negotiate for a elevator 
 or move the shebang into the suller. But 
 now's we're up here, say, Spurlock, we'd like 
 to have a little talk with you." To which
 
 152 ' "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 Clum Koots, wrinkling between the eyes, 
 nodded approval. 
 
 "Sit down, gentlemen," Spurlock said, 
 motioning to chairs ; "I am at your ser- 
 vice." 
 
 The colonel looked at the chairs and then 
 looked at Tot Waugh ; Clum looked at the 
 chairs and then looked at Tot Waugh. 
 
 "Hullo, Cash! Hullo, Clum!" Tot 
 grinned. 
 
 " You telephoned me that there was no 
 one here," Colonel Bulliard reminded Spur- 
 lock ; "I'd like to see you alone on a little 
 private business." 
 
 " Certainly," Spurlock assented. " Tot, 
 take Mr. Koots into the front room. You 
 might show him some of the exchanges while 
 he is waiting." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right ; that's all right ! " 
 the colonel demurred. " There's no reason 
 why Clum shouldn't know any business I 
 have with you." 
 
 " As you please," Spurlock replied. "And 
 there's no reason why Tot shouldn't know 
 any business I have with you. Won't you 
 be seated, gentlemen ? ' ' 
 
 Tot's grin widened, and he threw a leg 
 again over a corner of the desk as he con-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 153 
 
 tinued to gaze upon the visitors. Clum was 
 motionless and expressionless ; but the 
 colonel grew a little redder, and, resting 
 one foot on the rung of a chair, scrutinized 
 Spurlock with a frown for several seconds. 
 Then he turned to Koots. " Oh, well, 
 Clum, you go 'long with Waugh," he ordered, 
 impatiently ; "I can manage my part of it 
 easy enough by myself; and when I am 
 through you can have yo' say. Go on, and 
 lemme git done with it." 
 
 Clum turned stolidly to Tot, and Tot 
 looked to Spurlock for instruction. 
 
 "Accompany him into the next room, 
 Tot," Spurlock directed, "and entertain 
 him until I call for you. In the meantime 
 you are to let no one come in here to disturb 
 Colonel Bulliard and myself no one at all." 
 
 Spurlock's office was reached through a 
 small antechamber that opened into a long 
 corridor, down which the nearest sign of life 
 at this late hour was in the city room, occu- 
 pied now by a lone reporter on the last 
 watch. As Tot Waugh, with Koots, made 
 his unwilling departure, he did not resist the 
 temptation to leave the door slightly ajar, 
 and Colonel Bulliard, who was standing 
 near, closed it, at the same time turning the
 
 154 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 lock and removing the key. As the colonel 
 advanced from the door the hand with which 
 he had dropped the key into his pocket in- 
 stantly reappeared clasping a forty-four cali- 
 bre revolver, whose gleaming barrel pointed 
 straight at Spurlock's head. 
 
 " Make a move to take yo' hands off that 
 table," was Bulliard's warning, in a low, 
 fierce voice, " or make the least fuss, and, by 
 God, I'll pull the trigger! " 
 
 Spurlock was sitting by his desk, his left 
 arm resting on its flat top, and his right 
 hand beating with a penholder an idle tattoo 
 on the inkstand. He looked into the muz- 
 zle of the pistol, now just across the desk, 
 and into the flashing eyes and distorted, pal- 
 ing visage just beyond. 
 
 ''Be careful, man," he said; "your 
 nerves are still unsteady from climbing those 
 stairs." 
 
 " They are steady enough to plug you 
 square between the eyes unless you be care- 
 ful and obey my orders. ' ' 
 
 " Well, I've obeyed them so far. I have 
 neither removed my hands from the table, 
 nor made a fuss." 
 
 Bulliard's tense expression relaxed percep- 
 tibly, his big chest rose with an extended in-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 155 
 
 halation, and there were even symptoms of a 
 smile about his mouth and eyes as he spoke. 
 
 " Good, so far. But there's a lot mo' to 
 come ; and you want to be just as careful 
 about that." 
 
 " Go on, then, and don't stand there all 
 night poking that thing in my face." 
 
 " Well, you see, young man, I've had an 
 idee for some time that I'd take a whirl at 
 editin' The Standard, and I've come up to 
 edit her for this isher." 
 
 Spurlock looked at him in wonder, and 
 then with a slight laugh said, "You'd bet- 
 ter get to work then, for this issue will be on 
 the press in less than an hour now." 
 
 " I know it. Oh, I know all that," 
 laughing shortly and harshly. "I've got a 
 workin' knowledge of the modus operandies. 
 You wasn't aware I'd took a co'se in journal- 
 ism already, was you ? Well, you see, I laid 
 around the street to-day till I see you come 
 out to go and feed, and then I clum them 
 damn stairs and found my way in here, and 
 the nigger po'ter was cleanin' up things and 
 showed me round and told me all about it 
 when the paper closes up, and when she 
 is struck off, and how you raise the lid of 
 that little hole in the wall over there and
 
 156 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 drop yo' writin' into it, and the stuff goes 
 straight to the printers and comes out in the 
 paper sho-pop next mornin'. Oh, I know a 
 thing or two about editin', don't I ? " 
 
 " It seems so," Spurlock smiled. " And 
 are you going to drop some of your writing 
 into the hole in the wall for this morning's 
 Standard t" 
 
 " Not much ! Not much-ee ! But I'm 
 a-goin' to drop some of yo' writin' in it. 
 The printers mightn't recognize my writin' 
 as the editor's; but they wouldn't fail to 
 put yo' stuff into the paper ; see ? Do I 
 know anything about editin' or not ; hey? " 
 
 Spurlock, balancing the holder on the pen- 
 rack, answered, reflectively : 
 
 " You certainly seem to have mastered the 
 mysteries of the hole in the wall." 
 
 " Well, le's git to work. Here, take that 
 pen there and write what I tell you." 
 
 Bulliard threw upon the desk a long slip 
 of paper, on which was a printed column of 
 names, and Spurlock saw at a glance that it 
 was the full Dolliver ticket. 
 
 " Write on the margin of that, across the 
 top : ' Take the Citizens' ticket out and put 
 this in ' write, I tell you ! " 
 
 The colonel's voice swelled, his color
 
 - "IF I WERE A MAN" 157 
 
 darkened, his pistol inched nearer Spurlock's 
 head. Spurlock at first made no motion to 
 obey, but sat staring at the colonel with eyes 
 which suddenly lighted in comprehension of 
 the scheme. He had not thought the colonel 
 capable of originating such a stroke. To 
 obey him was to throw The Standard to the 
 support of the Dolliver ticket at least for 
 one day ; and if only for one day, still 
 that, and the story of how it was done, 
 would, of course, make the paper a laughing- 
 stock and utterly destroy its influence. To 
 disobey there was no telling what that ex- 
 cited fool with his pistol 
 
 "Write, I tell you!" thundered the 
 colonel. 
 
 Spurlock picked up the pen and held it, 
 waiting, over the circular. 
 
 " Write what I say now : ' Take the Citi- 
 zens' ticket out and put this in its place in to- 
 day' s Standard, without fail. 1 ' 
 
 Spurlock wrote. 
 
 " Now sign yo' name to it; and remem- 
 ber, no disguisin' yo' handwritin'. I know 
 it well, and won't have no monkeyin'." 
 
 Spurlock signed his name and waited for 
 the next step, keeping his left hand on the 
 circular.
 
 158 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " Now take a blank sheet of paper there," 
 the colonel ordered; "I've got a little 
 leader to write." 
 
 Spurlock did as demanded. 
 
 "Set down what I dictate now: ' The 
 Standard henceforth -will be a straight party 
 paper. It will fight for the party and the 
 party nominations through thick and thin. 
 Hence it hoists to its masthead this morniri 
 the regular party ticket, and calls upon all its 
 friends to stand by it till the close of the polls 
 in November, and vote for every name on it, 
 from top to bottom. ,' ' 
 
 Spurlock 's pen scratched regularly over 
 the paper, stopping a few seconds after Bull- 
 iard had finished. 
 
 "Now write on the margin, to yo' fo'- 
 man : ' Put this in without fail this morniif . 
 / sfta'n't wait to look over it. SPURLOCK.' 
 That'll about cover the case, I reckon, for 
 this isher. You can run her yo'self, as you 
 damn please, after this isher," Bulliard 
 leered. "Now we'll jus' shove these into 
 the hole in the wall, and then set in here 
 and chat until the paper comes out and the 
 boys is yelpin' it on the streets. I reckon 
 you'll be quiet as long as I keep a bead on 
 you, and I reckon we won't be disturbed, as
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 159 
 
 you done give strict orders to yo' man 
 Waugh not to admit no one thanky, sir ! " 
 
 Spurlock sat with his left hand lying on 
 both the sheets of paper on which he had 
 written, awaiting Bulliard's next move, and 
 recalling a newspaper " interview" with the 
 colonel he had once seen, which, with a 
 picture of the colonel's notorious knife, ex- 
 plained the advantages of his method of car- 
 rying it. 
 
 "Now for the hole in the wall," cried the 
 colonel, "as soon as soon," with a wink, 
 "as I have made certain that you have 
 wrote down exactly what I told you to." 
 
 The colonel, with drawn pistol, was still 
 standing just on the other side of the desk. 
 Spurlock removed his hand from the sheets, 
 pushing them as he did so a few inches 
 toward Bulliard. 
 
 "Very well, Colonel," he said; "I sup- 
 pose you would prefer to read for yourself." 
 
 "Well, wouldn't I, me honey ! Not that 
 I would insinuate that you would lie about 
 what you have put down, but you know us 
 editors can't be too partic'lar about havin' 
 our pieces all O.K.," reaching for the sheets 
 with his left hand and for an instant letting 
 his eyes fall to the desk on which they lay.
 
 160 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 In that instant Spurlock quickly bent for- 
 ward and seized Bulliard's revolver with his 
 left hand, placing his thumb under the 
 cocked hammer and receiving its impact as 
 the trigger was pulled ; at the same time, as 
 he sprang up, jerking, with his right hand, 
 from beneath Bulliard's coat his murderous 
 knife. 
 
 Bulliard made one furious effort to wrench 
 the pistol from Spurlock' s grasp, but his own 
 knife at his throat' controlled him. "Be 
 perfectly quiet and release the pistol," Spur- 
 lock commanded, "or " The knife un- 
 der Bulliard's chin finished the sentence. 
 
 Bulliard glared for a moment motionless 
 at the set face and burning eyes of Spurlock. 
 Then, feeling the point of the steel against 
 his neck, his fingers gripping the revolver 
 relaxed, and he sat down abruptly, a guttural 
 gurgle of helpless rage in his throat, a leaden 
 hue on his skin, and an ooze of perspiration 
 on his frowning forehead. 
 
 Spurlock, from whom Bulliard never took 
 his glowering eyes, retained the pistol, but 
 tossed the knife through a window. " Now," 
 he said to Bulliard, "throw the key on 
 the desk." 
 
 " What key ? " Bulliard grunted.
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 161 
 
 "Throw the key on the desk," Spurlock 
 repeated. 
 
 Bulliard sullenly reached in his pocket, 
 and drawing out the key which he had taken 
 from Spurlock's door, pitched it on the top 
 of the desk. 
 
 "A word of advice, Colonel," Spurlock 
 smiled. " You have something to learn yet 
 as an editor, even of one issue only. When 
 next you proceed to edit a paper with a pis- 
 tol, don't stand on the other side of the 
 desk, in front of your amanuensis, but at his 
 elbow or at his back, where you can over- 
 look his writing, and keep your pistol up to 
 its required functions at the same time." 
 
 Bulliard screwed impatiently in his chair. 
 " Well, now, Spurlock," he growled, "I'm 
 done for this deal. You hold the cards. 
 What do you want ? It's too damn hot in 
 here; le's finish this business." 
 
 " That is just what I was about to suggest. 
 It is time that we finished it. For a year and 
 a half I have heard of your threats, and 
 more than once I have gone out of my way 
 to avoid a street collision with you. When 
 the world becomes so small that two men 
 cannot live in it peaceably, and one cannot 
 interview the other without holding a pistol
 
 162 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 at his head, it would appear that there is one 
 man too many in the world. Now, Colonel, 
 you have repeatedly proclaimed your inten- 
 tion of putting me out of it ; you came up 
 here this morning prepared to do so, if it 
 suited your whim. It is time to have an end 
 of this, and to settle between ourselves 
 which one of us is to get out of the way." 
 
 " Oh, I'm willin' to fight you, whenever 
 you say, Ogden Spur lock ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' I say now. ' ' 
 
 " Good Lord ! you don't expect me to put 
 up my fists agin that gun ! " 
 
 " You seemed to expect me to put my fists 
 against it. But I shall take no advantage of 
 you. We shall fight on even terms." 
 
 " All right ; then send yo' man around to 
 my hotel and he can arrange it with one of 
 my friends. Now, I'll thank you to let me 
 out of this Turkish bath-house," rising and 
 turning toward the door. 
 
 " We shall never have a better opportunity 
 than the present," Spurlock insisted. "We 
 are together, and shall be free from inter- 
 ruption. Let me explain to you my plan. 
 You may see among my wall decorations over 
 here, behind me, two pieces of cutlery. 
 They are exactly alike, and are reputed to
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 163 
 
 be very effective instruments in the solution 
 of the question of the superfluous man. They 
 are called, I believe, barongs, and are said 
 to be the favorite equipment of the Moros, 
 who do many things with them, from cut- 
 ting down trees and digging yams to chop- 
 ping off heads and shaving. If you will take 
 one of those barongs I will take the other, 
 and we can soon, as you say, ' finish this 
 business.' ' 
 
 " To hell with yo' barongs and yo' Moros! 
 What do you s'pose I know about any such 
 heathen truck ? ' ' 
 
 " I daresay you would be more at home in 
 the use of a barong than I. As you may 
 observe, the barong is simply a species of 
 knife seemingly a very strong and long and 
 sharp knife and you have a wide reputation 
 as a knife expert. But we won't argue the 
 matter. The arbitrament of the barong will 
 be as fair for you as for me ; you have come 
 for a settlement, and I am determined you 
 shall not go away without it." 
 
 Spurlock went to the wall and took down 
 one of the barongs. Then he removed the 
 cartridges from Bulliard's revolver and 
 threw that, after his knife, out of the win- 
 dow. " Now," he said, stepping up to the
 
 1 64 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 desk, " after you have secured your barong, 
 and after a word more of explanation, we 
 shall be ready." 
 
 Above Spurlock's desk hung a low chan- 
 delier which originally had been fitted for gas, 
 but which was now wired for electricity. " I 
 don't know that the barong was ever intended 
 for such a purpose," he continued, ''but the 
 first use I propose to make of mine, after 
 yours is in your hand, is to cut that wire 
 which you see running down the stem of the 
 chandelier. That will leave us in total dark- 
 ness, and is preferable, I think you will agree 
 with me, to merely turning out the lights, 
 for it will put it out of the power of either 
 of us, in the course of the proceedings, to 
 turn them on again. It is my idea that a 
 barong duel will be just as conclusive, and 
 less offensive to civilized eyes, if fought in 
 the dark." 
 
 " You you drivellin' idiot ! " 
 
 " Here is the plan then. Get your barong 
 from the wall there ; take your position, any- 
 where in the room you choose ; then I shall 
 clip the wire, and in the darkness we shall 
 find each other and fight it out, until one or 
 the other is dead. Go, get your barong. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I won't do no such a thing ! Good god-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 165 
 
 dlemighty, man ! do you take me for a ringed- 
 nosed Hottentot ? Why why, it would be 
 downright murder ! ' ' 
 
 " Of course. But you have been panting 
 for murder many months, and there seems 
 no other way out of it than the murder of one 
 of us. Do you refuse to fight ? ' ' 
 
 " I do, sir ! I do, sir ! I most emphat- 
 ically refuse to fight in any such outlandish, 
 unchristian way as that ! " 
 
 " Then sign that paper." 
 
 Spurlock indicated the second sheet on 
 which he had written while Bulliard was 
 covering him with the revolver. 
 
 Bulliard's bloodshot, bewildered eyes 
 went from Spurlock to the paper, and from 
 the paper back to Spurlock. 
 
 " As I told you," Spurlock added, "when 
 editing with a pistol the editor should stand 
 where he can read what his amanuensis 
 writes. While you were dictating your 
 ' leader ' I was drawing up that acknowl- 
 edgment for you to sign, as I thought it 
 might come in conveniently before you left. 
 Sign it if you wish to leave." 
 
 "What in the " Bulliard took up the 
 sheet and held it up to the light, but his 
 hand was a little unsteady, and after another
 
 166 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 mystified look at Spurlock he slapped it down 
 on the desk, and stooping over it, read : 
 
 " /, Cassius Bulliard, do hereby confess 
 that Ogden Spurlock has given me a fair 
 opportunity to fight him with my favorite 
 weapon, the knife to cut, carve, slash, and 
 slice until one or both be no more and that 
 I have declined. And I do further confess 
 that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, 
 in my various and sundry threats to cut, 
 carve, slash, and slice the aforesaid Ogden 
 Spurlock, 1 have been more of a bluffer in 
 esse than a butcher in posse" 
 
 The veins of Colonel Cash Bulliard's neck 
 swelled till they projected over the edge of 
 his collar, and as he finished reading, he 
 brought his fist down on the paper with a 
 mighty blow, and lifting himself erect again, 
 he shoved his weight down on one leg and 
 then down on the other, gathering his 
 shoulders up as if for one supreme expulsion 
 of heaving emotion. " I refuse to sign any 
 such infernal rot ! " he puffed ; "I'll see you 
 in the bottom of ' ' 
 
 "All right, Colonel," Spurlock chopped 
 him off. " There is no occasion for any 
 further heating figures of speech." Spur- 
 lock struck a match and stuck it like a can-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 167 
 
 die in the little mug of paste on the desk. 
 "I'll wait until that match burns out or 
 goes out ; then, if you have not signed, I'll 
 cut the wire, and you may defend yourself 
 with the other barong, or with whatever else 
 you can find handy in the room." 
 
 " Say, you ! what t' my goddle " 
 
 " Not so loud, or you may blow out the 
 match," Spurlock suggested. 
 
 Bulliard's eyes fairly shuttled between the 
 match and Spurlock's knife, which was now 
 lifted against the electric wire, and the colo- 
 nel's body seemed to sway with his eyes. 
 The match was already half consumed and 
 the flame was beginning to flicker. 
 
 " I'd advise you to decide at once between 
 the pen and the barong," Spurlock pro- 
 posed ; " the match seems about to go." 
 
 The colonel, after one more desperate look 
 at the match, grabbed the pen, and, with a 
 raucous snort of rage, repugnance, and sur- 
 render, signed his name to the paper. Then 
 he drew his handkerchief hard across his 
 sweating face and jerked to loosen his bind- 
 ing collar. 
 
 "Well, you take the pot this time," he 
 panted ; " but the game ain't ended yit. 
 Now lemme out of this hell-hole."
 
 i68 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " With pleasure. And, by the way," 
 Spurlock volunteered, as he crossed over to 
 unlock the door, " there is an unfrequented 
 alley beneath that window over there. If 
 you will turn into it on your way to your 
 hotel, you will probably find your knife and 
 your pistol." 
 
 The colonel condescended no reply, but, 
 carrying his head well back and his stomach 
 well forward, he stalked out, through the 
 anteroom and on down the corridor to the 
 stairway, without deigning to notice Tot 
 Waugh's cheery, 
 
 "So long, Cash! " 
 
 Tot's ruddy face and twinkling eyes 
 were glowing with excitement, although his 
 joy seemed tempered by a new-born awe of 
 his friend and protege. He looked at Spur- 
 lock and grinned ; then he leaned forward, 
 bobbing his head from side to side as he 
 kept time with the heavy footfalls that punct- 
 uated Colonel Cash Bulliard's dignified and 
 disgusted withdrawal down the stairs. After 
 which the ex-Representative of the Legislat- 
 ure from the Thirteenth Ward, and present 
 participant in The Standard' s " We," seized 
 his hat by the brim and slowly swinging it 
 in a circle twice above his head, dashed it
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 169 
 
 to the floor, and with all the power of one 
 short leg kicked it to the ceiling. 
 
 " I thought your friend Clum Koots was 
 with you, Tot," Spurlock remarked. 
 
 "Well, Clum was here till a few minutes 
 ago ; but when it come to where you was 
 goner put out the lights and pull off a fight 
 to a finish in the dark, ketch as ketch ken, 
 with tomahawks or somepn, Clum seemed 
 to git sorter fidgety, and 'twasn't long befo' 
 he said he couldn't set up all night waitin' 
 for Cash Bulliard, and lit out. Left word 
 for you he'd see you some other time." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me that you could 
 hear what was being said by Bulliard and 
 myself? " 
 
 "Well," Tot answered, hesitating, "some 
 of it some of the hot-times parts where you 
 was goner put out the lights and " 
 
 Spurlock interrupted him with imperative 
 and almost stern instructions that he was 
 never to say anything about the affair. Then 
 he went back into the inner room and re- 
 placed the barong with its mate on the wall, 
 after he had drawn its dull edge heavily 
 across his hand and jabbed himself harmless- 
 ly with its blunted point. " I'm afraid the 
 Moros who owned my barongs," he smiled,
 
 i yo "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " must have found them of little service, un- 
 less for digging yams. ' ' 
 
 He took up the confession which Bull- 
 iard had signed, and tearing it into strips, 
 dropped them into the waste-basket. Then 
 he drew a chair to the window and watched 
 the moon go down, while he laughed, and 
 laughed again. 
 
 After that he was not troubled much by 
 threats, anonymous or otherwise, nor were 
 there any further attempts to bully The 
 Standard. For, somehow, whether through 
 Tot Waugh or Clum Koots he never knew, 
 considerable of the story of Colonel Cash 
 Bulliard's brief editorial career got out ; and 
 Colonel Cash himself indirectly confirmed 
 this story, for according to Tot Waugh' s 
 testimony the colonel went straight from The 
 Standard office to his hotel, and from his 
 hotel to the railway station, and has never 
 been seen in Louisville since.
 
 XVII 
 
 THROUGH the summer and fall, up to the 
 day of the election in November, Spurlock 
 was unflagging in his work for the Citizens' 
 Ticket. He knew that he was fighting 
 against odds, as both the Democrats and the 
 Republicans were well organized, while the 
 Dolliver junta was in complete control of 
 the ballot machinery. And election day 
 was not an hour old before he realized that 
 Dolliver was making unscrupulous use of his 
 power. In some of the precincts where the 
 Citizens' Ticket was known to be strongest 
 the polls were not opened until after mid- 
 day, and when they were opened long lines 
 of hoodlums stood before the polling places 
 and blocked the way. Many of these were 
 not entitled to vote, but were paid to stand 
 in line in order to obstruct those who were 
 entitled to vote. Others who did vote got in 
 line again in order to keep the " kid-gloves " 
 from the polls. The ballot-boxes required 
 by law had in some instances disappeared 
 171
 
 172 "IF 1 WERE A MAN" 
 
 the night before, and several of the precincts 
 were thereby disfranchised for hours. The 
 election officers in many precincts were un- 
 der Dolliver's thumb, winked at the grossest 
 violations of law in his interest, and encour- 
 aged and committed the most palpable frauds. 
 Spurlock found one instance where a man 
 had died at three o'clock that morning and 
 had voted at eight o'clock the same morn- 
 ing. Well-known citizens when they went 
 to the polls to vote learned that negroes and 
 "wharf rats" had already voted in their 
 names, and were blandly turned away. Both 
 the Democrats and the Republicans were 
 buying voters outright, as it was easy to see 
 by watching their " workers " and following 
 the electors, black and white, who went 
 from the polls to certain saloons not far off, 
 where their tags were cashed. The police 
 were blind to all infractions of the law made 
 by men on their " side," and were officious- 
 ly active in driving from the polls and ar- 
 resting those who were on any other side. 
 
 Spurlock early in the day saw that the 
 Citizens' Ticket had no possible chance ; 
 that even if it had enough votes to elect, and 
 could get them into the ballot-boxes, they 
 would never be counted. He accordingly
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 173 
 
 directed his efforts toward bringing to jus- 
 tice the law-breakers, and he spent most of 
 the day in collecting evidence of their guilt, 
 taking out warrants for their arrest, and 
 bailing out Tot Waugh. 
 
 Tot had soon reported to Spurlock that 
 "we are up ag'inst it," and being denied 
 the privilege of carrying out his proposition 
 to "git in the push" by entering the 
 market and buying up the other fellows, and 
 by outplaying them at their own game of 
 trickery and fraud, he had gone forth on his 
 own account to combat trickery and fraud 
 with the weapons which nature had given 
 him. The result was that he fell a frequent 
 victim of Dolliver's police, and that Spur- 
 lock put in considerable time going on bonds 
 for his liberation ; without, Tot was grieved 
 to note, showing any feeling of ample com- 
 pensation in view of the number of " Sam 
 Dolliver's ringers" that Tot claimed to 
 have " put out of the runnin'." 
 
 After his day's observations, Spurlock was 
 not surprised that the footing and announce- 
 ment of the votes showed that every man on 
 Dolliver's ticket had been "elected" by a 
 safe plurality, the Republicans coming a good 
 second, and the Citizens' Ticket a poor last.
 
 XVIII 
 
 ONE afternoon in early September of the 
 next year, Spurlock climbed the high knob 
 which is in one of the parks of Louis- 
 ville. This great wooded hill, whose crest 
 is reached by a road extending more than 
 two miles from the base, well repays the 
 ascent, for it is a wild bit of nature de- 
 spite man's tampering, and from its summit 
 there are views .of rare pastoral and pictu- 
 resque charm. Spurlock, on the southeast 
 shoulder of the hill, where the road turns in 
 a sharp ellipse, leaned against a tree which 
 grew from the edge of the precipitous peak, 
 and looked out upon the noble picture un- 
 folded below him. It was as if from this 
 point some mighty arm had marked the arc 
 of a vast circle, whose radii reached many 
 miles and whose visible circumference swept 
 three-quarters of the horizon. It was a 
 circle whose periphery was a wall of forest- 
 clad hills, which seemed to be the very wall 
 of the world. On the horizontal ridge of
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 175 
 
 this wall rested the dome of the sky, which, 
 where Spurlock stood, appeared to be nearer 
 to him than was the grass of the valley be- 
 low, and in this majestic enclosure were 
 spread the beauty and the glory so blindly 
 lavished by sun and rain, and- which man, 
 from generation to generation, has tried so 
 persistently and so futilely to imitate on can- 
 vas. The foliage of the far hills was still 
 green with the green of midsummer. The 
 deep richness of its hues was made deeper by 
 the distance and by the shadows of the sink- 
 ing sun, while the haze that seemed to sift 
 from the blue of the sky so commingled 
 with these cool greens and marine blues that 
 one could almost fancy that the wind which 
 drifted over the hills brought with it the 
 smell of the sea. Against this background 
 of restful color stretched the fresher green 
 of the nearer woodlands, the still fresher 
 green of the meadows, the yellowing green 
 of the corn lands and the orchards, with here 
 and there tree-crowned knolls in the great 
 basin, and vistas between, through which 
 wound the brown thread of a road and 
 peeped the white face of a cottage. And 
 over all, and pervading all, was the dry, 
 golden mist which comes in the late summer
 
 i7 6 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 and early autumn, while flecking the valley 
 below and swathing the hill on which he 
 stood were yellow clouds of golden-rod. 
 
 Spurlock, turning his head far to the 
 right and following this scene as far to the 
 left, knew that in its sweep only the smoke 
 of the city was invisible, cut off by the spur 
 of the hill which rose behind him the 
 city in whose grime he had worked so hard 
 and suffered such defeat. There was a little 
 Avooden bench near, and on this he sat down, 
 the great valley beneath him and the sun 
 dropping to the rim of the hills. But with 
 all this before him, his thoughts went back 
 to the city which he could not see ; for the 
 city and the part he had played in it pressed 
 upon him to-day, the day on which he had 
 issued the final number of The Standard. 
 
 The paper had been a burdensome experi- 
 ment. He had started it in order to have a 
 daily mouthpiece for the movement repre- 
 sented by the Citizens' Ticket, but he soon 
 found that a journal to have weight as an 
 "organ" must be much more than an or- 
 gan. He had accordingly tried to make a 
 good newspaper of The Standard, and this 
 necessitated an outlay which was a steady 
 drain on his resources. In his zeal for the
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 177 
 
 work which he had undertaken he did not 
 count the cost to himself, and The Standard 
 was not many months old before, to raise the 
 money to pay its way, he had heavily en- 
 cumbered Airdrie. If it had not been a 
 period of great depression in the value of 
 stock farms, and if he had let The Standard 
 die with the defeat of the Citizens' Ticket, 
 he would have fared better ; but the defeat 
 of the Citizens' Ticket was only an incident 
 in the course he had marked out for himself, 
 and his hope was to found The Standard on 
 a permanent basis as the most effective me- 
 dium for the continued prosecution of his 
 plans. He had therefore carried the paper 
 well into its second year, but he was com- 
 pelled to see that the field for its support was 
 inadequate, and as his own means were now 
 exhausted, there was nothing to do but to 
 discontinue its publication. It is true that 
 John Hilborn had offered the money to keep 
 it going longer, but Spurlock refused to take 
 it. " My experience has clearly convinced 
 me of two things," he explained: "first, 
 that the day has gone by when a newspaper 
 can succeed merely as the ' organ ' of any 
 movement or class ; and, second, that the 
 newspaper territory here being already filled,
 
 178 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 there is not room for another daily, however 
 gord a paper I might make it." 
 
 Airdrie had been sold under the hammer 
 a month before, and Dolliver had not 
 missed the highly relished opportunity to 
 buy it in, and seemingly desirous of further 
 assisting retributive Fate, had almost imme- 
 diately transferred the place to Judge Majen- 
 die, who, with the very new Mrs. Majendie 
 she would have designated herself as Mrs. 
 Judge Majendie now lived in impressive 
 style at the Spurlock homestead. 
 
 Spurlock smiled a little grimly as he ran 
 over the account of the last three years. It 
 was just about three years since, stirred by 
 the words of Innis Majendie, he had quit his 
 life of idleness and set forth to be a man who 
 did things. The result was that he had es- 
 tranged Innis herself; had balked her father 
 of his most cherished ambition ; had made 
 a failure in his effort to deliver his city from 
 Dolliverism ; had been defeated in his at- 
 tempt to establish The Standard ; had lost 
 his home and his substance ; and was now 
 dependent for his own livelihood upon the 
 dubious profession of " a young lawyer." 
 " I have paid dearly for my experience," he 
 thought, " but I know much more now than
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 179 
 
 I knew three years ago, and I know much 
 better how to fight." 
 
 For he had no intention of quitting the 
 fight against Dolliverism. He felt now that 
 he had only begun it. 
 
 As he rose to leave he saw, almost upon 
 him, coming down the road above, an awk- 
 ward bicyclist who, in his descent, had lost 
 control of his wheel, and was panic-stricken 
 at sight of the sudden turn of the road around 
 the shoulder of the hill and at the prospect 
 of shooting over its shelf a hundred or two 
 feet through the underbrush. As he whizzed 
 within ten yards of the turn the bicyclist, for 
 safety, flung himself to the ground, and the 
 wheel fell with a crash almost under the 
 hoofs of a horse that had just appeared from 
 below, drawing a dog-cart. The horse 
 reared, and then began to back. Nothing 
 is more helpless than the driver of a backing 
 horse, and this driver, who was Julia Page, 
 paled, and ordered her companion to jump 
 out. Innis did not obey, although the 
 wheels of the cart were now very near the 
 edge of the cliff. But the next second there 
 was no occasion for jumping, as Spurlock 
 had one hand on the horse's bit, and with 
 the other was stroking his neck.
 
 l8o . "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 " He's quiet now," Spurlock said, " and 
 he did not behave badly, considering his 
 provocation. Why " For the moment 
 he did not say more, for, looking up, he saw 
 that it was Julia Page and Innis Majendie in 
 the cart. 
 
 Miss Page's face beamed a glad recogni- 
 tion. " It's Mr. Spurlock ! " she exclaimed. 
 "And of all times, how fortunate ! " 
 
 Spurlock turned from one to the other of 
 the two girls, finally fixing his eyes on Innis, 
 with a riot of joy and doubt in his heart. 
 It was over two years since he had seen her; 
 since she had left him in Julia Page's draw- 
 ing-room; since she had dismissed him at 
 her own home; since at his approach she 
 had fled from the veranda. 
 
 Long afterward Julia Page told Spurlock 
 that he acted with anything but the self- 
 possession and dignity becoming in such a 
 situation. " You said ' Why ! ' a second 
 time," she twitted him. "And then you 
 said, ' Why, is it possible ? ' and dropped 
 the bridle and started toward us. And just 
 then that awful man picked up his bicycle 
 and you rushed back to the head of the 
 horse and led him deliberately away across 
 the road, with your back to us, and you
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 181 
 
 were so slow about it I do believe you were 
 making up your mind what to say; and 
 when you did stop the horse and come back 
 to speak to us you kept your eyes on Innis, 
 but held out your hand to me, and remarked, 
 solemnly, ' Well, I thought you were in 
 Egypt ; ' and it seemed exactly as if you 
 meant, ' I hoped you were in Egypt.' But 
 after you shook my hand and I feel that 
 crushing pressure yet in my worst dreams 
 there was Innis offering you her hand and 
 smiling at you as sweetly as if as if you 
 had not neglected us most shamefully." 
 
 Spurlock always remembered. He would 
 never forget how he took that hand and 
 searched the eyes above it with his own, 
 while all his pent-up passion surged to his 
 lips, only to be choked down by the words 
 of conventionality which he forced. 
 
 ' ' Really, Innis, ' ' Miss Page had here 
 spoken, " we are talking to Mr. Spurlock as 
 if he had simply adjusted the harness or 
 opened a gate for us, instead of prevented 
 us from going to the bottom of this terrible 
 hill." 
 
 It was with a genuine laugh that Spurlock 
 answered .her. " If you will look down 
 there," he said, " you will see that the side
 
 1 82 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 of the hill is so grown with bushes and trees 
 that it would have been impossible for you 
 to go over more than a few feet. ' ' 
 
 "A few feet!" bridled Miss Page. 
 "And how many feet would you be willing 
 to fall into the bushes and trees, with a 
 frightened horse on top of you ? ' ' 
 
 After they had watched the sun disappear 
 beyond the ridge which banks the winding 
 Ohio, and Spurlock, by means of the usual 
 inquiries, had learned that they were less 
 than a week home from their wanderings, 
 Miss Page turned the horse's head to Louis- 
 ville. 
 
 "How did you come out?" she asked 
 Spurlock. 
 
 ' ' On the street-cars, to the foot of the 
 hill." 
 
 "That is fortunate again," she replied; 
 " for you must get in and go back to dinner 
 with us." 
 
 Spurlock hesitated, glancing at Innis. 
 
 She colored a little, but made him happier 
 than he had been for many months. " You 
 will be very late if you walk to the cars," 
 she said, looking at him with gentle direct- 
 ness. 
 
 "Besides," Miss Page added, "mother
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 183 
 
 would be indignant if we did not bring you 
 back with us. You do not know what an 
 admirer of yours she is. Why, she has had 
 The Standard sent to her all over the world ; 
 and she thinks it a great outrage we all do 
 that you have to give it up. ' ' 
 
 Again Spurlock sought Innis Majendie's 
 eyes. He held them for a little, and then 
 they fell, as she assured him : 
 
 ' ' Yes, we were very sorry. ' ' 
 
 "And," continued Miss Page, "we might 
 overtake that dreadful creature on his bicy- 
 cle, and I shall never again have thorough 
 confidence in this horse." 
 
 Spurlock jumped into the back seat of the 
 cart. " I am actually allowing you to press 
 upon me an invitation," he laughed, " which 
 nothing could induce me to decline." 
 
 While there are many more comfortable 
 ways of travelling than on the back seat of 
 a cart, Spurlock in this instance was more 
 than satisfied, for he found a position which 
 enabled him to keep his eyes on the occu- 
 pants of the front seat ; and to a man who 
 has dreamed of a girl for years without see- 
 ing her at all, it is something to sit for seven 
 miles within unobstructed view even of her 
 back, with an occasional glimpse of her
 
 1 84 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 eyes as she turns in the conversation to look 
 over her shoulder at him. 
 
 It was not until after dinner that he was 
 alone with her. Julia Page had left them in 
 the library and betaken herself to the drawing- 
 room to receive some casual caller. And 
 although the caller soon departed, she did not 
 return to the library, for which Spurlock in- 
 wardly blessed her as he heard the rustle of 
 her skirts up the stairs. 
 
 He had been talking to Innis of her travels, 
 and neither had touched upon anything more 
 personal. He did not know yet what was to 
 be the nature of their future relations, al- 
 though he inferred that they were to be at 
 least civil, if not friendly. And all the while 
 he was noting the changes, or the vague sug- 
 gestions of changes, that he saw in her : the 
 mellower tones of the voice, the sweeter 
 gravity of the face, the gentler dignity of her 
 bearing. 
 
 It was some time after he had heard Julia 
 Page ascending the stairs that he said : 
 
 " What was it Mrs. Page meant by her 
 reference to her ' Japanese plans ? ' Surely 
 she is not thinking of another trip al- 
 ready? " 
 
 "Yes," Innis smiled; " we did not get to
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 185 
 
 Japan, and we are talking of going before 
 we settle down." 
 
 " You, too ? " he asked, with an effort to 
 conceal his disapproval. 
 
 " Yes ; I should like to go." 
 
 " And when do you expect to leave? " 
 
 " If we go, we shall start next month." 
 
 " And return how soon ? " 
 
 " In about a year." 
 
 Spurlock's laugh was rather vacant. " I 
 think we shall have to expatriate you," he 
 said. " Or, rather, you seem determined to 
 expatriate yourself." 
 
 " Mrs. Page and Julia are bent upon 
 going," she explained, "and I shall make 
 my home with them." 
 
 " Oh ! " he responded, with lowered voice, 
 and as if in apology, " I did not know." 
 
 " Yes," hesitating, " I wish you to know 
 that. I shall never live at Airdrie." Her 
 color came, but her clear eyes met his. 
 
 He looked at her pityingly, and the old 
 indignation against her father kindled. He 
 had not thought that she would carry her re- 
 sentment against her father's marriage to such 
 an extent, but knowing her mother and know- 
 ing of the second Mrs. Majendie, he could not 
 blame such a girl as Innis. He remembered
 
 186 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 now that her mother had left Innis an in- 
 come, and he was glad. 
 
 " I am sure," he said, gently, " that you 
 are right." 
 
 She studied him intently, dubiously. Then 
 she smiled and opened her lips to speak. But 
 she said nothing, and her eyes fell to the fan 
 with which she was toying in her lap. 
 
 "Now tell me something of yourself," she 
 said, brightly. " Of course we know in a gen- 
 eral way what you have been doing, but only 
 what we have heard and read." 
 
 " There is little to tell," he smiled, " ex- 
 cept that I am now recognized as a pretty 
 thorough failure." 
 
 Her face softened as if a shadow had fallen 
 over it. "But that is not true," she pro- 
 tested, " and you should not say it." 
 
 " When you came upon me this afternoon, 
 on the hill, I had just been casting up the 
 score. It was something like this : Three 
 years ago I was an idler (you must forgive 
 me if I trespass on forbidden ground), but 
 was aroused by some chance words dropped 
 by by a girl I loved, to try to do better 
 things. Well, I tried, as best I knew how, 
 with the result that but you know the 
 result."
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN " 187 
 
 "Yes," she replied, her eyes on the fan 
 again ; " I think I know what you would say, 
 but it is much it is everything to feel that 
 one has done his duty and his best, even if 
 it has cost him so greatly." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say that. I did 
 not hope that I ever should," with a resolute 
 effort at self-restraint. 
 
 " Yes, I know I must have acted strangely; 
 I believe now it must have been because I 
 had idolized my father and I could not bear 
 the thought that you had found his weakness, 
 and the thought that you were right. When 
 you called that day and I refused to see you, 
 it was not because in my heart I blamed you 
 for what you had done, but because I felt 
 the humiliation of my father's position, of 
 surely you understand ? ' ' 
 
 Her face was pale and distressed. The 
 words had evidently been a poignant trial. 
 
 Spurlock lifted her hand reverently to his 
 lips. " I hope I do understand," his voice 
 vibrating deeply, " and I was stupid not 
 always to understand. I am afraid I thought 
 too much of myself and too little of the situ- 
 ation in which you were placed. But you 
 must remember I had no reason to believe 
 that my opinions or my conduct would have
 
 i88 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 much weight with you, one way or another. 
 Three years ago Innis, it has been more 
 than three years now. Did you know that ? 
 And do you know what that means ? ' ' 
 
 He leaned forward, waiting until the 
 grave, tender eyes were uncovered to him. 
 
 " Yes, I remember," she admitted, softly. 
 
 " Well," he bent over her, his words un- 
 steady with their burden of passion and sus- 
 pense, " I have waited three years for a dif- 
 ferent answer, Innis." 
 
 She did not withdraw the hand he had 
 taken as he spoke, and there was a flicker- 
 ing smile of happiness in her misty eyes as 
 she gave him the answer : 
 
 "I think you were foolish to wait so 
 long." 
 
 Later, much later, when he rose to go, she 
 said : 
 
 " And another thing. I believe you are 
 a little stupid some times. I wanted you to 
 comprehend but you would not, fully 
 why I shall not live at Airdrie." 
 
 He stood eying her in calm, radiant con- 
 tent ; and suddenly a new light broke over 
 his face. " Can it be I could not have 
 conceived it before that it is because Air-
 
 "IF I WERE A MAN" 189 
 
 drie was once mine, and that you I mean 
 
 that " 
 
 It was not necessary for him to formulate 
 his question, nor was it necessary for her to 
 put the answer of her eyes into words. And 
 thereupon, for the first time, he said good- 
 by to her as lovers will. 
 
 But some minutes afterward, before he 
 had yet gone, though he had now reached 
 the door of the library, he lingered to add : 
 
 " You are sure, quite sure, you understand 
 that I am now at the bottom of the ladder, 
 and that you are willing to postpone that 
 trip to Japan until I can afford it ? " 
 
 She pulled from her belt a spray of golden- 
 rod which she had gathered on the hill, 
 bending her head to fasten it in his button- 
 hole while she answered him : 
 
 " I am sure of everything now." 
 
 He immediately said good-by to her a sec- 
 ond time. 
 
 But as he found his hat in the hall she 
 called to him and ran to overtake him. 
 
 " There is one thing more," she cried like 
 a joyous child. "What " she halted and 
 blushed as if ashamed to ask it "what 
 were those ' chance words ' of mine three
 
 190 "IF I WERE A MAN" 
 
 years ago which you said had had made an 
 impression on you ? ' ' 
 
 Spurlock laughed in delight. 
 
 " So you have forgotten ? " 
 
 He felt it was worth three years of denial 
 to see the play of the dimple on her cheek 
 as she made a feint at thinking. 
 
 " Why," she explained, " I wanted to see 
 if I remembered." 
 
 " You said : ' If I were a man ' ' 
 
 " Yes, I do remember," she interrupted. 
 Then, after a moment of silence : "But to- 
 night, if I were a man " 
 
 She looked up at him, and all the coquetry 
 had gone now. 
 
 "Yes?" Spurlock waited. 
 
 ' ' I should be proud to be such a one ' ' 
 finding his hand with hers " as this."
 
 "A series which has given us not king but good " 
 
 The Ivory Series 
 
 Each volume bound in green and white with gilt 
 top, i6mo, 75 cents 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS 
 
 JUST PUBLISHED 
 Sweethearts and Wives 
 
 Stories of Life in the Navy. By ANNA 
 
 A. ROGERS. 
 
 "\7ARIOUS episodes, romantic, senti- 
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 If I Were a Man 
 
 The Story of a New-Southerner. By 
 
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 PREVIOUS VOLUMES 
 
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 By J. A. MITCHELL, Editor of " Life.' 
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 Irralie's Bushranger 
 
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 The Old Gentleman of the Black 
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 Literary Love Letters 
 
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 MORSE EARLE. 
 
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