r 
 
 INEZ 
 
The 
 
 RADICAL 
 
 By 
 I. K. FRIEDMAN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "BY BKEAD ALONE" 
 
 D. APPLE TON AND COMPANY 
 NEW YORK MCMVII 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Published September, 1907 
 
TO 
 MY SISTER EMMA 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK ONE 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. A TRIBUTE TO BRAINS 3 
 
 II. A DANGEROUS MAN n 
 
 III. A FALL FROM GRACE 18 
 
 IV. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ADDISON HAM 
 MERSMITH 28 
 
 V. BRAINS Bow TO WEALTH 35 
 
 VI. THE TATTOOED MAN 44 
 
 BOOK TWO 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE MAGIC CARPET 59 
 
 II. AN ENEMY TO BRUCE 66 
 
 III. OUR HERO is TEMPTED 74 
 
 IV. THE SPEAKER S DAUGHTER 87 
 
 V. THE CITY OF HOPE ....... 99 
 
 VI. THE CAVERN OF DESPAIR 107 
 
 VII. THE DISTURBANCE 118 
 
 VIII. R. R. s DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS INCREASES . 128 
 
 IX. THE INTERVENTION OF ELAINE . . . .140 
 
 X. THE PEA AND THE COCOANUT .... 149 
 
 XI. THE HERO AS A FOOL . . , . . .154 
 
 XII. ONLY THE PRESIDENT 161 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIII. ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF SOAPSUDS TO DESTINY . 175 
 
 XIV. THE GODDESS DESCENDS FROM THE MACHINE . 182 
 
 XV. THE FRUITS OF VICTORY 193 
 
 BOOK THREE 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. A WHITE NIGHT 203 
 
 II. GEORGIA S SCHEME 210 
 
 III. A DAY WITH SENATOR MCALLISTER . . . 215 
 
 IV. PETER S JOB 221 
 
 V. THE CAT SCRATCHES AT THE BAG . . .228 
 
 VI. THE ARMS OF THE ENEMY 234 
 
 VII. SERVANTS OF THE REPUBLIC 243 
 
 VIII. A FALLING OUT 257 
 
 IX. THE HOMAGE OF HYPOCRISY 271 
 
 X. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS 275 
 
 XL THE ORDEAL 282 
 
 XII. JUST A WORD 288 
 
 XIII. A BATTLE IN THE SENATE 296 
 
 XIV. THE TRIBUTE 306 
 
 XV. GEORGIA S DEPARTURE 311 
 
 XVI. R. R. DISAPPEARS 317 
 
 XVII. CHARITY AND JUSTICE 330 
 
 XVIII. SHACKLED 339 
 
 XIX. SIR ANTHONY RIDES TO THE RESCUE . . . 344 
 
 XX. CROSSING THE RUBICON 353 
 
 Vlll 
 
BOOK ONE 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 A TRIBUTE TO BRAINS 
 
 AT bottom the display of wealth is as un-American as 
 the flaunting of a title and its accompanying coat 
 of arms. At any rate, one might so have believed 
 from the exclamations leveled by the friends of the " Butcher 
 Boy," a cosmopolitan if not an exclusive legion, against that 
 plutocratic corner in the drab, plebeian hall made both 
 pecuniarily conspicuous and respectable by silks, ostrich 
 feathers, jewels, dress suits, and lorgnettes. 
 
 But we are called to attend that most characteristic of 
 American institutions, a political meeting, and not to listen 
 to wide-of-the-mark deductions; therefore, let us delay no 
 longer the fat chairman, toying with his gavel and estab 
 lishing a formal acquaintance between his nervous fingers 
 and the gelid pitcher of water. From the depths of his 
 great stomach, shaped in its shapelessness like a wine bag 
 of the Orientals, comes a ridiculously still, small voice that 
 says: 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen : It is now my duty nay, my 
 pleasure to introduce to you nay, to present to you, for 
 who does not know him? that brilliant, capable, and elo 
 quent young gentleman, Mr. Addison Hammersmith, who 
 has already shed so much luster on the honored name of his 
 family, who has refused to let luxury put fetters on his 
 talents, who " 
 
 3 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " Don t be kapin us here all evenin wid yer whos ! " 
 called an American wit, evidently of Celtic origin, whose 
 name, alas! has not escaped oblivion. 
 
 " Shut up ! Let the man finish ! " cried that lover of 
 fair play who can be found in any American assembly, eager 
 to use his fist or his tongue on the side that gives him the 
 better chance. 
 
 " Hurrah for the chairman ! There s no fat on his brain, 
 anyway! Give him the glad hand! " bawled a true patron 
 of native eloquence, jumping to his feet. 
 
 The pot-bellied chairman, turning turkey-red as if in 
 modest acknowledgment of the compliments hurled at him, 
 rapped for quiet in order that the rest of his remarks might 
 be heard, which goes to show his modesty was both prema 
 ture and affected. A policeman, whose sincere efforts to 
 maintain quiet were due merely to the fact that he was 
 paid for the purpose, hastened toward the quarter of the 
 hall where the militant friends of brain were seated in 
 general and the friend of eloquence in particular. 
 
 The large audience arose as one from its seats to watch 
 the fun. It had feared it would be enlightened only, but 
 now that the entertainment of a fight was to be thrown 
 into the bargain, it ceased to be bored and became jubilant. 
 Above the catcalls, the stamping of feet, the whistling and 
 shrieking, our patron of eloquence declaimed with all the 
 fervor due the art he so admired : 
 
 " I tell you it wasn t me! I ain t a-going to get out fer 
 no cop ! This is a free country ! " 
 
 This appeal for the preservation of American institu 
 tions at once brought forth hearty acclamation from up 
 holders of the principles of the fathers a Pole, a Swede, 
 a Bohemian, and a Russian Jew. " We ll stand by you, 
 O Rourke! " " Hit him back! " " Grab his club away! " 
 
 4 
 
A TRIBUTE TO BRAINS 
 
 and so saying they rushed forward to put themselves between 
 the cop and his victim on whose head something harder than 
 a hand in benediction threatened to fall. 
 
 And now, O ye sons of American liberty, forward and to 
 the rescue! Listen to the vibrant voices of the brawny de 
 fenders of brain and economic equality! " Put the cop out! " 
 " McAllister s friends to the front! " " This is a trick of the 
 rich guys ! " 
 
 Up and down go chairs and heads, bodies jam and crush 
 forward, fisticuffs threaten and the friends of brain promise 
 to invade the far-off exclusive corner occupied by mere lucre, 
 craning its hydra head to see, when two more myrmidons 
 ascend as out of a trap door from the saloon below and re 
 store order. 
 
 A body, doubtlessly the valuable though not negotiable 
 property of the aforesaid patron of oratory, was heard to roll 
 and crash down the stairs, and the voice of its owner, as if to 
 exhaust the possibilities of so dramatic an exit shouted: 
 " They didn t put me out, by God ! No, by God, they didn t 
 put me out! " 
 
 The whole gathering, aristocratic as well as plebeian, was 
 doubled up with laughter over the paradoxical situation of a 
 man who declared he was still in his seat when circumstan 
 tial evidence so unmistakably showed that he was rolling 
 down the stairs with more regard to speed than dignity. 
 Humor is ever the great American leveler, laughter makes 
 us forgetful of class for a second or two. 
 
 But in this chorus one man joined not, and the striking 
 exception was none other than that worthy and ingenuous 
 young gentleman, Mr. Addison Hammersmith, whose virtues 
 the chairman has already trumpeted, so there is no need of 
 recording them again with our lesser instrument. It was 
 not because Addison Hammersmith was such a serious mor- 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 tal that he frowned down on this exhibition of frivolity, but 
 rather because he was too frightened to know what was go 
 ing on anywhere save in his own mind. Candidate for 
 alderman on the Republican ticket, it was Addison s first ap 
 pearance in public; and all of us who have gone through a 
 similar ordeal know that the resultant sensation is different 
 than that obtained by striking our funny bone. 
 
 Addison s audience was composed of Poles, Irish, Bohem 
 ians, Hungarians, Swedes, Croatians, Italians and Russian 
 Jews, who had come from the " wrong end " of the ward to 
 hear the joint debate between him and his rival on the Demo 
 cratic ticket, one Bruce McAllister, bearer of the savory cog- 
 nomen Butcher Boy. Many of these scarcely could under 
 stand English, and most of them had just as much interest 
 .in the theme of discussion as they would have had in two 
 different solutions of the same problem in differential cal 
 culus. What they wanted was to see the Butcher Boy worst 
 the gilded youth. They were willing to bet odds that he 
 could, and what was more, if he didn t, they would, even if 
 they had to toss a cop or two over the gallery to do it. 
 
 Now since the aristocratic Addison despised all these 
 people as being mongrel and low-bred foreigners, one won 
 ders why he cared whether his speech oozed, as it threatened 
 to do, through his finger tips or spouted with fine rapture 
 from his throat. But human nature is inconsistent, and it 
 may be said that the people whose good opinion we crave 
 most are often those we most dislike. 
 
 Moreover, there sat beside Addison on the platform the 
 Republican mayor and several other city dignitaries, Ad 
 dison s father, a florid bewhiskered old gentleman ; his moth 
 er, who was quite beautiful with her young face and silver 
 hair, and his sister Inez who was still more beautiful. On 
 all of these as well as on the occupants of the aristocratic 
 
 6 
 
A TRIBUTE TO BRAINS 
 
 corner Addison was eager to make a good impression, above 
 everything he hated to make a fool of himself before his fa 
 ther, and thereby justify the opinion that gentleman had ex 
 pressed about his son on sundry occasions; nor did he want 
 to disappoint his mother and sister, who kept predicting a 
 career for him. 
 
 " Don t be nervous, Addison," whispered his mother, 
 which was quite as practical in the way of advice as if she 
 had bade him cease to be Addison. 
 
 " Speak as if you were in the music room talking to me," 
 encouraged Inez Hammersmith which would have been ex 
 cellent counsel could she have transported him home to have 
 administered it. 
 
 Addison frowned; a trifle annoyed that his mother and 
 sister, even though they had written his speech for him, 
 should conduct themselves as if upon him did not devolve the 
 entire fearful responsibility of delivering it. They were un 
 mindful, perhaps a little ungrateful for the effort he was 
 making for the glory of the family. 
 
 On such dark reflections as these, broke the droning voice 
 of the chairman, bubbling indistinctly from the shapeless 
 depths of him: 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Addison Hammersmith 
 himself will now address you." His voice died away like the 
 whir of a clock that has taxed all but the extreme end of its 
 tightly wound spring. 
 
 Mr. Addison Hammersmith himself was feeling very 
 much like a man who looks upon death as inevitable and 
 unavoidable and therefore never worries about it until the 
 pallid phantom has him by the collar. His heart performed 
 a remarkable physiological feat dropping to the bottom of 
 his shoes; and a force that Addison had never read about in 
 his study of physics, which was profound, pulled him back 
 
 7 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 on his chair when he attempted to arise. Another force, 
 equally unknown, dragged him off his feet and whisked 
 him, trembling before its awful power, in front of the 
 speakers table. It was all in all an heroic achievement 
 that called forth the unstinted applause of Buck O Brien s 
 claqueurs, each of whom would have been blotted in dishonor 
 from the city s pay roll if he had let escape the dramatic 
 moment. 
 
 Addison s round little form bowed from left to right with 
 all the spontaneity of an automaton, the tints of his straw- 
 colored hair and his pink cheeks seeming to change as he 
 did so. Something whirled around in the inside of his head 
 that resembled a pyrotechnic wheel in shape and garish lucid 
 ity, and he could no more stop it than turn the night into 
 day. That wheel being nothing else than his speech you will 
 ^understand his desire to bring it to a halt, and force it to 
 do the service for which it was intended. His ineffectual 
 attempt to hold even a spoke made his arms and legs as 
 shaky as if they were entangled in the hub of a wheel more 
 actual and less metaphorical. 
 
 " Don t be afraid, mamma is with you ! " bellowed an 
 other inglorious but unfortunately not mute friend of brain. 
 
 " Shut up ; give custard pie a show ! " howled another, 
 anxious to prove that victorious brain could be magnanimous 
 to filthy lucre in defeat. 
 
 Laughter let go both its sides, but the ominous thwack of 
 a policeman s club hitting forth indiscriminately taught it 
 the wisdom if not the comfort of squeezing its diaphragm. 
 The hall settled down to a quiet like that of sleeping fields, 
 snow covered. Fortunately for Addison he was so perturbed 
 by what was going on inside of him accredit him at least 
 with rare presence of mind ! that he heard naught of what 
 was going on outside of him, and these last two supreme 
 
 8 
 
A TRIBUTE TO BRAINS 
 
 i 
 
 shafts of wit flew as far over his head as if they had not been 
 aimed at his ears. 
 
 Finally the mother, perceiving what was amiss, leaned far 
 forward and whispered to him the first sentence of his speech ; 
 and by dint of logic, memory and intelligence he had re 
 hearsed the thing at least ten times he was able to recon 
 struct paragraph after paragraph, and so reach the middle. 
 The hall not being particularly interested and being prohib 
 ited from openly expressing its disapproval, went to sleep. 
 The reporter of the Republican wrote in his " story " that 
 Addison s voice had a certain soothing quality, and since the 
 scribe slumbered away with the other auditors he certainly 
 knew whereof he spoke and must therefore pass as an accu 
 rate observer. 
 
 All went well enough for a while until Addison reached 
 that passage of his speech wherein he said : " Fellow-citizens, 
 the fantastic arguments of those who purport to defend muni 
 cipal ownership have now been demolished." For here it 
 was that a stanch partisan of McAllister s, fearful for the 
 fate of his leader, shouted over the rim of the gallery: " No, 
 they ain t been smashed, neither! Wait until the Butcher 
 Boy s turn comes. He ll make mince meat out of you ! " 
 This gallery god, like many another false god before him, 
 received homage altogether beyond the value of his service 
 to a credulous mankind, and poor Addison was so taken 
 aback by the threat and the response it awakened that he for 
 got his lines and stammered and stumbled until his mother 
 came to his assistance once more. The incident may prove 
 that as no mortal should be deemed lucky until dead so no 
 orator should be considered safe until seated. 
 
 However, the last of his oration must have been a won 
 derful performance, for his best friends had to admit that the 
 first of it was a little below mediocrity, and there must have 
 2 9 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 & 
 
 been some part of it on which the truthful and observing 
 representative of the Republican based his glowing descrip 
 tion of Addison s forensic powers. 
 
 " Attractive in appearance, easy in manner, with a vocab 
 ulary at once flexible and admirably fitted to his deep and 
 varied emotions, with a delivery, which if not exactly Web- 
 
 sterian, still " but why quote the scribe at length when 
 
 the Hon. Buck O Brien, rushing on the platform the moment 
 his candidate was seated, and slapping him enthusiastically on 
 the back, summed up the situation in the terse phrase or two : 
 "You done well, little Hammersmith! Yer ma kin be 
 proud of you! You done mighty well! You done noble! " 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A DANGEROUS MAN 
 
 LADIES and gentlemen: It s now my pleasure to intro 
 duce to you Mr. Bruce McAllister, a man who " 
 
 "Hurrah for McAllister!" "Give it to him!" 
 " Deliver the meat now, Bruce! " " Down with the swell 
 guy!" 
 
 The uproar was a serviceable lesson in dramatic arrange 
 ment to the unpracticed chairman; namely, to draw his 
 speech to a close, not to start it with a climax; for it was as 
 useless as impossible to continue now. 
 
 At the remote end of the platform the archtype of 
 brains lifted his six feet and one inch of bone and muscle from 
 his chair and walked slowly toward the speakers table. The 
 long tails of his frock coat proper garment for the 
 avowed friend of the common people flapped around his 
 knees and made his walk seem more awkward than it really 
 was. 
 
 " How ugly he is! " thought the fair Inez, while the 
 applause and the huzzaing swelled to a size befitting the 
 apotheosis of intellect. Fastidiousness was her photographer, 
 and he accentuated that long gaunt figure and threw into 
 bold relief that swarthy face, with its crowning mop of black 
 hair, the ridiculously big ears, the slightly protruding under- 
 lip, the long mouth and the nose. " I declare," she whis 
 pered to Addison, giving her impression of the picture, " he 
 
 II 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 is the most baggy man I ever knew. His trousers bag at the 
 knees, his thick black hair bags on his head, his ears bag at 
 the sides, and his nose bags on his face! " 
 
 Addison whose taste was more charitable if not so nice, 
 frowned and shook his straw-colored head in reply. 
 
 The Butcher Boy stood there in quiet, his thin shoulders 
 stooped, leaning his decentralized weight on his left foot; and 
 a broad good-natured grin, in full appreciation of his popu 
 larity, stretched the thin lips of his big mouth to their full 
 length. Admiration swelled to thunder. He pushed ob 
 truding locks of his black hair away from his swarthy face 
 and sobered with the responsibility of so much veneration, 
 studied the individual countenances that made up the throng 
 that had come to worship at his shrine. 
 
 He lifted himself to his full, towerlike height, and his 
 round shoulders were thrown back straight and level. He 
 raised his long arm and stretched out a commanding fore 
 finger. The gesture sent his coat sleeves ludicrously far 
 back on his thin wrists and twisted his collar askew. The 
 aristocratic section indulged in a well-bred smile; the rest 
 of the hall could have vied in demeanor with Mrs. Ham 
 mersmith s drawing-room. All that could be heard was its 
 heavy breathing, and we believe that no book on etiquette 
 puts its ban on breathing or commands its readers under 
 any circumstances, save when they attend their own funerals, 
 to hold their breath. 
 
 The audience, Inez perceived, belonged to Bruce McAl 
 lister in the sense that her spirited cob belonged to her when 
 she held the guiding rein, and she wondered which way 
 the odd creature would head the hall. The odd creature 
 sloughed off his oddity at once and lapsed into convention 
 ality by relating a humorous story, without which no Amer 
 ican may approach a serious duty. Inez laughed, although 
 
 12 
 
A DANGEROUS MAN 
 
 she had determined that she wouldn t, not because the ques 
 tion of debate was in any way sacred to her and she resented 
 a joke being cracked in its presence, but because she had 
 made up her mind that she was going to sit in judgment on 
 him and not be carried away with him as the rest of his 
 listeners so evidently were. 
 
 His good nature was contagious ; she felt its irresistibility. 
 It bubbled over like the water of a fall ; it cheered you like 
 sunshine on a spring morning; its warmth included you as 
 insidiously and surely as the shadows of noontide do the hot 
 fields over which they creep. Where w r as the sense of re 
 sisting him? Why put oneself at odds with him? Then 
 came a second story and she laughed as heartily as anybody, 
 in a way that surprised Addison and her mother who always 
 had believed her coldly self-contained. " Ah, well," thought 
 she, " he is only a jester, anyway, and " 
 
 Before she had finished that reflection Bruce McAllister 
 was engaged in seriously demolishing Addison Hammer 
 smith s arguments, and since Inez herself had some slight 
 hand in their construction she was naturally interested in 
 watching them fly to pieces. She had thought them pillars 
 of marble ; he proved them mere ornaments of stucco. 
 
 The shrill, high note in his voice had grated on her nice 
 ear when he started, but as he waxed more and more serious 
 and his swarthy face graver, his tones became rich, full, and 
 round. He passed on from one subject to another. His dis 
 course was less like a river that makes for a certain direc 
 tion than a lake that follows no definite line but whose waters 
 Amoving everywhere compel admiration by their clearness, 
 their depth, their freshness. Traction concerned him not 
 particularly; he used it merely as a convenience wherefrom 
 to survey the greater problem of this problem-ridden genera 
 tion. 
 
 13 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " He s ambitious," thought Inez, " he s after a higher 
 office." And so he was. Her conclusion was a tacit admis 
 sion that she saw in him a man born to the purple. It did 
 credit to her insight. 
 
 Street cars were not the only thing that had been taken 
 from his people, he said, and they would not be the only 
 thing restored them. " To them from whom has been stolen 
 shall it be returned tenfold," seemed not only his fantastic 
 writ but his quack remedy. Again, who were " his people " ? 
 
 They were the poor and the lowly and the foreign those 
 who toiled and spun during their youth and in their old 
 age were neither fed by the fruits of their labor nor warmed 
 by the fabrics of their spinning. 
 
 His people were those who built the mansions of the rich 
 and closed their eyes in the squalid hovels of mean streets. 
 
 His people were those who had lost merely because they 
 never were allowed to enter the race of life. 
 
 His people were those who did the work of the world and 
 stood by with hungry eyes while the mighty reaped the profits 
 therefrom. 
 
 His people were the voice of the city sobbing out at night 
 when stricken low by hunger and cold, by exhaustion and 
 heat. The voice hung like an echo over the ruins of vanished 
 civilizations, threatening the downfall of the new govern 
 ments that blindly refused to give it heed. 
 
 His own voice throbbed as he spoke; there was a tear in 
 it. His audience became a single individual and in that 
 amalgam of Pole, Swede, Russian Jew, Croat, Irishman, 
 Hungarian, what not, the aristocratic Inez Hammersmith, 
 no longer able to hold herself disdainfully aloof, mingled and 
 lost herself. 
 
 He hammered his remarks, as it were, into the brains of 
 his listeners by the most awkward of gestures, the swinging 
 
A DANGEROUS MAN 
 
 overhead of his two long arms; and then, before one was 
 aware of the awkwardness of it, the long arms were hanging 
 down at his sides and the golden voice carried one on and 
 on. Who notices the foam flecks in a swift river that forces 
 one with alarming rapidity away from the hospitality of its 
 shores ? 
 
 Inez Hammersmith toyed absently with her pearl neck 
 lace perhaps, as women will in moments of emotional and 
 religious exaltation, she would have torn it from her throat 
 and flung it before the altar of this high priest of poverty 
 but he made no demand for revenue; at least not directly. 
 Then detaching herself from this unit, she became herself 
 and curled a scornful underlip. "Demagogue! Master 
 of every rhetorical trick! Charlatan, just cunning enough 
 to know how to stir the basest passions of the mob ! " 
 
 But the voice, regardless of her opinions, surged upward, 
 touching greater heights as it rose from the seemingly sound 
 less depths of him. It entered the skies and called upon the 
 gods to look down on the sufferings of his people, prostrated 
 now by the hard times that swept like a blight over the 
 land. His swarthy face was woefully solemn, the lines in it 
 became deep and rigid, as if cut out of marble instead of 
 impressed on human flesh. He was evidently a man of many 
 sorrows, who, like Savonarola and Dante, had made the ac 
 quaintance of grief and knew all its bitterness, and like 
 theirs his face was coarse, heavy, ugly of feature. 
 
 For a second his melancholy made its appeal to her, al 
 though she herself was not aware what it was that won for 
 the moment her intellectual sympathy. But again she cut 
 herself adrift. " Demagogue, anyway! " she pronounced, this 
 time with fist clenched. 
 
 And yet there was that voice, sensible as his swarthy, 
 coarse-featured face, to be reckoned with. How rich, how 
 
 15 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 full, how golden it was ! With how little effort did he make 
 it pour and pour and pour from him ! It was a voice fit for 
 a singer of sublime music, not meant for mobs put together of 
 the riff-raff of all nations, suited to commune in lonely places 
 with the serene stars on the mountaintops. Such voices she 
 adored as who does not ? and she felt the pity of its having 
 been given him to debase to the purposes of the mean dema 
 gogue. 
 
 He paid his undesirable respects to the idle and luxurious 
 rich. " They are lilies," he said, " and the poor are the soil 
 out of which these beautiful flowers spring. Consider the 
 soil ; the more beautiful these lilies grow the more exhausted 
 it becomes. What pleasure or profit has the soil from its 
 labors, do not even the very lilies that it bears despise the 
 grime and blackness that have brought them forth? The 
 white hands of the human lily," ran the last words of his 
 homily, "are a disgrace to it; they tell of rougher hands 
 made blood red that theirs may remain lily white." 
 
 Inez was a little more at ease because her own hands were 
 gloved and hidden from view, and she was sensible of blush 
 ing, although there was nothing to show a change of color. 
 Then she felt a glow of resentment, of anger at the presump 
 tion of this fellow in lecturing her, but she was still con 
 scious amid her provocation that there was nothing personal 
 in what he said, that he seemed to be addressing the world at 
 large, and her in particular only because she formed a part 
 of the world he addressed. 
 
 A tornado of applause swept her out of her self-absorption 
 and back to a consciousness of her unwonted environment, 
 advising her most abruptly that he had done. The mighty 
 shouts of " Hurrah for the Butcher Boy! " " Good for you, 
 Bruce! " " You didn t do a thing to the rich guy; oh, no! " 
 shocked her sense of the fitness of things, as if she herself 
 
 16 
 
A DANGEROUS MAN 
 
 had elevated him to a place where the cries of this mob could 
 not penetrate. Then she was thankful to the hoi polloi for 
 restoring her to herself and fixing her relationship to the out 
 side universe. 
 
 " A dangerous man," she repeated, to convince herself of 
 the truth and the justice of this judgment as she watched him 
 retreat to his inconspicuous corner, his glittering blue-gray 
 eyes bent on the floor as he mopped his brow. 
 
 And dangerous he was without a doubt; but dangerous 
 to what and to whom ? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A FALL FROM GRACE 
 
 INEZ was acknowledging with a bow and a smile Addi- 
 son s introduction of his swarthy rival, towering above 
 her almost a half head. Inez herself just missed being 
 too tall. He was sensible of her beauty, of the regular face 
 with its finely chiseled features, of the robust form, of the 
 solid flesh and the vigorous muscles that made themselves 
 felt even under the folds of her gown and her furs, of the 
 radiant health that traced pink tints in her white-as-ivory 
 cheeks. Her chest was as ample, as well developed as a 
 singer s, and her shoulders and back seemed as strong as a 
 man s, yet their finely feminine lines carried with them no 
 suggestion of masculinity. " Beautiful, but cold as ice," 
 was his first thought; to which after a swiftly inquiring 
 glance at her large brown eyes he added, " More brain than 
 Addison, but less heart." 
 
 " How very ugly he is," she thought, her mind wandering 
 between the praise and the blame she wished to mete out; and 
 her indecision gave her the sensation of being on the less com 
 fortable end of the see-saw. She was conscious of his sharp, 
 glittering, blue-gray eyes feeling their way through the back 
 of her head, and she was sure that his baffling smile bespoke 
 his amusement at catching her in a position so undignified. 
 A conventional phrase brought her feet in contact with the 
 earth. A phrase, equally conventional came from him, and 
 so they teeter-tottered for a while, arriving nowhere. 
 
 18 
 
A FALL FROM GRACE 
 
 He seemed more troubled than embarrassed in his awk 
 ward way, as if he wished to escape the irksomeness of a 
 formal conversation. She observed that his eyes were heavy, 
 and his voice husky, as if he had expended every particle of 
 his energy, and as if he had squandered all the force of his 
 soul on his oration. A few minutes later he swung his hat 
 in a semicircle, bowed and retired. When Inez entered the 
 carnage to drive home she noticed him and his host of camp- 
 followers enter the saloon under the hall. According to her 
 knowledge and estimate of such things it was a low and vul 
 gar resort and her underlip curled contemptuously. It was 
 as if some star to which she had been attracted for a second s 
 consideration had shot from the unsmirched skies and dropped 
 into the mud. 
 
 There was, however, a certain indecision in Bruce s step, 
 a certain reluctance in his movement that, observing though 
 she was, escaped her altogether. Good nature, tired nerves 
 crying out for relaxation, the jubilation of his friends, lifted 
 him over the bars erected by his better judgment. For him 
 to enter any saloon was to give hostages to the evil genius 
 that presided over it. It was to match his weaker strength 
 with the terrible temptation from which he had been fleeing. 
 
 His father, Andrew McAllister, a Scotch-Irish lawyer, 
 celebrated in the annals of Illinois in the time of Lincoln, 
 nourished a love for the whiskies of both countries that ar 
 gued a perfect impartiality for his ancestry. Whisky grad 
 ually enticed Andrew from eminence to penury and then 
 dragged him into a drunkard s grave. Bruce inherited his 
 father s eloquence and with it the desire for the liquor, we 
 are told, that heats its cockrels to inspiration. Between him 
 and the glass, however, stood the apparition, seen so often in 
 his boyhood, of his drunken father lifting a hand to strike 
 his white-haired mother. Often and often he had sat with 
 
 19 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 her through the watches of the night in wait for his dis 
 solute sire. Often he had trembled like a string suddenly 
 broken when his father entered and staggered by his broken 
 hearted wife murmuring gently, " Andy! O Andy! " 
 
 Moreover, Andrew McAllister had left Bruce at the age 
 of sixteen to see to it that the family kept out of the poor 
 house, and the responsibilities of the inheritance were con 
 ducive to sobriety. Politics, even in his boyhood, had struck 
 Bruce as the easiest way to lift himself and the family out 
 of the pit; but the wonder was, its associations considered, 
 that it did not drag the boy under the slime that paves it. 
 He slipped in that ooze and filth more than once, staggered 
 to his feet and mounted again; for his gaze was lifted up 
 ward ever, and inward voices, impossible to sully or silence, 
 called him to the stars. One of these voices belonged to 
 ambition, to all that concerned the immediate selfish inter 
 ests of Bruce McAllister; another of these voices belonged 
 to his people the people of the pit with whom the lot of his 
 boyhood had been cast and his youth and early manhood 
 passed, who called on him to lift them as he rose. These 
 two voices commingled strangely, often becoming as one, and 
 if he had one eye open for the fortunes of Bruce McAllister 
 the other was never shut on what he dignified by the name of 
 " The Cause." 
 
 However, there were forces outside of him that sang in 
 unison with the voices that stirred within. His widowed 
 mother, silver-haired, self-sacrificing, encouraged him with 
 a smile and chastised him with a tear ; his sister Elaine, kind, 
 lovable and firm, scolded him, and his better balanced though 
 younger brother, Peter, pointed the road by sane and sensible 
 example. The boy and the young man had soiled his hands 
 with the slime-covered gold that finds its way into politics; 
 he had grafted with the worst and best of them ; he had gam- 
 
 20 
 
A FALL FROM GRACE 
 
 bled heavily, following the dictates of a naturally supersti 
 tious nature ; he had on one or two occasions threatened to go 
 to pieces morally by overindulgence in liquor, and yet his 
 trend was upward, spiralwise, dipping downward here and 
 there, but mounting ever, ever mounting. Conscience casti 
 gated him after each relapse, goading him onward ; and the 
 sensitiveness of his conscience developed with the growth of 
 the man. The immortal, inextinguishable spark in him threw 
 its ray of light across the blackness of the pit and pointed 
 the way out. 
 
 Even his selfishness was not of the lowest sort and what 
 had come to him in the way of graft went out, unknown to 
 them, to pay for Elaine s lessons at the Art Institute, or 
 Peter s lessons in one of the night schools devoted to the 
 sciences. He was the head of the house, and a born dreamer, 
 he advanced its material fortunes merely because the sternest 
 of life s realities forced him into practicability. His dreams 
 were still his a precious possession that he kept buried in the 
 privacy of his own heart and drew forth to admire after the 
 work of the day. His dreams, to shift metaphors, were the 
 haven into which he hoped to anchor his ship at last, making 
 the long hard cruise over the waters of practicability worth 
 the while. 
 
 Meanwhile, in Gravenheim s saloon there is going on the 
 little comedy-drama in which our hero has chosen against 
 his better judgment to play a part. Hands from every direc 
 tion shot out toward him the moment he crossed the thres 
 hold and the cry of " What s the matter with McAllister! " 
 and its inevitable answer made the huge beer steins back of 
 the bar rattle. Invitations to drink were so numerous that 
 to refuse them exhausted both his diplomacy and his voice. 
 He sought refuge in cigars, lighting a long black one, sticking 
 the rest in his pockets. 
 
 21 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " Well, Bruce," shouted one Skaprowski, " you done that 
 little up. He won t trouble you no more this cam 
 paign." 
 
 The hero of the hour and the place nodded, twirling his 
 cigar in his mouth and giving no answer. The warm atmos 
 phere it was raw and cold outside the electric lights, the 
 garish decorations (his taste was of the crudest) set up a 
 train of expansive feelings in Bruce s heart and made him 
 doubly kind toward that little parasitic world that was feel 
 ing so kind toward him. His tired nerves were relaxing, 
 calling for greater stimulus to wind them again. He longed 
 for a drink, and literally speaking he w r as for turning his back 
 on the longing. Already he had removed his foot from the 
 rail that ran along the base of the bar and faced around, 
 when temptation personified in the capacious bulk of Buck 
 O Brien, leader of the Republican forces, approached him. 
 Buck was inimical to Bruce only in his public life and capac 
 ity ; privately speaking he loved him. 
 
 Twas a foine spache ye made, Bruce," opined the crit 
 ical Buck. " Damn me, if I didn t have half a moind ter be- 
 lave what ye said whilst ye was a-saying av it." 
 
 " Like the old lady," laughed Bruce, " who said she 
 wouldn t believe she was deaf only she couldn t hear." 
 
 " But did ye belave it yerself, Bruce? " 
 
 " A reasonable amount of it," returned Bruce, a smile 
 that might have meant anything wavering across his swarthy 
 face. 
 
 " Good ! Will ye have somethin ? " 
 
 Our hero hesitated. " Well, I ll take a seltzer and 
 lemon." 
 
 " It s the mugwump av drinks, Bruce." 
 
 " Mugwumpism does well enough while you are making 
 up your mind." 
 
 22 
 
A FALL FROM GRACE 
 
 The crowd of satellites pressed close to these two supreme 
 planets of their small political world to catch what light and 
 heat they might choose to dispense. Buck told a story; 
 Bruce followed him, setting the saloon in a roar with another 
 and another. Some generous patron of pure music dropped 
 a dime in the slot of the automatic harp and the muses re 
 warded him in the shape of " A Hot Time in the Old 
 Town To-night ! " The ballad had the stamp of our hero s 
 approval nicest of musical critics, he! And he added an 
 other bay to the composer s wreath by shouting with the 
 chorus. Corks popped ; bottles opened. A livelier note had 
 been struck and the saloon quickened its tempo accordingly. 
 
 Bricktop Anderson the terrible Swede Bruce s lieu 
 tenant in the old days swept the center with a buck-and- 
 wing dance to the accompaniment on the piano of one Larry 
 Kieff. Bruce, his cigar half swallowed, his hat pushed far 
 back, beat time with his long, spiderlike legs and arms, and 
 he seemed mad enough to be under a certain dervishlike 
 inspiration. 
 
 He was himself in his own Denmark. His nerves eased. 
 He reached back on the bar for his seltzer and lemon for 
 which a friend from the ward had substituted whisky. Half 
 absently Bruce, his eyes on Bricktop finishing with a flourish, 
 lifted the glass to his lips, and his nostrils expanded as his 
 lips tasted. He gulped the fire down; its warmth set each 
 red corpuscle in his blood to dancing swifter than Brick- 
 top s legs. 
 
 " Have anither, Bruce? " 
 
 " It s on me ! Everybody line up ! " The great man s 
 purse leapt out with his own words. 
 
 " Holy High Jinks, Bruce, lay hold of yourself and don t 
 go crazy ! " So, entering the saloon, speaks Edward Dono 
 van Butler, better known as " Little Butler," which was a 
 
 23 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 popular tribute paid to his size. Butler in such guises does 
 Virtue speaking to Temptation come was political reporter 
 for the Democrat and a one time law partner of Bruce 
 McAllister. Out of the pit had they scrambled together, and 
 although their professions had parted, their sentiments and 
 their hearts still battled on side by side for the same cause. 
 
 " Glad you came, Ed ; you re in time to join the bunch." 
 Bruce grinned down on the blithe little reporter whose face 
 looked as if it had been made by an avalanche rolling from 
 the top of his large head, pulling his forehead, his long nose, 
 and his long chin and jaw down with it in the process of 
 rolling. 
 
 With a generosity that became greatness he tossed a bill 
 on the bar. His Satanic majesty was having an easier time 
 of it with Bruce, despite the presence of Virtue scowling and 
 protesting there, than he had had for many a long day. 
 Corks popped ; bottles opened, and to such music the hero as 
 soloist sings, a little more automatic if less musical than the 
 harp, "There ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To 
 night." His audience, sport, grafter, rascal, petty politician, 
 drunkard and genuine good fellow, commends his versatility. 
 " By God, it ain t often a feller kin spout and sing too." 
 "Ain t McAllister a wonder?" Answer echo: "I should 
 say he is a wonder." 
 
 The more Bruce drinks the louder he sings. The crowd, 
 always a hero worshipper, takes its cue from the leaders and 
 the noise is raised to such a pitch that the police enter to com 
 mand quiet, but seeing that the disturbers are politicians they 
 interfere not. Are Jove arid the gods drinking nectar to be 
 interrupted by insignificant myrmidons whom they them 
 selves have put in this lower sphere of power ? 
 
 Bricktop dances audaciously; the leviathan O Brien imi 
 tates him, which transforms clumsiness into humor; and he 
 
 24 
 
A FALL FROM GRACE 
 
 tumbles on the floor, which transforms humor into a frenzy ! 
 It was the signal and what was not for more corks to 
 pop out of more bottles. The friend of the people, quite 
 responsive now to Satan s beck, filled his glass again and 
 again, and passed into his power. He becomes a sort of 
 dilettante Faust, of which this world is so full, who signs his 
 soul away for a night s enjoyment in its Protean shapes. On 
 the morrow, never fear, these sinners will bend their eyes 
 toward the gods, the better, they think, for having met evil 
 face to face, pitied, endured but refused to embrace. 
 
 The music and dancing quickened, the drinking tried to 
 keep pace with both, and none knows whether or not the stars 
 would have seen the end of the bout if Bricktop Anderson 
 had not suggested that there was to be a cock fight way over 
 in the Northwest side. Drink is usually but a prelude to 
 the play, the means to an end ; here was a proper end and the 
 crowd s sporting blood was up. It would have bet on any 
 thing that had two sides and they declared for Bricktop s 
 idea. Cabs were hailed; and in the first of these chariots, 
 his hat far to one side, his head far to another, his vest open, 
 ridiculing Virtue s voice protesting still, sat the man capable 
 of transporting audiences to the empyrean. 
 
 The simple home of the McAllister family invites us 
 next. Concerning its interior we pause merely long enough 
 to remark that all the evidences of refinement are due 
 to the artistic hand of Elaine McAllister. The taste of 
 Bruce, as has been hinted before, is no optimistic argument 
 for the part that art some day may play in the so-called com 
 ing democracy. 
 
 Delicate, small featured, esthetic, one would have found 
 
 it hard to believe that Elaine was Bruce s sister, but nature 
 
 is no less fond of putting entirely different persons in the 
 
 same family than of putting opposite qualities in the same 
 
 3 25 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 heart. We may gaze on that pale face as long as we will, 
 studying it to our heart s content as she lies there fast asleep 
 on the lounge in the sitting room, a light red woolen cover 
 let thrown across her shoulders. On the floor is the book 
 that has slipped out of her hand we take care not to men 
 tion its title lest it be believed that professional jealousy in 
 duces us to charge, by innuendo, that a fellow-author is a 
 soporific. 
 
 Moreover, justice compels us to say that it was the long 
 vigil of the night and not the book that was responsible for 
 her slumber. She had been sitting up for hours w T ith the 
 invalid mother, waiting for the head of the family to put in 
 his appearance and announce how he had covered himself 
 with glory by putting his enemy to oratorical flight. Peter 
 McAllister like the rest of the world we may hear from 
 him later on had sought his couch, worn out from his toil 
 of the day as chemist in the " Yards " and by the original 
 research work he had done that night. Peter was either too 
 indifferent to care whether Bruce had disarmed his adver 
 sary in this trial by words, or his faith may have been too 
 great to have admitted of any doubt. 
 
 The stars were growing pale in the skies when the chariot 
 that bore our hero drove to the house. He staggered to 
 ward the door with an indirection that made walking a more 
 complicated than pleasing art. His search for his key was 
 an acrobatic performance, and although he did not succeed 
 in finding it, he had the satisfaction of twisting himself into 
 every possible combination that his bones and muscles were 
 capable of forming, and meanwhile he made noise enough 
 to have accompanied the storming of a fort, let alone the 
 opening of a door. 
 
 Mrs. McAllister, barely dozing in her restless fashion, 
 was aroused by the disturbance and sat upright in her bed to 
 
 26 
 
A FALL FROM GRACE 
 
 determine its cause. Neither Peter nor Elaine proving at all 
 responsive to it and not wishing to awaken either of them 
 from their sound slumbers trust an invalid mother to pay 
 deference to nature s best gift of health ! she dragged herself 
 out of her bed and to the door that stood as a stone wall 
 before the triumphant march of the all-conquering Bruce. 
 
 " Damn door ith a wall have it changed to-morrow," 
 he hicked, proud of his discernment, as he rolled between the 
 two walls of the narrow hall and through the door on the 
 right-hand side into the parlor. Mrs. McAllister put the 
 night lamp on the marble-topped table and sank back into 
 a rocking chair, breathing heavily. Bruce looked at his in 
 valid mother, bewildered. He dropped his crushed hat on 
 the floor and rubbed a questioning palm over his hot head. 
 Then he arose and stood as if petrified, fastening his bleary 
 eyes on that dear face, wasted and thin. 
 
 " Andy, O Andy! " murmured Mrs. McAllister in mild 
 expostulation, as if her dead husband had come to life again 
 and was standing there before her, intoxicated. The condi 
 tion of Bruce had pushed her, like a blow, to the verge of 
 the delirious. 
 
 Bruce was shocked into sobriety. It was as if he had 
 become a child again, clinging to his mother s hand on the 
 occasion of one of his father s dreadful homecomings. Had 
 he stepped into Andrew McAllister s shoes merely to prolong 
 his mother s insufferable torture? He burst into tears, and 
 falling down on his knees before her, buried his head in her 
 lap, while her pitying, gentle, forgiving hands stroked his 
 coarse, black hair. 
 
 " Mother," he moaned, " forgive me if you can ; for God s 
 sake, try to forgive me! I ll never drink another drop of 
 liquor in all my life again." 
 
 He kept his word. 
 
 27 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ADDISON 
 HAMMERSMITH 
 
 BRAINS were defeated by money in the competition for 
 a seat in the city council. This, say some, proves 
 the wisdom of destiny; otherwise brains would have 
 found themselves forlorn among strangers and snubbed. 
 Half-a-dozen causes, foremost of which stood Bruce Mc 
 Allister s fantastic radicalism and the influence of Addison 
 Hammersmith s family, were responsible for our hero s de 
 feat, but being interested in his net results and not in con 
 tributory causes, we pass them by. 
 
 Bruce took his defeat philosophically; he believed in his 
 star, and its temporary obscuration meant nothing a ray of 
 light more or less in the final blaze of glory which was to 
 illumine him. One sees the value of every young man s 
 choosing a star; whether or not it will let him hitch his 
 wagon to it is another question. 
 
 Elaine, who was punctilious, insisted that her brother call 
 on Addison and congratulate him on his victory, and Bruce 
 acquiesced with a surprising alacrity; the reason for it being 
 that he wished to do so, anyway, for Addison and he had been 
 schoolmates. Bruce McAllister and Addison Hammersmith 
 met for the first time in the evening law school that both 
 attended. Class politics made them fair friends, for when 
 Bruce ran for president of the debating club he arranged a 
 
 28 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF HAMMERSMITH 
 
 deal whereby Addison, who w r as popular on account of his 
 good nature, was to run for the position of vice-president. 
 Addison, who was not a born politician by any means, always 
 felt that he was indebted to Bruce for this honor, not seeing 
 that the lending of his name to the ticket put Bruce in his 
 debt. Beyond this, however, they had been on the same side 
 of debate often enough, and Bruce s suggestions and his more 
 direct aid had helped Addison to appear to advantage and to 
 make a good impression ; so Addison admired Bruce for his 
 kindliness and his talents, although he considered him un 
 couth and even downright vulgar. 
 
 They were just as opposite as any two people on earth 
 could be, but despite that fact they might have been the 
 warmest friends in the world if Bruce had not held himself 
 aloof and looked askance at the advances that Addison made 
 in his kind-hearted manner; for the truth is that Bruce 
 McAllister was far more prejudiced against Addison on ac 
 count of that ingenuous youth s aristocratic bearing and his 
 wealth than Addison was against Bruce on account of his 
 pronounced faults and his poverty. When Addison heard 
 Bruce hold forth in the debating club on the themes nearest 
 and dearest to his heart, when he listened to Bruce s copious 
 flow of words and ideas, he forgot all about Bruce s short 
 comings and he was proud of his acquaintance. He gazed at 
 him in admiration and he wished to heaven that his natural 
 gifts had been one half no by thunder, as he told all the 
 fellows, one hundredth as great. Bruce was not so broad 
 of mind and he was blind to many of the virtues shining so 
 openly on the cloth of gold that covered Addison s really 
 warm and generous heart. 
 
 " Come to see me, McAllister, old chap," he would say 
 in his bluff, but finely mannered way; " come to see me any 
 time. I ll make you welcome as can be." 
 
 29 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " Yes, I will," Bruce would answer, but he never came, 
 and as even those answers were rather curt, Addison felt 
 that his hospitality was poorly rewarded, and he gave it all 
 over, thinking Bruce more or less a cad, which, according to 
 your point of view, was more or less true. 
 
 For so young a man Addison had had a varied if not an 
 exciting career, and his biography is perhaps humorous even 
 though its incidents are perhaps commonplace. He had 
 spent three years at Yale in the freshman class may this 
 not show his patience? His fond mother attributed Addi 
 son s lack of progress to the obtuseness of Addison s pro 
 fessors rather than to her son s lack of brilliancy. Addison s 
 brilliancy may remain to be proved ; but the obtuseness of 
 university professors 
 
 Addison tried commerce immediately after the university 
 was done with him, going to work in his father s immense 
 hardware store ; but his natural inclination was not for a busi 
 ness life, and he gave it up after a trial of three weeks, thus 
 showing that his mind was quick to reach a conclusion. He 
 then suggested to his father that he be sent over to Europe 
 for a long journey to complete his education, which shows 
 his resourcefulness; but his father insisted that the finest 
 culture is gained from experience and hard work, and so, 
 much against his will, Addison was forced to begin his career 
 as a banker. He started in the humble position of collector, 
 showing how free he was from false pride, but the cashier 
 was unreasonable and found fault with the manner in which 
 Addison did business; for it would seem the new employee 
 paid nine dollars a week for cab hire his salary was exactly 
 five to expedite the delivery of his collection notices; and 
 the said cashier thought that this was setting a bad example 
 to the other young men to whom even car-fare was a luxury. 
 The world is unjust, and Addison, who had been endeavor- 
 
 30 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF HAMMERSMITH 
 
 ing to establish a higher standard of living, was discharged 
 for his fine efforts. 
 
 He now presented the anomaly of a man glad to lose his 
 job. He caught a glimmer of the fascinating boulevards of 
 Paris, of the luxurious clubs of Pall Mall, of the seven hills 
 of Rome, but the father again pulled the curtain over that 
 delightful picture by his commonplace views on the relation 
 of hard work to youthful morality. Choosing at random, 
 which shows his versatility, Addison hit on law, and in order 
 to keep his days free he went to night school, believing, for 
 one thing, that his father might relent if he saw him return 
 home belated and fagged out, and that, his hard heart soften 
 ing, he might send him to Europe for recuperation if not for 
 culture; and for another thing, on looking at the subject, 
 Addison found the entrance requirements of the night law 
 schools were easier than those of the day institutions ; which 
 proves that Addison was easily contented. Law, after six 
 months lost what little attraction the subject had for Addi 
 son it rarely attracts poetical minds and Addison took his 
 father into his confidence and confessed that he was not of a 
 legal bent, which led his angry senior to ask sarcastically 
 how in the mischief he was bent, which led Addison to 
 shrug his shoulders, which leads me to hint at his extreme 
 modesty. 
 
 Again came the vision and the dream. O Rome! O 
 Paris! O London! But the rhapsody died away on Addi- 
 son s lips when his father grunted out that he would have to 
 don blue overalls and roll nail-kegs across the wooden floors ; 
 for Mr. Hammersmith, Sr., believed that one ought to begin 
 at the very bottom, while Addison held that one ought to 
 begin at the top, which showed that the youth was ambitious. 
 His mother, who had saved the boy from severe discipline 
 thrice, suggested a political career, pointing out to her hus- 
 
 31 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 band in her diplomatic manner that Addison she took him 
 at his word had distinguished himself in the debating club, 
 and that this, together with his other native talents, was 
 bound to open a great career for him in a field where oratory 
 counted for so much. Addison turned pale at the thought, 
 having an inborn horror for a contact and association with 
 low-born crowds, but between hearing his voice thunder in 
 the halls of city councils and national and state legislatures, 
 and hearing the thud of nail-kegs on a hard floor, he decided 
 without any hesitation for the former, which goes to show 
 his fine taste, his wisdom, and his obedience to his mother. 
 
 Mrs. Hammersmith was now ready for a consultation 
 with the mayor his wife had high social ambitions and Mrs. 
 Hammersmith s door was at the very entrance of the royal 
 road thereto and that gentleman told her, with all the 
 disinterestedness in the world, that when young men of 
 Addison s breeding, education, and abilities were willing to 
 enter the arena of politics to take issue with the riff-raff 
 and the lower elements, it argued well for the future of 
 America. He even went so far as to hint that by dint of a 
 little maneuvering he could get her estimable son the Repub 
 lican nomination for the aldermanship of his ward, which 
 so delighted the fond mother that she immediately sent the 
 mayor s wife an invitation for her next reception, which so 
 delighted our good lady in turn, that she acknowledged for 
 the first time in her life the mayoralty was good for some 
 thing after all. 
 
 Thereupon, the mayor telephoned to the Right Honorable 
 Buck O Brien, the Republican boss, and to put the matter to 
 you as bluntly as Buck himself put it to the mayor, there 
 was no reason why the affair could not be fixed if Hammer 
 smith, Sr. would come down with the coin. The amount 
 of coin to come down was the sole bone of contention, Buck 
 
 32 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF HAMMERSMITH 
 
 declaring that he knew enough to stay outside when it prom 
 ised to rain gold, and that it might as well be a deluge as a 
 drop, since old Hammersmith had such excellent qualifica 
 tions for a rain-maker. The mayor insisted that a shower 
 was enough ; and Buck finally agreed to take a wetting since 
 he could not get the auriferous drenching he craved. 
 
 Bruce chose a raw, cold night for his duty call, and since 
 he started long ahead of time, he found himself in front of the 
 Hammersmith residence with an awkward thirty minutes on 
 his hands. He started in by admiring the architecture of the 
 huge pile, varying from the severely classical to the renais 
 sance and modern, so you will see that there was plenty for 
 one of Bruce s crude, unformed taste to study. Kimberly, 
 the architect who lost the contract, said it would take him 
 the better part of a day to point out the faults of the facade 
 alone. 
 
 Tiring of counting the chimneys and the windows, Bruce 
 turned away and walked a few blocks eastward toward the 
 lake, and perching himself on the sea wall he looked out on 
 the swirl of the waters, churning and roaring shoreward, and 
 he gazed up at the deep, blue sky, almost velvety, so thick and 
 impenetrable was the blue of it, and at the stars twinkling 
 calmly and peacefully, undisturbed by the howling of the 
 waters. A few minutes satisfied him and he arose mumbling : 
 " That s it! What does Nature care for us? Not one bit! 
 We starve and we suffer and we die, and it s all one to her." 
 
 He walked on and on, his hands clasped behind his back, 
 his shoulders stooped, his large head inclined forward 
 slightly, a woe-begone expression on his dark face as if all the 
 misery of the world were weighing on his shoulders, as if 
 the wail of the winds on the lake were the voices of the hun 
 gry and the poor, calling out to him to right their wrongs. 
 He came to a halt suddenly, in the darkness of an area that 
 
 33 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the lamp lights left undisturbed, and sweeping his long arms 
 out circlewise he muttered : " Who am I that you continu 
 ally ask me to take up your cause? God Almighty, can t I 
 be left in peace? I m not the man for it, I tell you! There 
 are fellows better fitted for the task ; get them." 
 
 That very second he burst out into a short cluck of a 
 laugh as if he had caught himself playing a little comedy for 
 his own amusement, and he drew out his watch as if to di 
 vert his thoughts. Seeing from its face that the hour of his 
 call had come, he hastened his steps to the home of the Ham 
 mersmiths and rang the front doorbell with something like 
 nervous dread. 
 
 " I wonder," he muttered to himself, " if they would 
 let me in the front door if they knew I used to deliver meat 
 at the back? " 
 
 34 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 BRAINS BOW TO WEALTH 
 
 WHILE Bruce McAllister was cooling his heels out of 
 doors Mr. Addison Hammersmith had been far less 
 comfortable within; for if eight o clock was the 
 hour that troubled Bruce the thought of nine made Addison s 
 flesh creep and his nerves tingle; for when that hour came, 
 the newly elected Republican alderman was to be surprised by 
 a huge demonstration to be given in his honor by the Sun 
 flower Republican Social and Political Club an affair 
 which would have been kept perfectly secret if it had not 
 leaked out. 
 
 Of course an extemporaneous speech was expected and 
 Addison forewarned is forearmed was doing his level best 
 to get his address in shape. If there was anything Addison 
 hated, and there were few things he condescended to like, 
 that thing was a speech, for he was not a born orator, al 
 though in one respect at least he reminded one of Demos 
 thenes when he spoke his mouth seemed filled with pebbles. 
 
 Addison had been for putting a ban on this surprise party 
 of the club, but his mother shook her head and said that such 
 conduct would be ungracious, and so he was obliged to accept 
 the visit in the same spirit of thankfulness with which a 
 child swallows a pill, believing rather in the wisdom of its 
 elder than in the efficacy of the medicine. 
 
 " This is a very discouraging world," sighed Addison, 
 35 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " and I wish that I had never been born into it." Addison 
 had been born discouraged and his discouragement waxed 
 with his age ; although why and about what he was discour 
 aged, it would be hard to find out. It is possible that his 
 discouragement may have arisen from the fact that fortune 
 had chosen him for her favorite child, and that consequently 
 there was little that he could do for himself; but this view 
 of the case, however, is too ungrateful to dame Fortune to 
 be just to Addison. But, whatever the reason, Addison got 
 as far as, " Fellow-citizens, it would indeed be difficult for 
 me to tell you how delighted I am with this entirely un 
 expected honor," and five times he yawned, threw himself 
 into the arms of discouragement and buried his straw-colored 
 head in the crimson and gold cushions of the huge divan 
 on the dais. It may be, to weary your patience for the last 
 time, that the luxury of the room was discouraging to the 
 flow of those noble thoughts which simplicity alone is said 
 to induce ; for the palatial proportions of that Italian-Renais 
 sance music room with its fine fireplace over which a life- 
 size portrait of Beethoven hung, with its richly decorated 
 ceiling beams, its fantastically carved door posts, its Flemish 
 tapestries, its crimson velvet curtains hanging in straight 
 folds, with its ornate candelabra, its gilded fauteuils but 
 enough has been said to show that if Addison insisted upon 
 being disturbed there was plenty in that room to put him 
 out. 
 
 Therefore the servant s announcement that Mr. Bruce 
 McAllister was in waiting came to Addison with a huge 
 sense of relief, not only because his wearied brain yearned for 
 distraction, but because he was glad to see Bruce for the mere 
 sake of seeing him. " Show him right up," he ordered cheer 
 fully. 
 
 Bruce, timid in the face of such swaggering luxury, 
 
 36 
 
BRAINS Bow TO WEALTH 
 
 walked nervously through the oblong hall, fearful lest his 
 shoulders come in contact with the rich Gobelin tapestries 
 and they resent it, and so made his way to the room to which 
 the lackey led him. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, old fellow," said Addison 
 jumping up to extend a warm and a welcoming hand. 
 
 " I came to extend my congratulations," said Bruce, still 
 bashful, and angry at himself for feeling so. 
 
 " Well, that s very generous of you. I appreciate it. It 
 may not sound sincere ; but I wish you d won, upon my word 
 I do. This speech-making, hand-shaking business with a 
 crowd of low foreigners isn t in my line. The whole thing 
 is a dreadful bore. Believe me, I so wanted to be defeated 
 and take a jaunt in Europe." 
 
 " I should think you would be very happy over your suc 
 cess," consoled Bruce, shifting uneasily on the edge of his 
 fauteuil ; " it ought to give you a great opportunity." 
 
 " To uplift the world, eh? " yawned Addison. 
 
 Bruce nodded absently, trying to accustom himself to 
 the new surroundings, to analyze its parts in order to discover 
 what made the splendor and glamour of the whole. 
 
 " Oh, that s all rot! I m sick of hearing the words 
 franchise and paved streets. What do I care whether 
 the streets, between you and me, are paved with gold or just 
 mud ? I wasn t brought up for a contractor. And I don t 
 see whose business it is if the street cars charge ten cents or 
 three for a fare. If the people don t like it let em walk 
 that s all there is to it, let em walk ; exercise is healthy." 
 
 Addison paced up and down the bright Persian rugs and 
 drew to a halt in front of the great fireplace; the electric 
 lights in the tall candlesticks throwing over Addison s face 
 a glow that was subdued by the metal shades fashioned in the 
 shape of crowns held by cupids. The strong contrast be- 
 
 37 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 tween the patrician host and his plebeian guest was thus 
 made the more striking. Bruce, swarthy, tall and gaunt, 
 coarse of feature; Addison, blond to the color of straw, pink 
 of cheek, small and refined of feature, round and short. 
 
 Addison went on, his hands thrust in the depths of his 
 trouser pockets: " You don t know what people expect of 
 rich men s sons.- It s all that cursed American idea that 
 everybody is the equal of everybody else and that all must 
 work. Bah! What we need, I think, is an aristocracy; 
 more seclusion, and less of this awful vulgarity. Equality 
 and liberty are all right; I believe in them as much as any 
 body, but at the same time I want people to know their 
 places." 
 
 A mad desire to burst out into a guffaw seized Bruce 
 and he bit his lip and fixed his attention to a deciphering of 
 the musicians and authors names which were carved on the 
 heavy oak beams that divided the ceiling into thirds. 
 
 " I don t know what America is coming to, I swear I 
 don t, McAllister. Why, do you know what w r as expected 
 of me in this last election? I had to go in low bar-rooms 
 and drink and hobnob with a lot of foreigners and loafers 
 that I wouldn t have looked at the day before just to get 
 their votes." 
 
 There was a light step and the frou-frou of silks in the 
 hall, and Addison interrupted his tirade to remark: " It s my 
 mother; I m glad she s coming in." 
 
 Mrs. Hammersmith entered. Bruce was flurried by the 
 appearance of this graceful woman, very beautiful, he 
 thought, with her chestnut hair, threaded with silver, her 
 cameolike features, her unwrinkled cheeks, and her fine bear 
 ing. " I m so glad to see you again," she said to Bruce in 
 her musical voice, extending her richly jeweled hand. He 
 stammered out his acknowledgments and congratulations. 
 
 38 
 
BRAINS Bow TO WEALTH 
 
 " Oh, yes," she went on, " we are all very happy over 
 Addison s success, and we are all sorry that the loser had to 
 be you. It would seem to be too bad in such cases that one s 
 happiness must be at the expense of another s sorrow. It 
 ought to be so arranged, I think, that everybody should win." 
 
 Somehow Bruce was beginning to feel at home, for the 
 queer indescribable sensation of discomfort was leaving him. 
 There was a moment s lull in the conversation which Bruce 
 occupied to the full in comparing Addison with his mother, 
 rather baffled by the mystery that gave such a son to such a 
 mother, and which Mrs. Hammersmith spent in studying 
 Bruce; it can t be said that the result of the study pleased 
 her particularly. 
 
 " I hope," said Mrs. Hammersmith, rising, " that my son 
 will always be animated by those same noble principles which 
 you have so clearly expressed in your speeches and your writ 
 ings. I am quite sure that, though you and Addison are of 
 entirely different theories, both of you will be true to the 
 highest ideals," and so saying she disappeared the very word 
 to describe her movement from the room. 
 
 " I wonder how much of all that she meant," thought 
 the skeptical Bruce. 
 
 " Noble principles! Fine purposes! High ideals!" 
 yawned Addison ; " I am so tired of hearing those confounded 
 words that I wish they had never been invented. If I ever 
 write a dictionary I never shall I will leave out " 
 
 Addison ceased his scolding suddenly, his pink cheeks 
 flushed red, and the startled attitude assumed by his short 
 stout body seemed to scent disaster in the wind. The tri 
 umphant notes of "Hail! the Conquering Hero!" came 
 shrill and piercing from the instruments of a band that was 
 playing for all it was worth on the lawn in front of the 
 house. 
 
 39 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 "Oh, heavens!" moaned Addison, "there s that awful 
 club and I don t know one word of my speech." 
 
 Bruce, biting his underlip to restrain a laugh, arose to 
 leave; but Addison plucked him by the sleeve and pleaded, 
 " No, don t go, I beg of you ; stay here and see me through 
 this bad piece of business. I suppose that crowd of ruffians 
 will storm the house, just as if they belonged here. Well, it 
 will show my mother a thing or two about noble principles, 
 high ideals and all of that rot." 
 
 Bruce sat down again, fixing his eyes on the decorated 
 ceiling; Addison walked up and down the room excitedly, 
 twirling his key-ring around his thumb, clutching for words 
 to put into his speech of welcome. 
 
 The band ceased playing with a suddenness as startling 
 to Addison as that with which it had begun, and the motley 
 throng, with Buck O Brien at the head, defied the footman 
 at the entrance and pushed pell-mell into the wide reception 
 hall and the spacious drawing-rooms, each man afraid that 
 his fellows would conspire to shut him out. 
 
 The portly Mr. Hammersmith, dignified and grave, 
 stroked his florid gray whiskers solemnly and bade the crowd 
 welcome in the name of his wife, his son and himself; but 
 his greeting was so formal and stiff, so lacking in generous 
 spontaneity that it was easy to see that his mind was busy 
 estimating the cost and the damage of the reception rather 
 than the pleasure it would give to the receiving and the re 
 ceived. Mrs. Hammersmith met the common herd as beam 
 ingly and as becomingly as if every one of them had been 
 an exclusive member of her exclusive set, and Addison stood 
 by with a fixed and studied smile, and shook the hands of 
 the host that crowded around him for this high honor, his 
 mind afar from it on the speech of welcome that still stub 
 bornly refused to clothe itself in words. 
 
 40 
 
BRAINS Bow TO WEALTH 
 
 Streaks of mud and mire on Persian rugs, white bear and 
 tawny tiger skins, showed plainly where democracy had taken 
 pains to go out of its way to meet aristocracy ; a huge Chinese 
 vase, with an affrighted mandarin clinging to its exterior, 
 was almost tossed to the floor by rude Caucasian shoulders 
 (race prejudice will out!), and a Greek girl in the state that 
 nature probably made her (Thorwaldsen was her creator) 
 was brought so closely in contact with our refined modern 
 civilization that she was almost overcome by the shame and 
 the shock ; a Japanese screen, an inlaid tea table, and a Turk 
 ish tabouret but suffice it to say that not one thing went 
 down in the death that threatened everything. 
 
 " Rimimber yer manners fer th love av Gawd! " yelled 
 Buck as he caught sight of the cranes on the screen bending 
 a startled flight toward the floor. " An as fer you, Larry 
 Flannigan, I d have ye rimimber them gilt vases ain t to be 
 taken home fer souvinirs." 
 
 " Speech ! Speech ! " went up in a cry that threatened to 
 bring the ceiling down on the floor, and to toss its polished 
 oak beams on the heads of the mob upon which they looked 
 with disdain. 
 
 Addison, a signal from his mother beseeching him to save 
 the house of his father from destruction by his eloquence, 
 launched out : 
 
 " FELLOW-CITIZENS: It would indeed be difficult for me 
 to express my surprise and joy at this unexpected honor. 
 There is always a peculiar delight which comes from meet 
 ing one s own dear friends, I may say, in one s own house. 
 Fellow-citizens, we have triumphed nobly, I may say. As a 
 result of the victory of the great party to which I may say 
 that I have the honor to belong, we shall force the street 
 railway companies the street railway companies, I say to 
 4 41 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 furnish a car no, a seat for every fare. Fellow-citizens, this 
 is no more than just and right; any poor man who pays five 
 cents for his seat is entitled to sit down. If companies are 
 grasping enough to demand the streets, we shall ask for seats. 
 No seats, no streets, is my motto. Fellow-citizens, once more 
 I welcome you from the very bottom of my heart. As 
 Shakespeare I believe it was Shakespeare said, Be as our 
 selves in Denmark ! ! 
 
 Oh, the applause! The lifting of enthusiastic voices! 
 The huzzahs and the huzzahs! If an orator is to be judged 
 and why shouldn t he be? by the marks of approval 
 which greet his efforts, we are willing to place Addison by 
 the side of Demosthenes, to whom we ventured to compare 
 him once more. Henceforth no timidity, Addison; trust 
 thyself! 
 
 It was at this very moment that the right honorable Buck 
 O Brien, seizing the enthusiasm at its height Buck had an 
 eye for dramatic moments responded on the part of the 
 club with an oration so classic that it would be a shame not 
 to repeat it for the benefit of those who are constantly up 
 holding the ancients at the expense of the moderns. 
 
 " Our honorable alderman an th lady av th house ! 
 Sildum in th histree av th wurrld has this ward been called 
 on to arruhms to protict th sacred foires av its altars an 
 its homes agin an inimy so insidjous to th cause av liberty 
 an true freedom. Nivir before did th rich an th poor 
 jine hands to protict thimselves agin a common inimy a 
 greedy corporashun that was eager to grind both av thiin 
 down to th dust. Yer son Addison, mam, has showed him 
 self to be a worthy represintitive av th Goddess av Liberty 
 an indipindence, fer not Patrick Henry himself, Oireland s 
 first great American, was bolder than him in th hour av his 
 
 42 
 
BRAINS Bow TO WEALTH 
 
 country s nade. The blood av his forefathers is in Addi- 
 son s veins. Addison s views, mam, on th tariff an th home 
 rule question shows him imminintly capable av handlin th 
 knotty problem av strate-car franchises an kapin th strates 
 clane. With you, mam, so to spake, at th broom, an Addi- 
 son at th helm, there is no rason why th strates av Chicago 
 shouldn t shine like thim av auld Athens in th palmy days 
 av Julius Caesar. A new order av things is on th glorious 
 way to its finish. May Addison s ricord in th council, mam, 
 give yersilf an Mr. Hammersmith no cause to regrit th 
 amount av hard earned gold lavished extravagantly on his 
 etfdication in th public schools av Chicago an Yale. May 
 th ship av shtate sail on, bearin Addison, th poor and th 
 nadey, to th office av President av th United States a job 
 which kings might envy an quanes desire." 
 
 43 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TATTOOED MAN 
 
 NO, young Hammersmith, I m juicy enough fer you 
 and yer ma if you want votes, but in swell society 
 I m a rotten tomato. You know what you can do? 
 I ll tell you what you can do. You can go and pack fog. 
 Go and put fogs in cans until you learn how to treat a gen 
 tleman." Thus, snapping his dirty fingers, spake Jerry Ho- 
 gan, " King of the Bums " and absolute monarch of the 
 lodging-house vote, to Addison in a corner of the Ham 
 mersmith drawing-room. Jerry was righteously angry be 
 cause Buck O Brien was commanding exclusive attention 
 and throwing him into complete eclipse. 
 
 " I m sorry, Mr. Hogan," said Addison, who had been 
 sent to pacify the man by those who dreaded his power, " I m 
 indeed sorry that you take umbrage; if Mr. O Brien was 
 selected to deliver the speech it was not my fault, I had 
 nothing to do with it." 
 
 It was a little hard for Addison to determine whether or 
 not he smelled the whisky in which Jerry s breath was 
 soaked or the hair oil in which he had drenched his beard 
 and locks, duly to honor the occasion. Either alone was 
 bad enough, but both together were terrible. " What an 
 odious creature," thought Addison ; " he looks as if he 
 lived in a sewer. And I have to get on my knees before 
 him!" 
 
 44 
 
THE TATTOOED MAN 
 
 " O Brien selected himself and that s the oyster that 
 selected him," growled Jerry, " and I m going to get out of 
 this ! I didn t want to come, anyways. What does a turnip 
 like me want in swell society ? To hell with it ! I like the 
 plain tamales! I m going home," he ended with a roar aud 
 ible from one end of the room to the other, " and youse can 
 go and can fog. Tell your ma I said so ! " 
 
 His majesty, in kingly disdain of all furniture and stat 
 uary that impeded his way, reeled toward the door Addison 
 was for calling the footman to throw him through it when 
 Buck O Brien himself crossed his path and mollified his royal 
 highness. Buck must have been consummate in the arts of 
 diplomacy, for a second later the king sought out the unfor 
 tunate whom he had consigned to this impossible task, put 
 his greasy arm around his neck and whispered : " It s all 
 right, Hammersmith ; you ain t such a poor potato after all." 
 On the wide territory embraced by the king s metaphors, it 
 will be seen the sun of poesy could set easily. " You and 
 me kin run a bar in here, trim the mirrors a bit different, 
 put that naked statue behind a palm, and make a first-class 
 saloon out of this. Upstairs we can pile in the hoboes. 
 There s money in it. I m the onion that knows what he s 
 spieling about." 
 
 In his enthusiasm the king removed his arm, which 
 probably resented the condescension, and Addison escaped, 
 plying his handkerchief with an ardor that told how diligent 
 he could be when he had the proper incentive. Bruce, who 
 had been standing near by to watch the performance, burst 
 into a loud laugh when somebody behind him said : 
 
 " You seem to be enjoying it immensely, Mr. McAl 
 lister." 
 
 Wondering where he had heard before that softly modu 
 lated voice with the one hard note in it, like a fine instrument 
 
 45 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the least perceptible bit out of tune, he turned and faced 
 Inez. 
 
 She was dressed in a light pink gown that clung loosely 
 to her bare, superb shoulders, chastely white as ivory. A 
 pearl necklace wound around her neck and a pendant hung 
 lovingly toward her full bosom. A plain gold ornament 
 held in check her thick coils of chestnut hair, which one 
 half expected to see break loose from the light restraint and 
 fall in a luxurious shower to her knees. 
 
 " It s not a bad bit of vaudeville," he answered, surveying 
 her smiling face and comparing her in her beauty to Thor- 
 waldsen s Greek girl that faced them both, molded on ample 
 lines of frame and limb, clean cut, firm and enduring as the 
 marble out of which the cunning chisel had fashioned it. 
 
 " I d Leave my Happy Home for You," whistled the 
 King of Bums, strolling past Inez, his hands thrust deep 
 down in his pockets, peering at her critically, his greasy head 
 cocked to one side There was something irresistibly funny ra 
 ther than wantonly insulting in his attitude and Inez burst 
 out laughing and Bruce with her. Addison, not so delighted 
 by the deference paid his sister by a king, flew into a pet and 
 was for having him ejected from the premises, politics or no 
 politics, when the suave courtier Buck O Brien intervened 
 and saved the king once more. His majesty retreated to a 
 cabinet of antiques and held a monologue, a crowd of his 
 henchmen around him, on the advisability of the hostess dis 
 tributing the contents for souvenirs. 
 
 " Addison," smiled Inez, " ought to expect that sort of 
 thing if he goes into politics." 
 
 " Certainly," returned Bruce " they can all vote some of 
 them, if they re not caught, many times." 
 
 " Boys," called Addison, " there s a stand-up lunch wait 
 ing for you in the dining-room ; " and immediately after this 
 
THE TATTOOED MAN 
 
 announcement he rushed up to Bruce with, " I say, Bruce, 
 1 guess you won t care much about eating with this crew 
 you re welcome to my place. It s the last time any of cm get 
 in here unless it is through a window. You might prefer 
 to stay here and talk with Inez. I won t be gone long. 
 The King of Bums ought to be buried in the ground instead 
 of being allowed to move in front of a table." 
 
 " We might go into the picture gallery," suggested 
 Inez, and she led the way across the hardwood floors and 
 rugs into the conservatory. Bruce followed. 
 
 The crowd pushed hurriedly toward the dining room, 
 Buck at the head, King Jeremiah taking an unwilling second 
 place. His highness sulked again, turning up his nose at 
 what he called the cheap grub; and when he learned that 
 beer instead of champagne was to be served his disgust knew 
 no bounds. He went from one of his subjects to the other, 
 exhibiting in his hand one of the waferlike sandwiches 
 and muttering: "Look at this so you ll know it next time 
 when you see it! They call this a sandwich! Yes, a sand 
 wich! So help me Gawd, I m going to have its picture took 
 to hand around the next time this young cabbage head runs 
 fer office!" 
 
 Terence Sullivan, oil inspector, delivered his famous 
 toast " The Ladies," which, beginning with Eve, for this oc 
 casion was brought down to Mrs. Hammersmith, comparable 
 to the best of them according to Terence, whose knowledge 
 of the fair sex was encyclopaedic. The speech was greeted 
 with marked favor by all except the king who kept mutter 
 ing: "What to hell! What to hell! She ain t so much! 
 Look at the grub she sets up! They show me first next 
 time!" 
 
 Meanwhile, the swarthy Bruce and the fair Inez were 
 passing through the long, brilliantly lit picture gallery, its 
 
 47 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 walls covered with fairly representative works of the older 
 schools and many best examples of the more modern. He 
 felt himself responding to her beauty too quickly, and, cog 
 nizant of his limitations, he recognized the futility of it and 
 checked the process by his power of will. Life had taught 
 him the folly of wasting effort in the attempt to put a claim 
 ing finger on the moon. 
 
 Inez, on the other hand, recognizing the intellectual 
 strength of the man was tempted to try the power of her 
 beauty over it. She was not at all conscious that this was 
 her purpose. She told herself merely that he interested her 
 for the moment. His character was complex; to unravel 
 it challenged her ingenuity. Inez, taking her beauty for 
 granted, flattered herself only on her intellect and she was 
 amenable to flattery only along that line. 
 
 He had piqued her curiosity on the evening of his address, 
 and even more than that, he had stimulated her thought, and 
 more still, he had ruffled her emotions, which, seated far 
 below the surface, were hard, although far from impossible, 
 to reach. She was not so cold as she seemed! Of course 
 a word, a detached sentence or two, still remained with her, 
 echoing in her mind now and then when occasion awoke their 
 memory, but even these grew fainter and fainter as the days 
 sped on. Is it not the author of our greatest psychology who 
 holds up to us as a terrible example the Russian lady who 
 wept copious tears over the fate of the heroine inside the 
 theater while her coachman sat freezing on the box of her 
 carriage without? Doubtlessly when the play was over my 
 lady had done with her weeping, and the fate of the 
 heroine either perished from her memory, or sunk, more 
 dead than alive, into the dim region of her subconsciousness. 
 
 Had it been otherwise with Inez it would have ap 
 proached the border line of miracle. Environment, social 
 
THE TATTOOED MAN 
 
 interests, temperament, molded the grooves down which her 
 thoughts ran, and their direction was radically opposite to 
 those Bruce had lured them into taking for a minute or two. 
 A single emotion no more makes a habit of mind than a 
 single puff of wind determines the course of a river. What 
 ever her faults, and Inez had her full share of them, she tried 
 to be honest with herself and she scorned to pretend to believe 
 in what she did not believe. She honestly thought his no 
 tions, on a more mature consideration, to be false to the core 
 and prejudiced at the very base. 
 
 Moreover, his vagarious ideas interfered with her intel 
 lectual complacency and she dismissed them in obedience to 
 that primal law which makes us protect our happiness as our 
 very selves. If Truth disturbs our conscience, we must either 
 submit to her sway or else prove her a liar and oust her! 
 Inez was glad that honesty did not ask her to admit beyond 
 the portals the distorted thing that Bruce McAllister called 
 truth. It was, she thought, like Bruce himself, ugly to look 
 upon and not attractive to her highly developed esthetic sense. 
 
 Still, which was quite natural, too, now that Inez saw 
 Bruce again, her interest was reawakened and she meant to 
 know him better, to test his mettle and incidentally her own. 
 He was different than the men with whom she came in con 
 tact, who trod the commonplace orbit that led between their 
 desks and their homes, whose thoughts were as precisely 
 mapped out as their paths both in many cases having been 
 planned by a father. Young, vital, eager, in love with exist 
 ence, with every breath she drew, she was athirst and aflame 
 for the knowledge of life and of people. Her spirit in this 
 respect was quite the same as that of an ardent geologist who 
 wishes to know all about rocks, not because he indulges an 
 idea so insane as to think his knowledge will be of any benefit 
 to the rocks, but simply because he has the curiosity and 
 
 49 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 rocks happen to pique it. Life had drawn a circle around 
 her and forced her to move within its circumference. Bruce 
 McAllister had given her one of her first glimpses beyond. 
 
 " Do you like pictures? " she asked suddenly. It was to 
 break the ice into which he was to fall, while she, at it were, 
 was to stand on the shore and watch how he disported him 
 self in the uncomfortable situation. 
 
 " I don t understand them," he answered ; " that is, they 
 don t make any appeal to me. Neither does music. An 
 artistic sense, so my sister says, is entirely lacking in me. I m 
 sorry, but so be it." 
 
 " Oh, you have a sister? " mentally Inez pictured the sis 
 ter, wondering if she could be as ugly as Bruce. 
 
 " Yes, I have. She doesn t look like me. The picture 
 you have formed of her doesn t do her justice." Inez started 
 as one taken unawares. Bruce continued : " They say she 
 has a big talent. She s doing some clever work in plaster 
 modeling. All the McAllisters are smart," he added with 
 a childlike naivete. 
 
 Inez laughed again, showing pearly teeth; her brown 
 eyes changed color like the waters of the sea, moving ever, 
 the same and yet not the same. Bruce looked down on her 
 from his superior height of four inches. " A skeleton in 
 clothes," flashed through her mind. The magnetism of her 
 mere personal beauty went through him like an electric cur 
 rent, disturbing his self-mastery, scattering his thoughts to 
 the four corners of the picture gallery. Then he regained 
 his control, angry at himself for having lost it. 
 
 " We might sit down," and she suited the action to the 
 word, dropping gracefully into a small couch that was cov 
 ered with embroidery of the time when Louis XIV was king. 
 
 " Well," said Bruce, studying the design, " it hardly 
 seems right to sit on the face of that elegant gentleman in the 
 
 50 
 
THE TATTOOED MAN 
 
 short trousers and ribbons, who is bowing to me. Why is 
 it that the amount of commerce seems to have increased 
 with the length of men s trousers? " 
 
 " As men grew more businesslike," she answered, " their 
 dress was fated to become more practical." 
 
 " Sounds natural." Bruce swung out his long arm and 
 looked with a ludicrous countenance at his long legs. " I m 
 glad they didn t drop me down with those knickerbockered, 
 beribboned fellows it would have been too hard on the 
 tailors." 
 
 She thought he lacked in sensitiveness, not seeing how the 
 attacking of one s own weakest point is much like building 
 a defense around it, how very like it is to taking the enemy s 
 strongest weapon out of his hands and astonishing him into 
 admitting its weakness. 
 
 " I m far more interested in politics than in clothes," she 
 said to him. 
 
 " Well, politics is clothes and bread and butter, besides, 
 to most of us." 
 
 " I did not think you went into politics with that aim," 
 she said. 
 
 " Why should you? " asked Bruce, swinging a long arm 
 at the surrounding elegance and luxury. He never would 
 permit himself to talk to anybody but Bruce McAllister on 
 lofty aims and ideals in politics, and even then he caught the 
 humorous Bruce chuckling in his sleeve at the serious one. 
 
 " Why shouldn t I ? " asked Inez, seeking the exit from 
 her own trap. 
 
 " Well," he volunteered, " politics is the way hundreds 
 of us have of making our living. We go into it as your fa 
 ther, for instance, has gone into business. You may answer 
 me that we promise and that we are expected to serve the 
 ends of the public, therefore our aim should be higher. But 
 
 51 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 my answer is that politics is nothing but a machine run to 
 aid the transaction of business. We are expected to serve 
 business; it s a farce to pretend otherwise. How then can 
 our aims be higher than the ends we are forced to serve? 
 Anyway, it is expecting a good deal of high ideals to ask them 
 to stand up against the material forces of hunger and want. 
 Have you ever gone hungry ? " he asked abruptly. 
 
 " Spiritually hungry? " 
 
 " Spiritual hunger is nothing," returned Bruce, who had 
 felt the pangs of it, " that is a kind of longing that comes 
 after a hearty dinner ; it s the coffee with which we top off." 
 His features dropped into a dull repose; then a melancholy, 
 absent look stole over them. Inez noticed it. 
 
 "Have you ever gone hungry?" she asked, somewhat 
 more sympathetically. 
 
 " A growing boy goes hungry all the time," he answered 
 guardedly. He paused a second and then said, as if tak 
 ing her question more seriously: " Yes, I went hungry very 
 often. My father died when I was a mere lad and I was left 
 practically to support a family." He stopped short again. 
 His pride in obstacles overcome was just, his reserve concern 
 ing the nature of them natural. 
 
 Her eyes, lustrously brown, fastened on him intently. 
 " Go on," they said, appealingly. Her hands clasped her 
 knees ; her lips rounded expectantly. Hers was the listening 
 attitude. Inez s idea of poverty had been gleaned from such 
 polite books as " The Princess Casamassima," which is like 
 learning what the pains of rheumatism are from the third 
 cousin of the man who had it. The poor had her intellectual 
 pity, but she had been reared to believe that their poverty was 
 their own fault. Had not her mother had a seamstress who 
 returned generosity with impudence, a coachman who drank 
 too much, a chef who proved dishonest? She was eager to 
 
 52 
 
THE TATTOOED MAN 
 
 learn from him who knew and whose knowledge came from 
 a first-hand experience. Her mute appeal lifted the finger 
 of reserve from his lips. 
 
 " I was only thirteen when my father died, and I quit 
 school at once and went to the alderman of our ward, a man 
 by the name of McQuirk for whom my father had done some 
 political favors, and I insisted that he find me work. I was 
 a tall boy for my age, and he put me to driving a wagon for 
 a butcher by the name of Collberger. I had the habit of 
 sitting up until all hours of the night reading and studying 
 and taking cat naps on the wagon seat during the day. One 
 cold winter night I had a delivery to make out in the country 
 and I dozed off. When they found me on the roadside I was 
 half frozen and the horse and wagon were nowhere in sight. 
 They took me to the hospital, and the doctor talked about 
 snipping off my leg, but I wouldn t stand for it, and the 
 result is I can still stand on my own legs. When I got well I 
 applied at Collberger s for my old job, but he wouldn t give 
 it to me. He insisted that my carelessness had nearly lost a 
 horse and wagon for him, which was right in a way, although 
 I thought he ought to have considered that it nearly cost me 
 a leg. Then I wandered around the streets in search for 
 something to do; the times were hard and I couldn t get it. 
 We lived on bread and water in those days I don t exagge 
 rate and I can tell you there wasn t any too much of it." 
 His eyes wavered, the gray in them dying away and leaving 
 them a dreamy blue. 
 
 " Go on, won t you," she appealed softly. 
 
 Ours is no age of romance, knight errantry and battle, 
 but one of prosaic commerce, and our modern Othellos woo 
 and win our modern Desdemonas not by accounts of moving 
 accidents and hair-breadth escapes in the imminent, deadly 
 breach, but by the gentler tale of service done our great god 
 
 53 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 Success in fields commercial. The witchcraft used in either 
 case is quite the same power. 
 
 " Finally I lined up enough voters in the ward to influ 
 ence McQuirk to influence Collberger, and he took me back 
 against his will. It was practically my first insight into the 
 power of influence, of pull and of politics. I made it a point 
 to do my sleeping in bed this time and I got along better. 
 After a while Collberger advanced me to a clerkship. His 
 store was quite a haunt for politicians, for he had the county 
 meat contract and had his finger in other fires as well. I 
 kept my eyes and ears open and I picked up a few tricks of 
 the trade. In fact, I learned so many tricks that Collberger 
 was really afraid to let me go and he raised my salary at con 
 venient intervals. I was paid for what I wasn t supposed to 
 know. Meanwhile, I kept on with my books at night in the 
 way the Lincoln birthday orator has made fashionable for 
 poor young men. My brother Peter, who is a few years 
 younger than I, yet more of a scholar, helped me along. 
 
 " One campaign when McQuirk was counting votes the 
 way a miser counts dollars, I came to his rescue and he, with 
 Collberger backing my petition he was anxious to rid him 
 of bad rubbish found me a job in the city hall. I man 
 euvered until I placed my brother Peter, who has a scientific 
 turn of mind, in the bacteriological department of the same 
 employer, and I kept my place until I was admitted to the 
 bar. I used a good deal of the city s time to good advantage 
 studying law. There you have me; it s all my history," he 
 ended. 
 
 " Except the parts you have chosen not to tell," she com 
 mented, her desire more aroused than satisfied. 
 
 He looked in his absent way through the glass door of the 
 conservatory and caught sight of the hungry members of the 
 club gormandising. The cut glass, the silver and gold, 
 
 54 
 
THE TATTOOED MAN 
 
 the Florentine sideboard, the tapestries and the soft tints of 
 the painted panels all this magnificence thrown into strange 
 contrast with the gluttonous hoi polloi, dawned as suddenly 
 on Bruce s consciousness as if the view had not been before 
 him all evening. 
 
 " Perhaps you would rather be in there than talking with 
 me," said Inez, noticing the direction in which his eyes were 
 turned. Was she in the least piqued because -his attention 
 wandered from her? 
 
 "No," said Bruce decidedly; and then, absently, "You 
 interest me." 
 
 Astonishment, perceptible as a shadow, wavered over her 
 countenance. In a way the tables had been turned on her by 
 this odd, decidedly homely, and positively awkward man. 
 Had those piercing gray eyes of his divined her motives? 
 His cleverness, seemingly, was not confined to oratory. It 
 reminded her of the time when she had hired a French maid 
 for the purpose of better acquiring her idiom ; but the astute 
 maid had merely improved the opportunity to perfect her 
 English. 
 
 " I m really glad you are interested in me," she laughed 
 good-naturedly, in full appreciation of the situation. 
 
 Bruce shook a nervous foot, mistaking appreciation for 
 sarcasm. " Well," he brought out after a second s pause, 
 " there s nothing I like to do better than to pull down walls." 
 
 " Addison s friends," she said regretfully, " are taking 
 their departure, and I am afraid we shall have to go. Per 
 haps you will come to see me again? It seems to me as if 
 we had removed no more than the first stone from the divid 
 ing wall." She rose with a courtesy. 
 
 " Just one second," said Bruce, rising with her ; " I want 
 to tell you a little story. When I was a boy I went to the 
 circus and the thing that attracted me most was the tattooed 
 
 55 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 man. I was a skeptical youngster and I wouldn t believe 
 that he was genuine. I had the notion that he was merely 
 dressed in a thin, decorated velvet suit. So do you know 
 what I did ? I stuck pins into him. The first time the least 
 bit, and he didn t feel it. The second time I jabbed him 
 and he yelled and cursed ; then I stole away satisfied." 
 
 Her fine brows knit. She deduced the moral of the story, 
 only after the author of it had disappeared, arm in arm with 
 the Honorable Buck O Brien. 
 
BOOK TWO 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE MAGIC CARPET 
 
 WHO S running this country, anyway, this man Mc 
 Allister or I ? " asked Anthony Wyckoff, father 
 of The Trust of Trusts, of Sydney P. Shaw, the 
 most powerful man on the floor of the House of Representa 
 tives at least when Bruce McAllister and several others 
 were off it. 
 
 " I can t see that McAllister has much to do with it," 
 said Shaw in his most cajoling tones. 
 
 " Shut him up then," ordered Anthony in his rich bass 
 voice, his cross eyes twinkling, his cheeks puffing. 
 
 Anthony Wyckoff, dubbed " Sir Anthony " by those who 
 felt the pressure of his thumb, was the very general over all 
 the captains of industry. He was the founder of the Cos 
 mopolitan Oil Company ; he was considered the richest man 
 in the world and he was a dreadful sufferer from the gout. 
 He was a figure so important that he impressed himself on 
 the English language and wrought a change in it: since his 
 advent the phrase " as rich as a Jew " was obsolescent. 
 
 How many ambitious lads have not read his short auto 
 biographical articles in the Encouraged He tells there of 
 his struggles against inconceivable hardships and he attributes 
 his degree of modest success to perseverance, hard work, un 
 compromising honesty, and a rigid adherence to the doctrines 
 of Christianity as practiced by the Master Himself. He felt 
 
 59 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the Lord was on his side, which is good for business ; he sin 
 cerely believed the Lord had given, and stood in terrible 
 dread lest the Lord take away. When a twinge of the gout 
 warned him of the transitoriness of all things human, he 
 hastened to found a university or hospital, and so he secured 
 a new lease on life and a new peace of mind. Presidents of 
 universities and managing boards of hospitals watched the 
 newspapers carefully to learn the state of Sir Anthony s 
 health. The great toe of no man on earth, save the Pope s, 
 has been accorded such reverence. 
 
 Any number of biographies, other than Anthony s, will 
 tell you by what methods he gained control over the oil 
 that lights the world; here we may content ourselves with 
 pointing out that Anthony merely did on a colossal scale what 
 hundreds and hundreds were doing on a scale too petty for 
 his masterful consideration, and what thousands of others 
 would have been happy to do if they had but had the brains 
 to let them do it. He permitted himself but one economic 
 theory whatever is worth owning at all is worth owning 
 all alone. No one could go into the oil business without his 
 permission and he extended the privilege to himself only. 
 
 " This man McAllister s talk," continued Sir Anthony 
 we interrupt his biography to continue his conversation with 
 Shaw " is stirring up in this country a foolish and wicked 
 sentiment that I don t like. I can t do what I want if such 
 demagogues keep on lying to an impressionable public and 
 make it believe that I am trespassing on its liberties! It s 
 absurd and it s contemptible ! " Anthony s compact form 
 bobbed up from the red plush chair and appeared at the 
 hotel window. The rectangular vistas of Washington, 
 sparkling in the wintry sunshine, met his gaze. The snow 
 was falling with a soothing touch on the city that lay below 
 him. He saw the Capitol as in miniature. It might have 
 
 60 
 
THE MAGIC CARPET 
 
 reminded an intelligence more awake to comparisons of one 
 of those toy scenes wedged in the bottom of a crystalline ball, 
 over which the snow is set to flying by a dexterous twist of 
 the hand. The White House, robed in ermine like a simple 
 monk suddenly exalted, the rare trees and shrubbery of La 
 fayette Square in new and coquettish attire, appealed to him 
 in vain ; his mind was elsewhere. 
 
 "Come," put in Sydney P. Shaw suddenly; " to what, 
 after all, amounts the little legislation that McAllister is 
 getting?" 
 
 " I don t care about that, Shaw I suppose we have to 
 fling the mob a sop once in so often but it s the principle 
 of the thing. If that revolutionary spirit is set afoot, who 
 knows when it s going to stop? I tell you, the people of 
 this great country are a good deal better off if they know 
 nothing about the nonsense McAllister is trying to stuff into 
 their heads. I pay good wages, I have no intention, upon my 
 word and honor, of grinding them down, and they ll starve 
 to death when these demagogues rule." 
 
 Sir Anthony shifted windows as he shifted sentences. 
 His eyes traveled down the huge stairs made by the jagged 
 roof-tops and swept along Pennsylvania Avenue, which be 
 gins so well with the democratic White House and the 
 classic Treasury and goes to pieces long before it reaches the 
 middle with the horrible Post Office, which atones for its 
 fault by ending with the Capitol and its grounds. Pennsyl 
 vania Avenue was far more of a jumble than Sir Anthony s 
 mind; one might have wondered, had not the sheet of 
 white covered its multitude of sins, what mad giant s hand 
 had tossed together helter-skelter that fantastic array of lodg 
 ing houses, pretentious hotels, saloons, pawnshops, Chinese 
 restaurants and laundries. The aspect of the avenue, again 
 unlike Anthony WyckofFs mind, was southern in its care- 
 
 61 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 lessness; the old-fashioned fronts of its decayed houses, now 
 degenerated into petty shops, reminded one of an ante-bellum 
 southern town that merely existed in the present to boast 
 sadly of the grandeur of its past. 
 
 " Shut him up ! " said Anthony, turning his back on the 
 window. " If you can t shut McAllister up one way, try 
 another." 
 
 Sydney P. Shaw shook his fine head and stroked his blond 
 beard with his white hand. " We ve tried several ways. 
 We ve offered him the law work for your western railways 
 and he laughed." 
 
 " Laughed," repeated Anthony as if shocked, his voice 
 sinking deeper. "What does the fellow want? to make a 
 colossal fortune by overthrowing me! That s a game sev 
 eral of them are trying." 
 
 " It s hard work to get at the motives of men ; but he 
 seems in earnest. The Speaker could shut him up in five 
 minutes if he wanted to he s more or less to blame for all 
 of it at bottom." 
 
 " I was always afraid that Fiske might prove unsafe," 
 said Anthony. " It was against my better judgment to let 
 him go where he is. But that s done now. Besides, you can 
 never quite tell about men until they re tried. Suppose 
 we sound McAllister more subtly. There s the Trans 
 oceanic." 
 
 Shaw nodded knowingly. 
 
 It will be seen from this straight-to-the-point conversation 
 that Bruce McAllister had stepped on the magic carpet and 
 been whirled away on it from Chicago to Washington. 
 Politics made the warp and woof of the carpet that carried 
 him along at a terrific speed from the legislature of Illinois, 
 where he made a name for himself in the case of People vs. 
 Corruption to the state s attorneyship, where he made a still 
 
 62 
 
THE MAGIC CARPET 
 
 greater name for himself, and thence to the national hall of 
 legislation at Washington. 
 
 It was while Bruce was state s attorney that he came in 
 contact and conflict with Franklin De Wolfe Fiske, who 
 after serving his country with honor in and out of Congress, 
 refused the Cabinet portfolio that had been offered him. 
 Fiske s services had been called into requisition by several 
 kings of commerce at a price big enough to bankrupt their 
 combined treasury whom our hero was prosecuting for their 
 successful attempts to restrain trade. 
 
 Fiske began by belaboring and ridiculing Bruce in his 
 usual ironical fashion; he ended by expressing unstinted ad 
 miration for him. When he left Chicago he remarked that 
 the three things that impressed him most were Lake Michi 
 gan, Bruce McAllister, and the Stock Yards, and of these 
 three, McAllister alone was worth the price of the trip. It 
 was high praise coming from a man whose favorite method 
 of expression was irony and who rarely mentioned anybody 
 without attaching to his name an epithet that made the 
 owner thereof wish he might change it. 
 
 Bruce himself laid little stress on Fiske s praise or blame, 
 for the truth is, that he took neither his legal victories nor 
 defeats to heart, and he was beginning to take the law less 
 and less seriously. It was characteristic of him to challenge 
 the profession that was filling his pockets with gold, and to 
 ask of it, " What means the law to my people, the prop- 
 ertyless ? Is it not an entirely negative institution for them ? 
 Is it not " but enough of this, since it suffices to say that 
 either his impatience with a profession in which he no longer 
 believed, or else his ambition or his fate, led him to resign 
 and to run for Congress. But again, if his purpose was not 
 unselfish, how explain the sacrifices he made? For the de 
 tails of the election we refer the curious as well as the lover 
 
 63 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 of the technicalities of politics to any one of the half dozen 
 biographies of Bruce McAllister that have appeared since. 
 
 At the time when Bruce entered the Republican House, 
 Franklin De Wolfe Fiske was the Speaker of it, and he 
 gave Bruce what has been given by one man to another so 
 seldom in Washington, as to make the gift noteworthy 
 namely, a " glad hand " backed by a sincere heart. He told 
 Bruce behind the closed doors of the Speaker s room, where 
 they had many a long conversation, he would do for him any 
 reasonable favor that lay in his power. 
 
 Circumstances, like Fiske himself, arranged themselves 
 on the side of Bruce. The epoch was propitious for one of 
 his kidney; radicalism had a pedestal in waiting for the man 
 of the hour to mount. Labor was restless, capital unyielding, 
 and the one opened an itching palm to close tightly around 
 the throat of the other. Peacemakers proposed remedies 
 for the evil; Bruce humorously proved the remedies worse 
 than the disease. Humor needs little blazoning of trumpets 
 to assemble an audience. Bruce was quoted far and wide. 
 The press commended his ability while deprecating his atti 
 tude. His radicalism would lag steadily behind his acquired 
 wisdom, it predicted, and gradually be lost from sight. Con 
 servatism, ripening gradually, would hail him a coming man. 
 Before long, when it was known that McAllister " was up," 
 each seat had a listene--, Those who were diverted realized 
 afterwards with a start that they had been instructed. 
 
 Moreover, the Democrats, who, to quote Fiske, " were 
 not by far so weak numerically as intellectually," were impos 
 ing stumbling-blocks in the way of legislation. In their ranks 
 were a number of young men whom neither the interests of 
 a class, nor bribery, nor corruption, nor the party whip could 
 force into line. These had Bruce s ideas more or less vaguely, 
 but his conscious ideals were lacking in their equipment. He 
 
THE MAGIC CARPET 
 
 directed them toward a common aim ; he throttled vagueness. 
 They gathered around the flag he hoisted and they presented 
 a solid front, as conscious of purpose as was the enemy whom 
 they assaulted. 
 
 He was toiling day and night now on a bill directed 
 against the employment of child labor on products that 
 crossed state lines. He was a willing slave to the bill; it 
 claimed him heart and mind like a mistress. Anthony 
 dreaded lest it slip through a chink in the Interstate Com 
 merce Committee room, mouselike, evade all the traps that 
 the watchful Shaw, who was chairman of the committee, had 
 set for it, and scamper along on the floor of the House. 
 
 Anthony objected to the bill, not that he loved children 
 less, but that he loved profits more, and besides it stood in 
 the way of the consummation of his schemes with a so-to-say 
 juvenile indiscretion. The work of the world must be done, 
 the big deals brought to fruition, and what matters it, after 
 a multitude of suns have set and risen, if a generation or two 
 of children be crushed out in the process? Others will take 
 their place in the scheme of things and a hurrying world will 
 mark no difference, but a great scheme gone astray may tear 
 out a joint from the rails of civilization and wreck the engine 
 of progress. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AN ENEMY TO BRUCE 
 
 IT was ten o clock when Sydney P. Shaw, quitting Anthony 
 Wyckoff, left the hotel and sauntered leisurely along 
 F Street past the Doric-columned portico, Parthenon- 
 like, of the Department of the Interior s huge buildings. 
 
 " This affair with McAllister will straighten itself out 
 all right," he said to himself, stroking his blond beard with 
 his neatly gloved hand. 
 
 Sydney was at peace with himself and quite satisfied with 
 the world as it wagged. Anthony had given him his word, 
 for one thing, that he was to have his indorsement as the next 
 presidential candidate Sydney barely had escaped the nomi 
 nation twice and while Shaw believed that Anthony s word 
 was as good as his bond, and we have just learned how good 
 that was, he had something still more substantial in his pocket, 
 namely, six hundred shares in the Transoceanic Transfer 
 Company one of the many schemes that kept in ferment 
 the fertile imagination of our king of commerce. 
 
 In brief, this little scheme was one whereby the govern 
 ment was to subsidize its international mail service and pay 
 about a million and a half into the coffers of the treasury 
 of the Transoceanic for letter-carrying alone. On the face 
 of it the bonus was open to all competing lines, but the bill 
 was so skilfully drawn what otherwise was the use of hav 
 ing two such heads as Sydney s and Anthony s? with such 
 
 66 
 
AN ENEMY TO BRUCE 
 
 limitations as to size, speed and ownership, that only the 
 vessels of the Transoceanic would come under its provisions. 
 
 Thinking of these things, Sydney P. Shaw moved serenely 
 along. The snow still fell, though more gently, gracing all 
 it touched from the freestone granite and marble of the great 
 government buildings to the store fronts of F Street, devoted 
 to shoppers. Women passed him, gayly attired in light gar 
 ments, relying on the usual mildness of Washington win 
 ters. Several acquaintances of the sex bowed to him; but 
 these he heeded not, so lost was he in his own thoughts. 
 Others looked at him with a quick, shy glance of admiration, 
 for Shaw s appearance did no dishonor to his statesmanship. 
 His fine figure, erect and manly, his intellectual forehead, 
 his attractive face, his Hyperion locks and whiskers gave him 
 the power to attract always, to command on occasion. It 
 was only the closest of observers who would have caught 
 the slight suggestion of furtiveness in Shaw s penetrating, 
 oblong eyes that drooped toward his high temples. The lids 
 fell over them curtainwise, almost like superfluous flesh. 
 His eyelids concealed from the curious any change of ex 
 pression in the eyes, and his blue eyes seemed formed to con 
 ceal the perfect stream of thoughts that poured in and out 
 of the deep caverns of Shaw s mind. " Yes," he thought, 
 again stroking his beard, " we can roll McAllister to one 
 side the way the sun rolls the fog." 
 
 He moved on through Judiciary Square, its bare trees 
 made by the snow to resemble the columns of a cathedral. 
 The bright red of the ugly Pension building struck a false 
 tone in the color scheme, and Sydney felt, without knowing 
 why, that something was amiss when his eye fell on the 
 structure s monotonous march of infantry, cavalry, and artil 
 lery along the commonplace frieze. The snowfall lessened 
 suddenly and he sat him down on one of the benches and 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 looked at the friendly, odd, little buildings of the city hall 
 and courthouse. The air was mild, springlike, carrying 
 with it but a tang of wintriness. 
 
 Ah, everything was pleasant to him on that white morn 
 ing which nature had built like a proper framework around 
 his mood. Again he paid his respects to Bruce McAllister 
 as a disappearing body. Considering the ease with which 
 Bruce was blown to one side, the frequency of the compliment 
 was remarkable. 
 
 " I wonder," he purred to himself softly, tracing a paral 
 lelogram in the snow with the tip of his shoe, " if Georgia 
 couldn t call Miss Miss what s her name? from Chicago 
 into requisition ? " 
 
 He smiled blandly; it seemed to him a neat stroke in di 
 plomacy to let the ironical Fiske move the squadrons of the 
 opposition, and then to checkmate him through the maneu 
 vering of his own daughter. It was eleven now. Cupid s 
 smile hovered over the four on the dial of his watch, for at 
 that hour he had an appointment with her. There were 
 weighty affairs that would claim his coolest wits in the mean- 
 time, and he tried to dismiss the likeness he had evoked, but 
 the image of the golden Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck persisted. 
 The most enigmatic of smiles played around Sydney s sensi 
 tive lips. The thought of the great Fiske shackled thus vi 
 cariously may have delighted him. Politics was war, and in 
 war all was fair. 
 
 Shaw arose from the bench with an energetic start, 
 walked along to New Jersey Avenue, thence to the Capitol. 
 The snow began to fall heavier and heavier, then it came 
 down in a swirl like the swaying of white robes, fold on fold, 
 of some dancing sylph. The columned tiers of the Capitol s 
 marble, rising skyward to support the lofty dome, were hazy 
 in outline, half hidden from view. The great dome itself 
 
 68 
 
AN ENEMY TO BRUCE 
 
 seemed to float gently down from the skies as if carved out 
 of the unsubstantial snow, and to settle down on its massive 
 peristyle, and Liberty In Arms, Crawford s successful statue, 
 moved like some goddess behind her veil of fleecy white clouds 
 and stepped majestically into her place on the waiting lan 
 tern. 
 
 A few minutes after Sydney entered the Capitol and made 
 for the room that belonged to the Committee of Interstate 
 Commerce, of which he was chairman, Sir Anthony Wyckoff 
 left his hotel, walked hastily through Lafayette Square and 
 passed into the snug little White House. He had an ap 
 pointment with the President at a quarter past eleven pre 
 cisely and he hoped, time being money at an exorbitant rate 
 per minute, he wouldn t be kept in waiting for a second. 
 He managed to dodge the newspaper men, who had been cau 
 tioned to be on the lookout for him, and he met the President 
 in the library. 
 
 The President was under a direct personal obligation to 
 Sir Anthony, for the magnate s influence had helped not only 
 to nominate him in the national convention, but his liberal 
 contribution to the campaign fund also had furthered the 
 prospects of the election. Moreover, the President leaned on 
 our merchant king for advice, believing that whatsoever was 
 bad for Sir Anthony was bad for commerce, and vice versa, 
 and that in any way to disturb the business and vested inter 
 ests of the country was to severely injure the fortunes of his 
 party. When Sir Anthony spoke, commerce spoke, which 
 after all was the only voice worthy of a consideration in the 
 United States; in fact, Sir Anthony was a silent member of 
 the Cabinet who never kept still when any measure of impor 
 tance was up for a hearing. Clear-headed, logical, direct, he 
 could make as clear as day to the President that which the 
 jargon of others steeped in darkness and involved in mystery. 
 
 69 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 Anthony Wyckoff saluted the President familiarly by his 
 first name, shook his hand without the slightest shadow of 
 condescension, and then made a bee-line for business. His 
 deep, rich voice one of the chief sources of Anthony s power 
 over men rolled out melodiously and spent its eloquence on 
 the reasons why the foreign mail service was in need of sub 
 sidization. The President gave Sir Anthony s remarks his 
 thoughtful attention, promising to lend the subject an ex 
 haustive examination when the bill came up before Congress. 
 
 Anthony Wyckoff hastened out of the White House, cut 
 through Executive Avenue and entered the huge Roman 
 esque building devoted to the War, State and Navy depart 
 ments. He regretted the frittering away of his time, but it 
 was necessary to urge the bill upon the Naval Committee of 
 the House. It ought to take him but a few minutes ; indeed, 
 why should it require more? The secretary s son had mar 
 ried Anthony s second daughter, and the two families were so 
 closely united that what was good for one could do no harm 
 to the other. 
 
 Henry Kinkaid, Secretary of the Navy, was a remarkable 
 man; he had fine manners, gray hair and an imposing air. 
 He never spoke unless he had something to say. He was 
 the most taciturn man in Washington. He had a wonderful 
 memory for figures, the accuracy of which none could dispute. 
 During his leisure, when a country banker, he had written 
 a history of the American navy, and since it disputed every 
 thing that everybody else had said, it was considered a re 
 markable book by those who took the word of the author s 
 friends for it. 
 
 When Sir Anthony took the elevator, ascended to the sec 
 ond floor, and walked down the tesselated floor of the dark 
 corridor to the secretary s office, he found the usual crowd in 
 the outer room, but the clerk recognizing him at a glance 
 
 70 
 
AN ENEMY TO BRUCE 
 
 announced him without asking his name or his business. 
 The inner door swung open, some one else passed out, and 
 Sir Anthony passed in. Arising, the secretary extended a cor 
 dial hand. Anthony surveyed him with his cool, little cross- 
 eyes, asked after the health of his daughter and her babies 
 in that deep compelling voice of his, and then proceeded to 
 business. Kinkaid nod ded wisely as Sir Anthony dipped 
 deeper into the bill, and when Kinkaid had finished nodding, 
 Anthony removed his hat from the table, gave a frightened 
 look at his watch, and left. 
 
 Anthony hastened back by the way he had come, passed 
 by the White House again and made for the Doric front of 
 the Treasury building. Again the ascension by elevator, the 
 march through the dark corridors, an entrance into the 
 crowded outer office with its usual ornaments of red carpet, 
 silver pitcher and tray, old-fashioned bookcases full of musty 
 government reports, and its walls hung with the portraits of 
 former secretaries, most of whose names were now as un 
 familiar as their faces. It was through the Secretary of the 
 Treasury that the company would be paid its subsidies and 
 Anthony wished certain matters understood before the bill 
 became a law. 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury Scarborough s biography is 
 even shorter than that of the distinguished Kinkaid. Be 
 fore entering the Cabinet he had been a successful merchant, 
 and when he left it he intended to become the president of a 
 national bank in New York, of which the good Sir Anthony 
 was the principal stockholder. 
 
 The moment the magnate put in his appearance the sec 
 retary s secretary bowed his chief s visitors out and Anthony 
 in. Scarborough was standing at the end of the long table, 
 littered with papers, that took up almost one half of his 
 narrow office, his back turned to the cheerful fire burning in 
 
 71 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the grate. Anthony looked like a child next to the burly sec 
 retary, and Scarborough seemed to feel the difference, for he 
 bent his right leg and leaned down when he shook hands, as 
 if to make himself smaller on purpose. Scarborough was 
 far from being what we term a bad-looking man, although 
 his bludgeon-shaped nose, his black eyes, and his blacker beard 
 and long mustache, the ends of which projected far out and 
 bristled pugnaciously, gave to him a decidedly fierce expres 
 sion. A close observer might have noted that he wore a wig, 
 and a certain gossip, whom nothing seems to have escaped, 
 remarked: " Scarborough takes the credit for other men s 
 hair as well as their brains. Little Vepasian Vandividvier, 
 who has been a clerk in the department since the year one, 
 does all the work and Scarborough bags all the honors." 
 
 Sir Anthony put his points with a one-two-threelike pre 
 cision and left. " The world is a fire full of roasting chest 
 nuts," thought Anthony his conclusion concerning catpaws 
 was suppressed. 
 
 Before another ten minutes Sir Anthony was in the spa 
 cious and more modern office of the Postmaster-General, and 
 just as he passed in, Mr. Bruce McAllister happened to pass 
 out. Their glances met, and Sir Anthony eyed the long, 
 lank Westerner with a look of surprise. " If that fellow, 
 whoever he is," he said to himself, " was as broad as he s long, 
 his arms would stretch around the world." Bruce, knowing 
 the magnate, had the advantage, and, smiling to himself, he 
 walked out of the building. All Anthony asked of the post 
 master was that he should see that the contracts were made 
 out properly and officially approved, but since the postmaster 
 once had been a high-salaried lawyer for the Cosmopolitan 
 Company, Anthony saw no reason why he should put any 
 unreasonable objections in the way of making the American 
 mail service the finest in the world. 
 
 72 
 
AN ENEMY TO BRUCE 
 
 When Sir Anthony left the post office, he reflected that 
 there were two or three more members of the Cabinet whom 
 he wished to interview, but since the day was growing late 
 and his time more and more limited, he resolved to walk back 
 to the hotel and telephone them to come to see him, since 
 Mohammed was finding it rather inconvenient to go to the 
 mountain. 
 
 73 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 OUR HERO IS TEMPTED 
 
 WHY don t you squelch McAllister once and for all, 
 Shaw ? " Ommaney, chairman of the Judiciary 
 Committee and friend to Sydney, glanced cau 
 tiously around the high-ceilinged, frescoed restaurant in the 
 House side of the Capitol. It was practically empty, as yet, 
 and noiseless; the colored waiters, handling silverware and 
 dishes, made no audible sound as they moved over the heavy 
 carpets to give a definite arrangement to the snow-white 
 napery. Bruce s recent defense before the House of the Mc 
 Allister Coupler bill the one forcing the railroads to protect 
 better the lives and limbs of their employees called forth 
 Ommaney s gentle interrogation. 
 
 " Let another toreador take his turn," replied Shaw; " I 
 have been gored enough by that lean Western bull." 
 
 There was a wry expression on Sydney s handsome face 
 when he paid his unwilling tribute to Bruce. It was an 
 acknowledgment that he had reached the end of what he 
 once considered his inexhaustible resources. As Franklin 
 De Wolfe Fiske put it, Shaw could turn four corners into 
 eight and if all the eight were blocked he could devise a 
 ninth. 
 
 " There are other ways besides 
 
 " Don t I know?" returned Sydney, a little testily; 
 "haven t I tried them all?" 
 
 74 
 
OUR HERO is TEMPTED 
 
 The " all " was a general term for Shaw s specific gift 
 of gifts his magnetism. It fairly streamed out of Shaw. 
 He put his arm on yours confidingly, his melodious voice 
 fell caressingly on your ear; with one graceful gesture he 
 pulled the wool over your eyes and you were Shaw s from 
 that moment on ; let others say about him what they would. 
 Bruce evidently was demagnetized. 
 
 Ommaney laughed ; he enjoyed the predicament. " I 
 had better luck myself. You re too deadly serious, Sydney, 
 and you miss fire from your over-anxiety to hit. He s com 
 ing over to the place to-night to take a hand in a poker game. 
 I worked for months before I even dropped the invitation." 
 
 "Had I better come?" Sydney s eyes gleamed. His 
 qualities had been challenged. 
 
 "No, you fell flat," he jibed; "you had better let me 
 handle him exclusively. That sort of a thing is an art all by 
 itself." 
 
 " I suppose," put in Shaw dryly. " Only get to work 
 quickly. If we don t, Sir Anthony will be standing on his 
 head." 
 
 "My heavens!" whispered Ommaney drolly, his hands 
 shooting upward in pretended horror; "in that case what 
 a pile of money will roll out of his pocket ! " 
 
 Shaw, his mind elsewhere, paid his friend s wit the ques 
 tionable tribute of an absent smile. Gradually the restau 
 rant filled, Congressmen nodding to Shaw familiarly, sought 
 their places; with these guests sightseers and employees had 
 the honor of rubbing elbows ; a stray Senator or two conde 
 scending to permit the contact. Shaw and Ommaney shifted 
 their conversation. 
 
 So it was the fates spun the threads that were to entangle 
 Bruce McAllister, and so it was that very night, suspicious 
 of no evil, he walked into the web Ommaney s luxuriously 
 
 75 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 furnished apartment in the Oldroyd building, which faces 
 Thomas Circle. It was nine when our hero, guileless as the 
 statue of General Thomas sole adornment of the compact, 
 winter-blighted park entered the elevator and rode to the 
 top of that gaunt marble hive of demifashionable humanity. 
 A colored man bowed him in unctuously, showing him a com 
 fortable chair in the parlor, suffused as with a red haze from 
 the dim burning lamps. Sensitive souls may be susceptible 
 to the insinuating charm of lights artistically mellowed, but 
 Bruce was not of these. 
 
 He walked over to the window and looked down on 
 Washington, tinted with the gold that a full moon poured 
 down as from an inexhaustible censer aflame with its molten 
 contents. He could descry the massy black outlines of the 
 Virginian hills, the heights of Arlington, the sheen of the 
 broad, rolling Potomac, seizing Nibelungen treasures and 
 converting them, before they sank, to its own argent hue. In 
 the wide free stretches of the Mall the chain of government 
 buildings basked contentedly in the yellow glow, and farther 
 along the Washington Monument, erect, lifting a majestic 
 head to the undisturbed stars, stood soldier over the placid, 
 sleeping night. Above it hung the moon, to adapt De Mus- 
 set s striking simile, like the dot over an " i." 
 
 He had not been invited, as he soon discovered, to survey 
 Washington by moonlight, for he had no sooner adjusted 
 himself to the impression than Ommaney s right hand reached 
 up to his shoulder, and he exclaimed with a little more than 
 necessary fervor: " I m awfully glad you came. The others 
 aren t here yet they re a little late." 
 
 Through clouds of cigar smoke Bruce surveyed Om- 
 maney and found him, as seen through that extenuating 
 medium, less sandy of hair, less freckled of complexion, less 
 squat of figure. Ommaney s conversation started at some 
 
 76 
 
OUR HERO is TEMPTED 
 
 remote end of the world the inconsequential anti-foreign 
 riots in China and worked Washingtonward as a mole 
 works underground. Bruce followed, wondering, nodding 
 his black head thrice to every once that his broad lips opened. 
 Ommaney dodged through a complicated maze of words, dis 
 appeared, threatened to lose himself and his theme from sight, 
 then he bobbed serenely to the surface with, " The Trans 
 oceanic promises to be a big thing, McAllister." 
 
 Bruce nodded. 
 
 " The most substantial people in the country are back 
 of it. It can t help but be one of the great American insti 
 tutions if we give it time and encouragement." 
 
 " Chiefly encouragement," said Bruce to himself, who had 
 been broached before by tongues less subtly tempting than 
 Ommaney s on the Transoceanic. He suspected the Trans 
 oceanic was traveling devious ways, but for purposes of his 
 own he craved more knowledge. He nibbled at Ommaney s 
 bait, encouraging him to dangle the line until he discovered 
 the nature and mechanism of the hook. 
 
 " It ought to be a paying investment in time," opined 
 Bruce, the lit end of his cigar claiming his enigmatic gaze. 
 
 "Paying! Why, my dear man, paying is hardly the 
 word, unless you want to call Senator Withrow s mine a pay 
 ing proposition. It s what I call the opportunity of a life 
 time. You run your shovel over the surface and pick up 
 the gold! I don t know I m not quite sure, but I think I 
 know where I might corral a few shares for you at a figure 
 ridiculously low. The party who owns them doesn t know 
 what he s got." 
 
 " The trouble is," said Bruce, his blue-gray eyes leaving 
 the cigar point and fastening on Ommaney, as if feeling 
 out in advance, like so many fingers, for stock profits, " the 
 trouble is, I m short of funds just now." 
 
 77 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " That can easily be arranged," said Ommaney. " It 
 can t " 
 
 " How?" our hero tripped him as he started on glibly 
 ahead. 
 
 Seeing a bush, Ommaney beat around it, only to meet 
 Bruce on the other side of it. " Well," he said, there being 
 no egress, " I have influence with the officers of the company; 
 they will credit you with stock, if I say so." 
 
 Then he lunged back to where Bruce had dragged him 
 away. " It can t help but be a tremendous thing. It s sure 
 to go this session, too. If it does, watch the stock soar! My 
 dear man, you will have to get a ladder to reach it." 
 
 Bruce pursed his long lips as if to whistle, checked him 
 self in that undignified pursuit, and satisfied the tendency 
 with a puff at his cigar. " I don t know why," he said 
 timidly, " but I was afraid of it. I had the idea that there 
 was enough opposition against the bill to at least hold it over 
 until next session." 
 
 " Don t you ever believe it!" exclaimed Ommaney. 
 " The Senate will be for it to a man, and the House 
 
 The swarthy Bruce held him again. " But I hear the 
 Postmaster-General and the Secretary of the Treasury 
 
 Ommaney bounded over the objection. " Don t you be 
 lieve it. I have it from good authority that they will do all 
 they can to assist Mr. WyckofL" 
 
 Bruce s eyes dropped their lids to conceal the glance of 
 astonishment mirrored there as he hastened to ask, " And 
 the profits? " 
 
 "They will pour down a chute!" answered Ommaney 
 in his boundless enthusiasm. 
 
 " The bill will be drawn to shut out competition and 
 we shall be given a subsidy of a million and a half for carry 
 ing letters alone." 
 
 78 
 
OUR HERO is TEMPTED 
 
 "I see ! " Bruce s long legs twined around the legs of 
 his chair as if in excitement and he leaned forward to ask: 
 "You can count on the Senate, I know; very good. But 
 the House?" 
 
 " I know the men I have talked to think the bill will 
 have a dead easy majority." 
 
 Bruce shook his head as if his skepticism were wavering 
 and ready to be convinced. The radical wing of the Democ 
 racy was against it and in proof he mentioned this man and 
 that. Certain stalwart Republicans were against it, as wit 
 ness this man s name and that. Then, too, there were con 
 servative Democrats who stood with the opposition. 
 
 Ommaney flew at doubt, shield lifted and spear leveled. 
 " I ll prove it by facts, just cold, hard, solid facts." He 
 rose, opened the drawer of the big oak table, seized a pad of 
 paper bearing the government stamp, and said : " Well, let s 
 see. I ll write out the list of the members who are for 
 it. I m no good at anything else, but I have a memory. 
 Under the A s we have Abbot, Abercrombie, Ardmore 
 and so did he assemble the faithful under their alphabetical 
 banners. 
 
 As the ranks thickened, Bruce s interest mounted to a 
 climax; he reached out an eager hand for the list and ran 
 an avid eye down its serried columns. 
 
 " Well, who s right now, McAllister? " 
 
 The ringing of the bell took the answer from Bruce s 
 lips. Ommaney rose, stretching out the hand of ownership 
 for his property consigned for the moment to a prospective 
 proselyte. 
 
 " Mr. Ardmore! " announced the unctuous tones of the 
 colored man. Ommaney frowned ; Bruce, as if in polite con 
 sideration of his host, confided the list to one of the faithful 
 pockets of his coat. The host himself, relying on the for- 
 
 79 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 tunes of the evening to restore to him his peculiar property, 
 greeted Ardmore effusively. 
 
 Strange are the disparate epithets that cling to a man 
 in these, our United States, for dapper Ardmore, who looked 
 so beneficent and sentimental with his soft, brown eyes, his 
 curly, white hair and his pointed white beard, is known as the 
 " Hornet of the House." An inadvertent retort, for which 
 his tongue, acting independently of his mind in a moment of 
 excitement, must have been responsible, fastened the name 
 on him. However, give a man the name of a hornet and 
 beware of him, and Ardmore (who wouldn t have hurt the 
 feelings of a fly, much less of a human being) was actually 
 feared. 
 
 Ardmore remarked that it was cool and clear outside; 
 Ommaney looked for the sting; then the bell rang and the 
 unctuous one, playing like a poet with sonorous syllables, 
 announced : " Miss Scollard, Mr. Collins, Miss Darcott, 
 Mrs. O Neill, Mr. Roberts." 
 
 Bruce had assumed that the festivities of the evening were 
 to recognize but one of the sexes and learning with a shock of 
 its catholicity, his hand made an involuntary movement to 
 ward his necktie and collar. Collins, who was from Chicago, 
 and Roberts, who was from Pennsylvania, were two mem 
 bers whose reputations were just creeping over the right side 
 of oblivion and throwing dust into the public eye. Both 
 were serving third terms. The women were luxurious and 
 stately creatures, ornate in the matter of jewels and dress, 
 painted and powdered just sufficiently to heighten rather 
 than hide their natural charms, which were not a few. 
 Bruce, without any great flattery to the virtues of experience, 
 was trying to fix their status, asking himself while he was 
 being introduced if they came from one of the departments 
 or from the greater half-world that edges it. 
 
 80 
 
OUR HERO is TEMPTED 
 
 Miss Scollard, a blonde, regular-featured beauty, engaged 
 him. In order to break the ice, so to say, she plied the 
 weather and then proved her versatility and erudition by 
 conversing fluently on travels and sociology. Did not Bruce 
 consider Washington provincial as compared to New York? 
 Our hero, as we have learned before, not being absolutely 
 sex proof, was finding that these minutes were not altogether 
 devoid of a certain indefinable attraction. 
 
 Other men and women entered ; the parlor of the apart 
 ment filled just sufficiently to render it seductively human 
 and warmly alive. The lights burned dim, the conversation 
 hummed soothingly, and our hero was more and more pleased 
 that Miss Scollard was devoting herself to him signally and 
 alone. The man passed a tray whereon glimmered vari 
 colored liquids, reflecting various hues. Sea-green in color 
 was the one of Miss Scollard s choice, while Bruce waved a 
 denying hand. He did not drink; his explanation savored 
 of an apology. 
 
 "Not even with me?" The creme-de-menthe touched 
 her mouth like a caress and the long-lashed eyes looked en 
 ticingly on him as if circumstances and not choice restrained 
 the lips to the glass. 
 
 "With you, if anybody" the answer was obvious; he 
 shifted the theme ; she hinted at it adroitly again. He was 
 oh, fortunately for him! no more susceptible to the siren s 
 plea than the glass her jeweled fingers clasped enticingly. 
 
 Ommaney led the way into the Dutch dining room, pan 
 eled and shelved with Flemish oak. The players seated 
 themselves at the large round table. Miss Scollard and our 
 hero found themselves side by side. She dropped her hand 
 kerchief, his long body stooped to pick it up; their fingers 
 crossed and she whispered flattering words. The tray made 
 itself conspicuous again, its colors standing out in a thick fog 
 
 81 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 of tobacco smoke like the illumined colors in a druggist s 
 window on a dark night. Again came the invitation to 
 drink; again the refusal, equally positive though more round 
 about. The handkerchief dropped on the floor a second time. 
 
 Miss Scollard nonchalantly, as if to set a good example, 
 lit a cigarette ; the other women followed suit. 
 
 " I declare," laughed Mrs. O Neill, who was the oldest 
 although far from the least attractive of the women, " I 
 don t see what good it is to have me here for a chaperon 
 if you are going to do this sort of a thing right under my 
 nose." Everybody laughed save Ardmore; who was ogling 
 the dashing Mrs. O Neill with a serious mien, more senti 
 mental than waspish. 
 
 Chips rattled ; the glasses circulated ; there was the glid 
 ing noise of cards in continuous motion ; the game was on 
 in earnest. Bruce was looking at his hand of cards specu- 
 latively when Collins, of Chicago, who sat across from him, 
 sang out: 
 
 " I say, McAllister, did you know that the Hammer 
 smiths have rented the Lassiter residence on Du Pont Circle 
 for the season? " 
 
 " No, I didn t." 
 
 " Being from Chicago I thought the news would interest 
 you." 
 
 The observant, perspicacious Ommaney noticed that 
 Bruce s expression wavered, turning as it were inwardly, 
 away from the cards in his hand to what was going on in 
 some far recess of his mind. Miss Scollard, who was less 
 perspicacious and more sensitive, felt that from then on our 
 attenuated swarthy hero was slipping through the charms 
 she was trying to draw tighter and tighter around him. 
 
 Bruce played worse than a novice and was conscious of 
 his bungling at so much the error, but still he noticed with a 
 
 82 
 
OUR HERO is TEMPTED 
 
 shock damaging to logic that his piles of chips were growing 
 skyward and tilting earthward like the tower of Pisa. 
 
 He became suspicious of good fortune, quarreling with 
 her. " Somebody," he said to himself, playing on, " is let 
 ting me win." Ommaney s method of removing financial 
 obstacles his phrase " that can be easily arranged " forced 
 Bruce to become contemplative. 
 
 It came likewise to his observation that Ardmore s pile 
 was matching his own in architectural design, and he con 
 cluded that it must have been by the same freak of good for 
 tune, since that venerable statesman s mind was more occu 
 pied with the marblelike shoulders of the dazzling Mrs. 
 O Neill than with the cards in his hand. 
 
 When the game came to an end, Bruce was startled by 
 the sum of gold into which his leaning tower of ivory chips 
 might be converted. " I notice," he spoke up suddenly, fin 
 gering the spoils and glancing around, " that the ladies must 
 foot the losses. I m no Chevalier Bayard of the card table, 
 but still I don t like the idea that our winnings should 
 come from the losses of the fair sex. I leave my share for 
 the young woman who sat beside me and cheered me on to 
 victory." 
 
 Wishing to be overcome, it was easy to resist her mild 
 protest, and he remained deaf to the objections of the aston 
 ished Ommaney. Ardmore s brows knit and he plucked 
 his snow-white mustache and beard in evident dismay lest 
 he be expected to follow suit. He was shrewd enough to 
 detect the cause of Bruce s strange card-table conduct, and he 
 compromised with his conscience by promising to add a 
 jewel to the collection of the fair Mrs. O Neill, who had not 
 left his side during the thick of the battle. 
 
 It was almost time for the moon to retire and make 
 way for the sun when Bruce left the Oldroyd apartments 
 
 83 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 and strolled with Ardmore slowly along New York Avenue 
 toward home. Ardmore s legs, like his emotions, were 
 wavering. " I ll tell you what, McAllister," he lamented 
 one minute, " I think if I had a little more nerve I might 
 have made a conquest of Mrs. O Neill. Magnificent wom 
 an, wasn t she?" and the next minute, "I feel ashamed 
 of myself, McAllister; I ought to be taken out and horse 
 whipped. I didn t do what was right by poor Mrs. Ard 
 more." 
 
 And when they passed the Egyptian fagade of the Hall 
 of the Ancients this reminder of a dead civilization may 
 have made him sad he burst forth again. " I wish I had 
 your strength of conviction, McAllister. I admire it. I 
 started out that way. I meant to be that way. I ought 
 not to have taken that money. I know what it was meant 
 for, but still, when you reckon it up, it s all according to 
 the fortunes of the gaming table." 
 
 Bruce, accrediting himself with no superior morality, 
 comforted the white-haired man whose arm clung to his arm, 
 whose round, bulging head bobbed at his shoulder. The 
 balm served only to bring a maudlin tear to his eye, and 
 when they passed the marble Carnegie library in Mount 
 Vernon Square he broke out once more: 
 
 " Especially just now, I ought to have stood firm as the 
 stones in that building; because I m with you, McAllister, 
 on that child-labor proposition I have children of my own, 
 a little boy and a girl, the dearest that ever were you ought 
 to see them I m with you, I say, on the child-labor bill, and 
 I want to be able to tell them all so and defy the devil. Sir 
 Anthony needn t think, by God, that because I come from 
 a district run by one of his bosses, he can order me about. 
 See here, look at the way he writes me." 
 
 He fumbled about in his pocket, drew forth a package 
 
OUR HERO is TEMPTED 
 
 of letters, torn envelopes, and memoranda, and sifted them 
 under the steady glare of the arc light. 
 
 The operation reminded Bruce of the document in evi 
 dence he had secured from Ommaney before the festivities 
 began. An expectant hand plunged into his pocket, fondled 
 it, and found there bleak nothingness. It searched again. 
 Nothingness! Anxiously it rifled other pockets and came 
 forth empty as it had entered. Even so, thoughts ransacked 
 his mind in search of an explanation of its disappearance and 
 discovered none. Ardmore distracted him. 
 
 " Here it is; read it for yourself, McAllister. See the 
 way the plutocracy is ordering about the servants of the 
 people put in office to preserve a sacred trust ! " 
 
 More out of good nature than desire, rather to please 
 the inebriated Ardmore than to satisfy himself, Bruce opened 
 the folded sheet of note that the Wasp, more lucky than he 
 had been, had driven to cover. He caught the signature of 
 A. Wyckoff at the bottom of it and glancing up toward the 
 top of the communication, he saw it bore in raised letters 
 the superscription of the Hotel Arlington. The few uneven 
 lines read : " I failed after several attempts to reach you by 
 telephone or messenger to-day. I want to say to you emphat 
 ically that the business interests of America demand that the 
 McAllister Anti-Child Labor bill must not be reported 
 out of committee." 
 
 " Hm ! " was Bruce s sole comment. 
 
 "What do you say to that?" asked Ardmore. "Are 
 eighty millions of people to be commanded by the will of one 
 man?" 
 
 " Supposing," suggested Bruce, " you let me keep the let 
 ter. I think I might " 
 
 " No," said the invertebrate Ardmore, " a letter is a 
 sacred trust and I look upon it as such. I revere its confi- 
 
 85 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 dences ; only I don t intend that the powers of the plutocracy 
 shall run me. They never have run James Whitney Ard- 
 more and they never shall." 
 
 Bruce was unwilling to take advantage of a man the 
 worse for liquor and he merely resolved to argue the ques 
 tion at some future time with Ardmore, now he satisfied 
 himself with the caution : " Take care of the letter, Ard 
 more; see to it that it doesn t pass out of your hands." 
 
 " As I love the suffering little children . of the land, 
 McAllister, it shall not. If that letter will ever be of any 
 service to you in getting so meritorious a bill through the 
 committee on which both you and I have the honor to serve, 
 you have only to count on me at any hour of the day or 
 night. On my word of honor! " 
 
 86 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE SPEAKER S DAUGHTER 
 
 THE sixteen privileged personages that sat around 
 the table of the oblong frescoed room occupied by 
 the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Com 
 merce found considerable amusement in watching Sydney 
 P. Shaw dodge behind this rule and take refuge within that, 
 as he was steadily forced into the open by the shrewd at 
 tacks of the lank Westerner. Sydney feared that the child- 
 labor law would be wrenched from his grasp, or from that 
 of his henchman, whom in his perplexity, he called upon to 
 protect it. Under the circumstances he was justified, per 
 haps, in losing his temper, which he rarely did. McAllis 
 ter s persistency, his way of wounding with a joke that won 
 laughter from all but the object of it, were enough to make 
 patience on a monument change a placid expression for a 
 frown. Finally, Sydney s tongue slipped its control but 
 clung to its suavity, and he called the gentleman from Il 
 linois a name a shade or two more severe than the rules 
 w r ould permit, and the one so nominated cared to stand. 
 
 Bruce retorted in kind, in a way that made Sydney quiver 
 inwardly, and thereto he added the words, like so many 
 feathers that were to wing the barb forward and drive it 
 home: 
 
 " It seems, anyway, that the Committee on Interstate and 
 Foreign Commerce is more in control of a certain power 
 outside this chamber than the chairman himself." 
 
 87 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " What does the gentleman from Illinois mean to insinu 
 ate by that?" 
 
 " I insinuate nothing. I put my remark in the form of 
 a charge, and .state that at least one member of this com 
 mittee has received a letter from Anthony Wyckoff com 
 manding him to do his utmost to prevent this bill from leav 
 ing this room." 
 
 Sydney blanched slightly; his lids dropped over his eyes, 
 curtainwise, half hiding them from view. " Will the gentle 
 man from Illinois say which member of the committee it 
 was that received such a letter? " 
 
 " Certainly. It was the gentleman from Virginia." 
 
 There was a craning of necks toward the chair in which 
 the Wasp usually sat, but the white-haired romantic Ardmore 
 was not in his seat, and therefore, not being as ubiquitous 
 physically as morally, could not be seen. 
 
 " I move you," put in Ommaney, " the gentleman from 
 Virginia being absent, that this committee do now adjourn 
 and that the charge made by the gentleman from Illinois be 
 taken up at the next regular meeting on Tuesday." 
 
 The motion carried, and a moment afterwards Shaw and 
 Ommaney stood behind closed doors to discuss the situation, 
 which thirteen other more or less excitable gentlemen were 
 doing in various parts of the Capitol. 
 
 "Well?" asked Ommaney sibilantly. 
 
 " Well, the first thing to do is to put hands on Ardmore 
 and get that letter." Sydney paid his respects to the Wasp 
 in a fashion that showed he would risk the danger of lay 
 ing hold of it for the pleasure of plucking its sting. 
 
 " McAllister may have the letter in his pocket." 
 
 " That s to be found out." Again Sydney commended 
 Ardmore s secrecy in the most laudatory terms, and he then 
 passed on to compliment Anthony Wyckoff for his careful- 
 
 88 
 
THE SPEAKER S DAUGHTER 
 
 ness. " I warned him not to write any letters right in this 
 room, but he knew best he always knows best and I 
 suppose I no more than got out of here than he made a fool 
 of himself on paper." 
 
 " The whole country will hear of this? " 
 
 " In less than an hour. The newspapers will double 
 lead it. The Government Bulldozed by Sir Anthony ! 
 It will stir up more sentiment in favor of the Child-Labor bill 
 than fifty McAllisters with all their folderoy could do in 
 a lifetime. The walls of this room aren t strong enough 
 to keep this bill here much longer; if they do, McAllister s 
 dear common people will tear them down and pitch us out 
 of the window." Sydney mopped his brow. " Wyckoff 
 will be crazy. But I can t help it. It s his own fault." 
 He saw two horns of the dilemma; himself being tossed 
 through one window by the common people, his prospects 
 for the presidency being tossed out of the other. He cursed 
 lustily. Anthony, Bruce, and Ardmore were the trinity to 
 whom he paid his quaint homage. 
 
 " But what s to be done, Sydney? " 
 
 " Find Ardmore." 
 
 And find him Shaw did that very night, although his lieu 
 tenant, who devoted the whole of the day and evening to the 
 task, failed signally. Luck, it would seem, favors the de 
 serving, for it would have been no less a personage than the 
 deity herself who brought these two together at the reception 
 given in the Hammersmith residence. 
 
 The society columns of the Washington papers, presciently 
 cognizant of greatness in embryo, numbered our hero among 
 those present. It was eight o clock when his herdic drew 
 to a halt before the marble mansion in Farragut Square, 
 to see which the admiral needed not to have lifted his glasses. 
 Bruce walked under the iron canopy of the porte cochere, 
 7 89 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 climbed the white marble staircase, made warm by the glow 
 of lights, colorful rugs, and tropical plants. Before long, 
 he was paying his respects to Mr. and Mrs. Hammersmith, 
 and then his hand rested in that of Inez. The long line 
 curved ahead toward the silver-laden refreshment table, 
 pushed on from behind by those eager to pass host and hostess 
 and reach the fleshpots. The big house and its furnishings, 
 unobtrusively luxurious, was subdued to a background for the 
 crowd that thronged it; and one w r as far less conscious 
 of its own magnificence than of the brilliant toilets it 
 threw into relief, the sheen of bare shoulders, the flash 
 of vari-colored jewels, from modest pearls to the insistent 
 gleam of sapphire, ruby and amethyst, loudly assertive of 
 their own hues. 
 
 " I m very glad to see you," Inez said. " The last time 
 we met was at Springfield in the governor s house." 
 
 " And the time before that in your house in Chicago 
 when Speaker Fiske was there." 
 
 " I see you have not forgotten." 
 
 " Not even the words that passed between us," he said. 
 
 " When I am through with my duties here I will seek you 
 out and there will be more words to be memorized. Don t 
 run off, will you? " she asked. 
 
 " Does the magnet speak so to the steel?" he asked in 
 return. 
 
 He was about to move on, carrying with him a picture 
 of her as she stood thus, firmly outlined in statuesque lines 
 under her pale blue gown, when she added : 
 
 " Let me introduce you to my best of friends, Mrs. Ten 
 Eyck." 
 
 Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck smiled upon him, voicing her 
 pleasure at meeting the friend of her father. " I feel as if 
 I had known you a long time," she said. Her graciousness, 
 
 90 
 
THE SPEAKER S DAUGHTER 
 
 freed of effort, lifted Bruce to the standing of an acquaint 
 anceship long established. 
 
 Hers was a golden and a radiant presence, and he who 
 named her " the golden Georgia " must have had an unerring 
 gift for adjectives. Her thick gold tresses, graced as with 
 moonlight, softened to femininity the large face whose fea 
 tures might have struck one otherwise as being too mascu 
 line in their pronounced strength. Despite her graciousness, 
 the impression Bruce carried away was that of one born to 
 command. 
 
 Bruce, avoiding the trains of gowns that rippled wavelike 
 beneath him, picked out his way along the marble floor. 
 His thoughts were with Inez, and absently he passed diplo 
 mats, congressmen, Cabinet members, soldiers and sailors 
 high in rank, giving not even a cursory glance to the pagoda- 
 like structure that the Korean minister carried around with 
 him, the black silk cap that personified the wealth and power 
 of the Celestial empire, nor the fez of Turkey, when a hand 
 shot forth from out of the crowd and caught him by the arm. 
 Addison greeted him: "Hello, Bruce, old chap! My, but 
 I m glad to see you. You re a sight for sore eyes. There comes 
 old Senator Freeze with one of his shriveled stories let s 
 dodge him." He led Bruce to the head of the Caen stone 
 staircase, just beyond the reach of the crush. A huge Ital 
 ian jar it had done service for a well in days long since 
 past filled with American beauties, shaded them from the 
 glow of the electrics. " Yes, Bruce," he went on, " I m 
 awfully glad to see you. I came from Chicago to attend this 
 reception. I don t care much about it, do you? More or 
 less of a bore. It doesn t seem to me that they left many 
 out. Well, that s the tendency nowadays; everybody wants 
 to be just as good as anybody else and it doesn t make any 
 difference who your parents were. Tell me, Bruce, where 
 
 91 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 is it all going to end? It reminds me of the reception we 
 had at our house when they sent me to the council." He 
 laughed heartily, shaking his straw-colored head. 
 
 "Do you like the council any better? " 
 
 " Not so very much. Still it pleases the family, so I keep 
 on. You have been doing famously yourself, haven t you? 
 I ve been reading all about it in the papers and I tell you 
 what, I m proud of you. Of course, 1 don t take much stock 
 in your talk about the poor and all that sort of rubbish I 
 suppose it s just politics with you and I don t blame you for 
 it but you re doing famously all the same. Everybody 
 says so. Excuse me, there s Ruth Wyckoff, I ll have to leave 
 you to speak to her. I ll be back in a moment." Addison 
 left the harbor he had found for his friend and pushed out 
 midway in the swirling torrent of humanity, scurrying this 
 way and that through the great reception rooms and the 
 halls. 
 
 Bruce stood for a moment undecided whether to remain 
 in seclusion where he was, or to navigate across the shimmer 
 ing sea of silks toward the dining room, where Edward Don 
 ovan Butler, his eyes peering through his glasses like those 
 of a hawk on wing, espied Bruce. Butler, lifting his arm, 
 thereby nearly depriving the worshiping Korean of his pa 
 goda, waved a hand of recognition. He made toward Bruce 
 slowly, stopping to shake hands and pass a word with this 
 dignitary and that. 
 
 Fate, propitious to their friendship, had induced the 
 Chicago Democrat to send little Butler to Washington as 
 its correspondent a year or so before Bruce s arrival. It was 
 to prepare the way for Bruce, he said, deeply devoted as ever 
 to the cause his comrade of the pit and he had espoused in 
 common. 
 
 " Holy High Jinks ! " shouted Butler, reaching Bruce at 
 92 
 
THE SPEAKER S DAUGHTER 
 
 length, his face elongated to a superlative degree, " but youVe 
 done it now! You ve given the whole country a fillip sure 
 enough! I ve been hunting all over creation for you. That s 
 all people are talking about to-night, is that letter. I saw 
 Anthony Wyckoff himself here talking with Shaw. He 
 probably came over from New York on a special train. I 
 told you to wait and take it easy, didn t I ? " 
 
 " I waited until the " 
 
 " Confound the psychological moment. The question is 
 can you deliver the goods?" 
 
 " Of course I can, Ed." 
 
 " Have you got the letter? " 
 
 " No, but Ardmore has." 
 
 "Ardmore s got it; that s rich, that is! And you ve 
 banked your whole fortune on a letter that Ardmore has in 
 his pocket? Well, supposing he refuses to show it, then 
 what?" 
 
 " He promised me on his word of honor " 
 
 " I wouldn t give you that for the promise of that wobbly, 
 weak-kneed, sentimental old idiot." 
 
 " You re excited, Ed." 
 
 " Well, I ll stay excited, too, until that letter is in your 
 pocket. Have you seen Ardmore? He s here somewhere. 
 I just saw him come in a few minutes ago." 
 
 " He ll find me then, " smiled the confident Bruce, slip 
 ping his hands into his pockets. 
 
 Butler s long jaw elongated, but Bruce grasping his arm 
 affectionately, stopped his ejaculation with the remark: " Say, 
 Ed., Fiske s daughter has a remarkably interesting face. You 
 know everybody ; tell me something about her." 
 
 " Oh, she s a better politician than her father! " started 
 Butler in his nervous energetic manner. " She was born 
 here in Washington and bred in politics. Her mother was 
 
 93 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 an Italian, who cut quite a figure in diplomacy in her day. 
 They say Fiske wasn t happy with her; she ended in some 
 peculiar way; but I don t know about that. Georgia Fiske 
 herself was educated over in Europe and didn t come back 
 until she was sixteen. They tell me the President s wife 
 took a great fancy to her. The old girl came from the raw 
 West and didn t know the proper way of running things and 
 Georgia used to help her out. It was born in her. They 
 say the little minx got to running things too well, for she 
 soon wormed herself into the President s favor and the poli 
 ticians had to reckon with her. There are several men in 
 Washington now, who were nothing but clerks then, who 
 owe their high position to the wires Georgia Fiske pulled, 
 when she w r as hardly out of short dresses. She was a power 
 behind the throne all right, and naturally she grew tired of 
 that and she wanted to get on the throne herself. Those 
 who know say Fiske didn t have the presidential bee until 
 she put it in his bonnet. He was Chairman of the Com 
 mittee on Ways and Means then, and she kept on telling him 
 how much abler he was than the President, and how much 
 better he was fitted to hold the job." 
 
 Butler paused suddenly, waving a hand to a familiar 
 face in the throng. " There s Cummings of the Telegram. 
 I want to speak to him. I ll finish the story some other 
 time." Bruce, knowing that delay would leave his curiosity 
 only half satisfied, held him. 
 
 " Well," went on Butler reluctantly, " do you know she 
 finally got her father to believe that if he didn t land in the 
 White House his life would be a failure? She played on his 
 weaknesses and cajoled him into thinking he was predestined 
 for the job. Before he knew it she had him wound up in 
 a plot that just about split up a cabinet. It raised quite 
 a scandal at the time, and that s the real reason why Fiske 
 
 94 
 
THE SPEAKER S DAUGHTER 
 
 didn t take the job of Secretary of State when they offered 
 it to him." 
 
 " But where does Ten Eyck come in? " 
 
 That s a fact: I nearly forgot. Ten Eyck was a for 
 mer Senator from Massachusetts, a manufacturer, one of the 
 richest in the country at the time, and Georgia Fiske married 
 him when he was old enough to be her grandfather. They 
 say Fiske was bitterly opposed to it and that he fought it 
 right up to the last moment; but she is just as hard-headed 
 as Fiske himself and she had her way. Her reason? Oh, 
 I suppose she wanted the power that money would give her 
 to help her father into the presidency. You can t run a presi 
 dential campaign without money, nor a convention either." 
 
 Butler paused, gazing through the throng as if in search 
 for somebody, and Bruce asked, " What became of Ten 
 Eyck?" 
 
 " I don t know. My knowledge stops short with the 
 fact that he died just after he and Georgia Fiske were di 
 vorced. There was quite a scandal, although it was hushed 
 up pretty well. Sydney P. Shaw was caught in it some 
 where, so one of the boys told me, but with his usual foxiness 
 he dug from under. I understand that Fiske s bitter ironi 
 cal manner dates from the divorce. He felt somehow that 
 he had sacrificed his daughter s future and good name to an 
 empty ambition, and now he holds himself in duty bound to 
 gain her heart s desire for her." He ended suddenly. 
 " There s Cummings again! " 
 
 He vanished, waving his hand like a drowning man about 
 to disappear under water. Bruce laughed, and hunger call 
 ing him again, he made for the middle of the stream. The 
 strong hand of Fiske clutched him. " Well, McAllister, 
 a man who laughs at himself usually nourishes the illusion 
 that he is smiling good-naturedly at the mistakes of the wise." 
 
 95 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 They sought the shelter of the Italian well, from the 
 depths of which peeped the full-plumed roses, their foliage 
 hanging caressingly toward Fiske s light brown hair. A 
 Washington gossip remarked of Fiske that his immense frame 
 he was a full inch and a half shorter than Bruce but far 
 more solid was only a servant to his majestic head; a sort 
 of a bodyguard that carried the invincible weapon around 
 for him. 
 
 It was a fine head, to be admired in life, to be marveled 
 at when its proportions should be immortalized in marble. 
 His jaws were set on iron springs, slow to shut, slower still 
 to open. Shaggy eyebrows gave a fierce and firm expression 
 to his deep-set gray eyes that looked out at you as from a 
 cave that it was worth your life to enter. Fiske s eyes were 
 the watchdogs of his mind. His complexion, bronzed and 
 dark, seemed tinged with iron, and his wrinkled and furrowed 
 face was more akin to iron than flesh. Moreover, irony was 
 his habitual method of conversation. He spoke to bruise 
 or he held his peace. The hammer symbolized the man. 
 Our gossip said that Fiske s coat of arms ought to be a 
 hammer dexterous crashing down on heads sinister emblaz 
 oned on a field of fools. 
 
 " You forced Shaw s hand at any rate," said Fiske to 
 Bruce after they had chatted for a while. " I don t suppose 
 all the king s horses can keep the bill back of the door. 
 Henceforth it s beyond the reach of even my power," he 
 laughed ironically. 
 
 11 1 counted on its forcing the issue," said Bruce. 
 
 " But see to it, McAllister, that you get the letter." The 
 big Speaker slipped his hands into his pockets and looked on 
 the crowd around him with a sort of Shakespearean scorn. 
 Fiske hated the mob. His ideal form of government would 
 have been a republic with an autocrat to forbid voting. 
 
 96 
 
THE SPEAKER S DAUGHTER 
 
 " And supposing," asked Bruce tentatively, when Fiske 
 looked as if he would pass on, " the bill gets on the floor? " 
 
 " I may tell you my opinion of it then, and I may prefer 
 to reserve my judgment until a future date," he answered 
 ambiguously. 
 
 Fiske, son of a farmer though he was, buffeted by for 
 tune though he had been, was an aristocrat through and 
 through, and he had small sympathy for Bruce s point of 
 view. For years he had represented vested interests in court 
 and he had naturally assumed their attitude. He accepted 
 the life and manners of the rich folk who paid him so hand 
 somely as being eminently fit. That capital could do no 
 grievous wrong was one of the cardinal points of Fiske s 
 creed, and he was ever ready to praise the humanitarianism 
 of the capitalists for the patience and kindliness with which 
 they met the unreasonable demands of childish labor. He 
 was broad enough, however, to forgive labor, saying it knew 
 not what it did one half the time, being so indolent. 
 
 " When you get Shaw cornered," ended Fiske with a 
 drawl, moving off, " come and call me, McAllister, and I ll 
 watch you nail the lid down." 
 
 "Yes, Sydney s slippery!" 
 
 "Slippery!" Fiske s face settled firmly. "He moves 
 like the snake. I was born to hate all creeping things, 
 McAllister." 
 
 The quarrel between the Speaker and Shaw was of long 
 standing; it owed its origin to that fundamental difference 
 in temperament between honesty and dishonesty, and the 
 Speaker was reckless enough to express his opinion of men 
 regardless of consequences. In politics an opinion expressed 
 is an enemy made and Fiske was politician enough to know 
 that, and man enough not to care. He was that oddity in 
 American life a successful politician without policy. Abil- 
 
 97 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 ity had lifted him to where he was ; he scorned to lean on the 
 shoulder of craft, compromise and deceit for advancement. 
 Bruce barely stepped beyond the shadow of the rose- 
 filled well when he heard Ardmore s familiar voice in soft 
 expostulation floating down from above him, and looking 
 up he saw the gentleman from Virginia seated with Sydney 
 P. Shaw and Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck on a marble bench 
 in a corner of the broad landing of the staircase. Sydney s 
 voice, murmuring scarcely audible words, gradually died 
 away in the trio. Georgia s flutelike tones supplanted him. 
 A second later Shaw left, mingling with the crowd below. 
 His figure was distinguished among even so many distin 
 guished men and women. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CITY OF HOPE 
 
 THE soft glow of the electrics, subdued to an inviting 
 timidity, the heartier hospitality of the red marble 
 Languedoc buffet and mantel, the gleam of the sil 
 verware and its inner fine fragrance, were steadily attracting 
 rivulets of people from the main stream into the dining room. 
 Bruce finally found his way into this Mecca of -the hungry 
 and he just had started to regale himself when Inez entered, 
 leaning on the arm of a young man whose broad straight 
 shoulders called for attention before his round inconspicuous 
 head. She saw Bruce and smiled, guiding her escort in his 
 direction and introducing him as Lieutenant Glenn Dodson 
 of the navy. The lieutenant s conversation was by no means 
 as broad as his shoulders, nor as deep as his chest. He ran 
 to monosyllables. 
 
 A few moments afterwards Inez directed a retreat 
 through the crowded rooms to a more secluded corner, the 
 willing Bruce at her heels. They found the marble bench, 
 clasped armlike by a sheltering curve in the stairs, occupied 
 earlier in the evening by Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck and Ard- 
 more, but centuries ago perhaps the mute confidant of Flo 
 rentine intrigue and loves. A Persian rug thrown across the 
 balustrade dropped its rich folds toward the marble, and by 
 the sharp contrast it made between color and the lack thereof, 
 threw the nook into a sort of Oriental relief. The strong 
 
 99 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 statuesque lines of Inez s figure, her nude shoulders, her well- 
 poised head, were detached from surroundings that refused, 
 as it were, to harmonize in order to absorb her in the decora 
 tive scheme. 
 
 " Now," she said, seating herself, " we are in a place 
 where we can talk." 
 
 " I can do that anywhere to you." 
 
 " What, has Washington already had that effect on 
 you? " She turned her brown eyes full upon him. She won 
 dered why she found no longer the sheer ugliness that previ 
 ous experience and impressions made her expect to find again. 
 Use and acquaintanceship, like a kindly artist, had softened 
 for her critical glances the ugliness of his features, the coarse 
 ness of his facial lines. To her he had become picturesquely 
 ugly, like a pile of rugged rock, like a stanch hill in a bleak 
 landscape. To be ugly in that fashion is a distinction 
 one that few crave. 
 
 His wandering wits rallied to answer her exclamation 
 with, " Do you infer the farther one leaves Chicago behind 
 the farther one is removed from the primitive virtues? " 
 
 So they sparred for a while, bridging over the awkward 
 chasm dug by a period of separation. In him, as in life itself, 
 she still retained an avid intellectual interest, not unmixed 
 with the promptings of curiosity. His own reason for at 
 tachment to her was not so conscious, and it may have been 
 the deeper in that the finger of analysis did not fall so pat 
 upon it. The charm of her beauty exerted over his senses 
 was considerable, but there was something that was as widely 
 separated from her mere beauty as he himself from her who 
 lured him on. There was also in him an eager desire to 
 overcome the coldness she interposed between him and his 
 rising affection. Had each never seen the other again after 
 their third or fourth meeting their romance might have ended 
 
 100 
 
THE CITY OF HOPE 
 
 in curiosity unsatisfied ; as it was now, curiosity satisfied bade 
 fair to end in romance. And finally we believe in the law of 
 romance, however it may differ from that of the spheres, that 
 two bodies moving in different orbits are often more attracted 
 than repelled. 
 
 " I presume," he said, directing his aimless conversation 
 toward an end, " that it was the desire to play upon a bigger 
 stage that brought you to Washington." 
 
 " Yes, my own desire and Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck s ap 
 peal. Do you know her? Don t you admire her ? Isn t she 
 wonderful ? She visited us when her father was trying his law 
 suit against one by the name of McAllister. She won us 
 all over so easily. She was born to direct and lead. When 
 I see her and watch her and listen to her I would give any 
 thing to be like her! " 
 
 He would not have believed her capable of such enthusi 
 astic admiration for another, and it may have awakened in 
 him a pang of regret that it was squandered on a member of 
 her own sex. Fearing that she might come under the selfish 
 sway of the intriguing Georgia, there arose in him a faint 
 warning cry, clumsily w r orded, but this a second thought, 
 annoyed by its very clumsiness, suppressed. 
 
 " I don t know whether the stage you have chosen is 
 greater than the one you have left," he said, scorning an ob 
 vious enough compliment to shift the conversation forward. 
 
 " And why do you say so ? " 
 
 The question evoked a discourse on a theme over which 
 his love of speculation had played for months. To him, 
 Washington was a city of swaggering negations, devoted en 
 tirely to generating the power that was used to turn the 
 gigantic machinery of production situated afar. It was 
 merely a bureau that permitted the rest of the United States 
 to work, and receiving that permission, the big men of the 
 
 101 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 country hastened home to put it into operation. In a land 
 of prodigious activities Washington, capital of the nation, 
 was the only city that impressed one with a sense of leisure. 
 It had atmospheres, diplomatic, legislative, scientific, naval, 
 military, but in a compelling sense it had no atmosphere at 
 all. He ended by saying that thousands were drawn to it 
 as a city of hope, and departed from it crushed and heart 
 broken as from a city of despair. 
 
 " Surely your darker view of Washington is not justified 
 by the way the city has treated you. From all I hear on all 
 sides you are making rare headway." 
 
 " Beyond my most sanguine expectations ; which reminds 
 me of Isaac Newton, the ignorant old Quaker who was Sec 
 retary of Agriculture under Lincoln. When his expenses 
 ran too high he was called on for an explanation by the com 
 mittee. Newton spluttered, talked pedantically and said 
 finally : Yes, sir ; the expenses have been very great, marvel- 
 ously so, I may say; indeed, sir, they have succeeded beyond 
 my most sanguine expectations. " 
 
 " I insist on taking you seriously, despite yourself. You 
 have put the whole country on edge. Yourself, the charges 
 you raised in the committee room, and Mr. Ardmore s letter 
 are the sole topics of this evening s conversation. I might 
 have been bored had it been about another. I find it excit 
 ing as it is. I judge the letter of great importance." 
 
 " My future and the future of the anti-child labor bill 
 depend upon it." 
 
 "And you have this letter in your possession?" Her 
 brown eyes fastened on his swarthy face as if she were eager 
 to share in a confidence not divulged to the rest of the world. 
 
 He considered a second. " I put confidence in you. Mr. 
 Ardmore has it." 
 
 " And if he will not surrender it? " 
 
 102 
 
THE CITY OF HOPE 
 
 " I have his promise." 
 
 " And if he breaks that promise? " 
 
 " I had considered that emergency as out of the question. 
 It might make me ridiculous and doom my child-labor bill 
 to failure." 
 
 " And is it very dear to your heart? " 
 
 " As the blood that warms it." 
 
 He made his knowledge of child-labor conditions her 
 own, summing up for her in minutes the results that hours 
 had amassed for him. He marched before her eyes, opening 
 wide at the vigor of his speech and the intensity of his feeling, 
 a procession of the children of his people, pale, hollow-eyed, 
 driven by the whip of Greed along the hideous road that lies 
 between the homes of want and the mills of Mammon. , The 
 light of passion struck here and there, illuminating a wan 
 face among the thousands that composed the throng, throw 
 ing a sinister gleam on the sorry details of the life of children 
 that know no childhood. 
 
 A light wavered over her brown eyes, and had he been 
 less absorbed in what he was saying, more watchful of its 
 effect on her, he might have observed that her countenance 
 had in it no suggestion of coldness, that it was warmed as 
 from the glow of some inner spiritual fire that his words had 
 kindled. 
 
 It was somehow as if a little child had led her into 
 poverty s undesirable kingdom. She saw its tatterdemalion 
 hordes step out of the cover of books where comfort had found 
 it convenient to confine them, and take on a personal blood 
 and flesh existence, each one in the mass as sentient as Inez 
 Hammersmith herself, with like organs and dimensions that 
 craved as ardently life s boons, but whom a blind law of 
 chance had subjected to life s miseries. 
 
 She had, too, ceased to weigh him in the scales of 
 103 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 sincerity, her very coolness of intellect and her coldness of 
 temperament helping her to see that his statements were of 
 themselves false or true, and that to cry him demagogue 
 was another way, invented by comfort, of making a worthy 
 doctrine ridiculous by belittling the character of its ex 
 pounder. 
 
 There had been in her a sort of revulsion and the process 
 had turned face and was acting the other way about. The 
 doctrines, weighed in the scales of sincerity, were not found 
 wanting, and therefore she was inclined to believe that the 
 preacher of them was lifted from demagogism by the very 
 sanctity of what he taught. If one entered the temple, one 
 was warmed by its heat and lit by its light. Moreover, being 
 human, outside influences were having their effect on Inez. 
 Even those who denounced Bruce most bitterly praised his 
 sincerity, and a cynical world pronounced him mistaken but 
 honest. The steady pressure of Inez s fairness forced her 
 stubbornness of intellect and of pride to loosen its hold on 
 what it first had clung to, and grasp the less tempting but 
 more just position. 
 
 " I wish that I might help you," was her only comment 
 when at length she spoke. 
 
 " Help me, or my cause? " he asked, tempted by the 
 warmth of voice that showed plainly that her interest, like 
 an eager explorer, had passed out of the cold domain of 
 intellect into the sunnier regions of feeling. 
 
 " How can I separate the two? " she was about to ask. 
 But rising she said instead : " Other duties call me, some of 
 them quite urgent." It was as if she, despite herself, would 
 impress upon him the fact that her attitude toward him 
 was altogether impersonal. 
 
 Somewhat nonplused, he left her to begin his quest, reck 
 lessly postponed, for Ardmore; and he found that gentleman 
 
 104 
 
THE CITY OF HOPE 
 
 as he was marching up the stairway in search for his hat 
 and coat. Bruce, on the same errand, slipped an arm in his. 
 
 " You know what s happened, Ardmore, of course. I 
 see the army of the opposition has sent its cohorts after you. 
 I shall need the letter Tuesday." 
 
 " What letter? " Ardmore s legs, like his voice, wobbled. 
 
 " What letter ! " Bruce felt something give way in 
 side of him. " The Wyckoff letter, the one you showed me 
 the night coming home from " 
 
 " Oh, yes, McAllister, I remember now. The fact is, 
 you see, you put me in a delicate position, in a very delicate 
 position. Shaw s my friend and you re my friend, and I 
 don t want to do anything that will reflect " 
 
 " I know all that, but you promised. The whole fate 
 of the child-labor bill is locked up in that letter now. I m 
 simply compelled to make good or make a fool of myself." 
 He drew Ardmore in a corner of the hallway and appealed 
 to his sympathies for the little children, with all the eloquence 
 at his command. 
 
 Ardmore s eye watered. " Count on me, McAllister. 
 My word of honor ! The children of America shan t suffer. 
 No ! no ! I should feel as if I had wronged my little boy and 
 girl beautiful children, by God! Count on me! I ll de 
 liver the letter in the committee room on Tuesday." 
 
 "You promise faithfully?" 
 
 " My word of honor, McAllister. Dismiss it from 
 your mind. Forget it, my son. Ardmore of Virginia says 
 so." 
 
 Just before midnight, on the point of taking his departure, 
 Bruce faced the wrought-iron and glass doors of the spacious 
 exit. Behind and in front of him on the staircase was the 
 crowd of men and women, yawning, weary, their festive gar 
 ments out of joint with their fatigued bearing. Outside 
 8 105 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 he descried a line of equipages moving across the lighted 
 surface of the porte cochere like big black shadows, and the 
 chug-chug of starting automobiles could be heard discordantly 
 above the murmur of voices bidding a good-night, one to the 
 other. 
 
 In front of him Bruce espied the massive frame of Fiske, 
 and just behind and a little to one side of her father, he 
 caught the shimmer of his daughter s golden head a little 
 more golden by contrast with the white scarf thrown across 
 it with studied carelessness. Near her, dancing the last 
 round of obsequious attention, was the gentleman from Vir 
 ginia. Bruce, his mind busied with the disentangling of the 
 evening s varied impressions, was quite sure it was Georgia s 
 voice that half whispered, half said caressingly to Ardmore : 
 " You will surely keep your promise and call on Monday." 
 Afterwards Bruce insisted that his fancy had tricked him 
 and that the discomforting elf had whispered those words 
 in the ears of his imagination. 
 
 106 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CAVERN OF DESPAIR 
 
 THERE was a broad smile on the weak face of Mr. 
 Ardmore of Virginia as he passed down the brown- 
 stone stairs of Speaker Fiske s house in Scott Circle. 
 The smile grew broader and broader and extended into a 
 grin when he looked up at the bronze statues of the Mercu 
 ries, bearing torches, stationed on the two big round posts 
 at the foot of the outside stairs. 
 
 " Quite a woman ; a magnificent woman ; by God, a 
 Venus and Minerva of a woman ! " he said to himself, stirred 
 to a flight of Websterian oratory when he passed the statue 
 of the great Daniel, eloquently still now. His enthusiasm 
 sought superlatives beyond which no man could go, as he 
 walked in Sixteenth Street toward the cozy White House. 
 Its high, stark Ionic columns looked good-naturedly from 
 their eminence down the sloping thoroughfare. 
 
 A moment afterwards, Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck entered 
 her carriage, which had been waiting in front of the house, 
 and she drove past General Scott, seated uncomfortably for 
 eternity on his bronze steed, and she whirled by way of Con 
 necticut Avenue over to Farragut Square where she intended 
 to call for Inez Hammersmith. She was anxious that her 
 bays make good time, for at three she had a sitting with a 
 portrait artist to whose studio Inez had promised to accom 
 pany her, and it lacked but a few minutes of that hour now. 
 
 107 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 At a little after four Cupid had calendared for her a tryst 
 with Shaw. 
 
 She was somewhat perplexed lest she find it difficult to 
 give a plausible excuse that would rid her in time of Inez s 
 company and let her keep punctually her appointment with 
 Sydney. But the shadow of a frown that crossed her broad 
 forehead gave way before her enthralling smile, just as 
 everything in the world outside of her gave way before it, 
 and she doubted not at all that she would be able to accom 
 plish these inconsiderable trifles. 
 
 She leaned back in her victoria as contented with life as 
 if she were one of the sunbeams that danced through the air 
 jubilantly, doing its share to make the day perfect. She was 
 content, for she knew that she had accomplished that which 
 would make Shaw inexpressibly happy. She pictured his 
 broad smile and she hung amorously on the lips of it. She 
 clasped the rattlesnake-skin purse with its intertwining gold 
 G. F. T., as if it were his hand that was to bid her welcome. 
 To its keeping she had confided the Wyckoff letter, carefully 
 sealed in a small white envelope, that she had cajoled Ard- 
 more, uncertain of himself, into giving her. 
 
 She smiled when she recalled the tactics that had won the 
 victory. Her thoughts concerning that vacillating individ 
 ual were far from lifting him and his abilities, as he had her 
 and her attributes, into Olympia to rank with the gods. 
 " Folly," she was thinking, " only comes to maturity, along 
 with the rest of our faculties, in old age." Both he and she 
 were just in judging each other. Folly had fallen captive 
 to Venus s flattering words and seductive smiles, while Mi 
 nerva had cajoled him easily into surrendering to her the pre 
 cious document that she wished to give Mars. 
 
 The occupants of conspicuous turnouts speculated con 
 cerning the nature of the cause that wreathed the face of the 
 
 108 
 
THE CAVERN OF DESPAIR 
 
 golden Georgia in smiles; but curiosity gave way to ad 
 miration for the wonderful face so enwreathed. She could 
 so she thought as she rode along and felt the silent homage 
 of the city bend Washington to her purposes quite as readily 
 as she had bent the foolish Ardmore. 
 
 The studio that stood, so to say, in the crossway of 
 Georgia s day s journey was located on the first floor of a 
 dingy, rickety, old-style, Southern building in Seventeenth 
 Street, just opposite the War, State, and Navy building. It 
 belonged to that celebrated artist, Mr. Rossiter Rembrandt 
 Dickinson. And strange and yet not so strange to say, two 
 stories over his head was the studio of Elaine McAllister, 
 who had moved to Washington to make her home with Bruce 
 a few months after he qualified and took his seat in the 
 House. Peter McAllister, Bruce s scientific brother, had 
 left Chicago to complete his studies of chemistry in the uni 
 versities of Europe. 
 
 Between one of the two brothers Elaine had to choose, 
 for she was not of those born for seclusion, and since Europe 
 was out of the question she naturally cast her lot with Bruce. 
 Her personal relationship with him was closer, anyway. It 
 was through Miss Madge Weber, an artist whose acquaint 
 ance she had made in her student days in Chicago, that she 
 had been persuaded to take quarters in that dingy old build 
 ing in which was located the studio of Rossiter Rembrandt 
 Dickinson. 
 
 Elaine often passed the artist on the way up and down 
 the stairs, and the fat and short man had a provoking way of 
 standing in the door frame, thrusting his hands in his trouser 
 pockets and staring at her, with mouth agape as she be 
 took herself to her room. He must have done this in a mere 
 spirit of mischief, for certainly there was nothing in Elaine s 
 sedate appearance that invited a flirtation. Even before she 
 
 109 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 was thirteen there was a suggestion of the little old maid 
 about Elaine, and her face changed remarkably little as she 
 waxed toward maturity. Her features were small, sharp 
 and thin, her complexion pale to lily whiteness. She had 
 strained her vision from drawing in a bad light, and as a 
 result she already wore glasses, which added to her seriousness 
 of mien ; but her eyes shone straight and clear at you for all 
 of that, having their share of the penetrating sharpness that 
 belonged at times to Bruce. 
 
 At first sight Rossiter Rembrandt Dickinson his father 
 had been an unsuccessful dauber in oils before him, and he 
 had given Rossiter his middle name as an inheritance and an 
 encouragement in art looked more like a butcher than an 
 artist, but the more you looked at him the more he looked like 
 what he was and the less like what he wasn t. His big, 
 square forehead jutted out over his face likes eaves, and his 
 eyebrows stood out prominently like two long straight ridges, 
 deep in the recesses of which his big gray eyes were set. 
 His aspect struck one as fierce and glowering at first, but as 
 one became used to it, the humorous point of view was sug 
 gested. Among a very few people he was known for his 
 brilliant portraits, among many more he was famous for his 
 laziness; but his indolence was a figment conjured up from 
 his appearance, for as a matter of fact he toiled like a slave, 
 and his portraits, most of which he detested as pot-boilers, 
 were far indeed from resembling those of the supreme artist 
 from whom he took his middle name, and whom he wor 
 shiped as his patron saint. 
 
 Rossiter Rembrandt Dickinson called his studio " The 
 Cavern of Despair," to keep the inquisitive and idle out of it, 
 as he explained. And yet the cavern was the favorite resort 
 of the do-nothings and the good-for-nothings for whom 
 Washington is the Mecca, and those who had come to the 
 
 HO 
 
THE CAVERN OF DESPAIR 
 
 capital in quest of jobs and found none, those who had had 
 jobs and lost them, those who had outgrown their political 
 usefulness in the various departments, those who eked out a 
 precarious living by peddling reminiscences of the old days to 
 the Sunday editions of the Washington papers one and all 
 of them lounged in his studio by day, smoking his pipes, 
 drinking his beer and borrowing his money, and they slept 
 in his chairs and his lounges at night, in return for all of 
 which they flattered his pictures outrageously, and in con 
 sideration for all of that he lent the reprobates more of his 
 money and gave them more of his tobacco, glad to have their 
 admiration but not caring a straw for their ignorant judg 
 ments. Calling his studio the Cavern of Despair to keep 
 the idlers away was much like painting the sign, " I am out " 
 on his doors and leaving them wide open. 
 
 Amid this jetsam and flotsam, these wrecks on life s fickle 
 ocean, there were some men who had done great things in 
 their day, who had organized departments and introduced 
 changes, and installed inventions for which men higher up 
 had seized all the credit and reaped the renown; there was 
 " old " Glostereek, waxen as death from indulgence in opium, 
 whose improvements in the railway postal service had left 
 him but that one heavy, faded pepper-and-salt suit which he 
 wore summer and winter; and there was but let us return 
 to our mutton. 
 
 " Oh, they have to go somewhere, you can t chase them 
 out in the street like dogs; I m an artist, I ain t a politi 
 cian," was the way Rossiter met the expostulations of his more 
 aristocratic friends anent the havoc these intruders wrought 
 in his studio and his purse. 
 
 It was in the nature of a great surprise to Elaine when 
 Dickinson called one night at their apartment in Iowa Circle, 
 armed with a letter of introduction from a mutual friend in 
 
 III 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 Paris. He grunted out something about having intended 
 to visit her long ago, but being altogether too busy to do it, 
 and he started right in, without provocation or preamble, to 
 tell her she had selected the very worst place in all the world 
 for the practice of her profession. No one thought of buying 
 pictures or art work in Washington. New York was the 
 place ! 
 
 There was that in his oracular and superior manner 
 which rasped Elaine, and she dropped her usual expression 
 of quiet, listening intelligence and asked with all the sarcasm 
 of which she was capable when nettled, if he wasn t hiding 
 his light under a bushel by remaining in a capital where gen 
 ius found so little appreciation. Her annoyance seemed to 
 amuse the fat short artist; when animated, despite her old- 
 maidish appearance, he thought her attractive. He grinned 
 broadly, showing his tobacco-stained teeth. " I never could 
 sell out and get money enough to leave," he explained. " I 
 dropped in here some years ago by accident, and I ve hung 
 on out of inertia. I started with a dream that Washington 
 was bound to become the mirror of our national life, the 
 center of our American art, and I wanted to do my share 
 toward helping the movement along. I dreamed then " 
 a light flashed in his dull sleepy eyes and he waved his short 
 arm and lapsed into silence. 
 
 Bruce, who happened to be present in the parlor at the 
 time, listened to the ruffled conversation and chuckled to 
 himself. The fellow was evidently a rare bird, a character 
 in short, in whom he would delight, promising every kind 
 of amusement to one who kept one s eyes open for the humor 
 ous in a sickly and serious world. He told a story to smooth 
 over the brewing difference between his sensitive sister and 
 her odd caller. 
 
 Rossiter Rembrandt Dickinson listened with a scowl on 
 
 112 
 
THE CAVERN OF DESPAIR 
 
 his face, his ridge of brow projecting angrily. " One of 
 those rascally politicians," he muttered to himself. " I know 
 the type. He can t catch me with his cheap clap-trap. Not 
 much ! " He wriggled uncomfortably in his chair, and 
 showed visibly enough that he did not feel at home. A few 
 minutes thereafter he took his departure, leaving on Elaine 
 a decidedly bad impression, which her brother refused to 
 share. " Dickinson is an honest fellow," he said simply, 
 " and I rather like him." 
 
 There was another shock of surprise in store for Elaine 
 when, a morning or two after the night of that visit, Rossiter 
 Rembrandt Dickinson walked into her studio, without going 
 to the formality of announcing himself by a knock on the 
 door. "I just popped in to see what you were doing and 
 how you were getting along," he remarked. 
 
 Elaine was doing a lithe nymph, bending over a pool of 
 clay to pluck a water lily from its depths; she was proud of 
 both its grace and its beauty, and she hoped that these qual 
 ities would win the praises of her uninvited visitor. But 
 he merely grinned, showing his long yellow teeth, stained 
 with tobacco, and throwing out his long ridges of eyebrow. 
 
 " I hope you like it," she said finally, exasperated by 
 his patronizing grin and the set, fierce expression that fol 
 lowed it. 
 
 " I hope I do," he remarked, waddling around her table 
 to get another view. " How long have you been working 
 at that sort of confectionery in clay ? " 
 
 " It isn t meant to eat," she replied, her white cheeks 
 reddening, the features of her quaint, old-maidish face sharp 
 ening, her eyes gleaming through her glasses. She was pre 
 paring to lose her temper. 
 
 " It s too bad," he grunted ; " model the next one out of 
 chocolate creams," and out he waddled, with his froglike 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 movement, not waiting for a retort in kind, and indeed Elaine 
 was too stunned to find one. 
 
 " Your friend Dickinson is just a brute and a boor," said 
 Elaine to Madge Weber, who chanced to come just as the 
 fat artist went out. Madge was but a wisp of a girl with 
 miniature features, black eyes, and blue-black hair. " You 
 would have to look twice to find her if her hair wasn t so 
 black, and her eyes djdn t shine and dance so and give her 
 away," is what Rossiter Rembrandt Dickinson said of her, 
 adding usually: " She ought to be out on a ranch getting 
 a dash of red on her .cheeks instead of smearing carmine 
 on china roses." 
 
 " Oh," laughed Madge, when Elaine detailed the artist s 
 conversation, " that s really mild for R. R. It s just his way. 
 You mustn t take what he says so seriously. Nobody else 
 does. He really doesn t mean anything by it, and he s the 
 best-hearted fellow in all the world when you get to know 
 him." She stood on tiptoe to twine a sympathetic arm 
 around Elaine s waist. 
 
 " I haven t the least desire in the world to cultivate his 
 acquaintance further," spoke up Elaine tartly. 
 
 Madge laughed; one expected that her loud peal would 
 carry her diminutive body away, much as a toy torpedo dis 
 appears after the explosion. " Oh, Elaine, you begin by hat 
 ing him, like the rest of us, and you will end like the rest 
 of us by falling in love with him. I have been in love with 
 him twice. It gives one a certain standing in art circles 
 here to have fallen in love with R. R. It certifies that one 
 has passed out of the amateur into the professional stage." 
 
 When Madge left her studio at noon to run over to the 
 Tea Cup Inn for a hasty luncheon, she met Rossiter Rem 
 brandt Dickinson emerging from his studio like a great, 
 shaggy bear pushing out of its den. 
 
 114 
 
THE CAVERN OF DESPAIR 
 
 " You shocked our friend upstairs dreadfully this morn 
 ing," said she. " You always talk to new arrivals, R. R., 
 as if Minerva had appointed you to serve in place of the nine 
 muses to say who should enter the temple of art, and who 
 should not enter it." 
 
 " I could save the goddess many a headache and heart 
 ache if she had," frowned the self-appointed divinity, disap 
 pearing from Madge s side, where he had been shambling 
 along in his clumsy way, and dropping into a saloon in 
 Eighteenth Street for his noonday sandwich and his high- 
 ball. Fifteen minutes was the time he gave himself in theory 
 for this refection, but he usually dawdled over it for an hour ; 
 for the German saloonkeeper had a trick spaniel that amused 
 the artist immensely, and every other noon at least, Captain 
 Jack Munger of the 6th Cavalry and Lieutenant Glenn Dob- 
 son of the Navy, came over from the Lemon building around 
 the corner, and from the Navy building across the street 
 to have a turn at billiards or pool. They were as odd a trio 
 as a whimsical and tricksy fortune ever tied together with 
 a cord of friendship. " I like them," R. R. said, " because 
 they don t talk about art ; they are men of the great world ; 
 they know what is going on outside of dingy studio walls, 
 and when Rossiter Rembrandt Dickinson leaves his brushes 
 and palette he wants to forget his worries and his cares." 
 And the first word of greeting from Captain Jack or Lieu 
 tenant Glenn usually was: " Rose, old man, that was a great 
 portrait you painted of Kinkaid; I m no judge of art myself, 
 but my friends are, and I ll back their opinions any day when 
 it comes to pictures," and R. R. s brows would jut forth 
 fiercely in his endeavor to look modest. And then Captain 
 Jack would add: "Yes sir; your portraits are masterpieces. 
 I m proud to know such a great artist. I don t pretend to 
 know much about colors or perspectives and values and all 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 that sort of rot ; but I can recognize a likeness when I see one. 
 Well, let s have another highball and a game of pool. Here s 
 to you, R. R. I ll give you five years no, damn me, one 
 to be on top of the heap." 
 
 And so it went, week in, week out ; at five minutes after 
 twelve on the day of which we speak, R. R. Dickinson was 
 feeding bits of bread and cheese to Gartenlaube s spaniel, 
 to earn which the bitch had to stand on her hind legs, bark, 
 and perform all manner of tricks for the artist s amusement. 
 Captain Jack Munger in fatigue dress walked over to R. R. s 
 table, and not three minutes afterwards Lieutenant Glenn 
 Dodson made his appearance in civilian dress. 
 
 "What s the matter with you, Jack?" asked Glenn, 
 fingering Munger s shoulder straps. " What does this 
 mean? " 
 
 " The order went out yesterday," complained Jack, " to 
 come to the office in fatigue dress. Since old General 
 Ostrander was married it s his young wife that runs the de 
 partment and not he. She likes the old cock in his uniform 
 best, and she insists that he be dressed to kill in more senses 
 than one and so the order is passed along to report for 
 office duty in fatigues." 
 
 " It s picturesque," said R. R. " I like variety." 
 
 " It s un-American and uncomfortable," complained Jack. 
 
 Lieutenant Glenn Dodson threw back his head and 
 roared. He was a tall, square-shouldered, deep-chested fel 
 low, while Captain Jack was small, light of weight and 
 lithe, with a surprisingly weak, feminine voice, his mascu 
 linity duly considered. " Ha ! " snorted R. R., his face fierce, 
 his clenched fist rattling down on the table, " I have a little 
 suggestion for the quartermaster general or whoever his wor 
 ship may be." He sketched hastily with his pencil a row of 
 soldiers in a fantastic Zouave costume, a stout hook projecting 
 
 116 
 
THE CAVERN OF DESPAIR 
 
 from a square plate, sewed to the seat of each of those war 
 rior s trousers. The Captain and the Lieutenant bent over 
 his paper, wondering what odd freak had seized the man now. 
 
 " That s the most practical uniform that ever was," ex 
 plained the artist enthusiastically ; " each soldier can carry 
 two days rations and his other effects on that hook and not 
 feel any inconvenience. No tents are needed. Why?" 
 (sketching rapidly as he spoke) "because they hang them 
 selves in a row, side by side, to the first fence with their hooks 
 and so fall asleep. The hook is as useful in battle as on the 
 march. You tie a strong rope " (making a third sketch) " to 
 the hook, put the ends of the ropes in the hands of the com 
 manding officer, and if his men advance too quickly he re 
 strains them ; if they are wounded he pulls them back. Now if 
 you want an elegant satire, you draw your newly married, 
 henpecked General Ostrander so the hook in the same place 
 and you put that rope in his wife s hands (there she is!) to 
 show how she has him in control." 
 
 R. R. s sketches set the table in a roar. " I guess for 
 the sake of my job I ll not send it in; but wouldn t I like 
 to, though!" said Captain Jack, regaining his composure. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DISTURBANCE 
 
 AT one o clock of the same day when Georgia called for 
 Inez to drive over to the studio of Rossiter Rem 
 brandt Dickinson, the artist shambled back from the 
 restaurant, put on his paint-besmeared jacket, and began to 
 toil like mad over his huge canvas of " The Man of the 
 Mills " the fourth in a series of ten subjects that he had 
 chosen to illustrate American life and labor. His liking went 
 to huge canvases, brilliant colors and fierce action, and this 
 particular picture was the joy of his heart, the glory of his 
 eyes, and as he laid on the broad and generous colors of his 
 able palette, discarding his brush for his knife at times, he 
 talked to the central figures as if they had been children of 
 his flesh and blood instead of his fancy. " Hi, you, liven up ! 
 Push that rod, that s what you ve got muscles and a back for. 
 We won t have any idlers in this mill ! " and so he went on 
 scolding and praising his laborers, drawn with the grace and 
 firmness of a master hand, but praising less than he scolded, 
 for our artist was seemingly a stern employer. 
 
 Little Miss Madge Weber burst into his studio and 
 watched him in quiet for a while, listening without comment 
 to his growls and his complaints, marveling in silence at his 
 sure technic, his refined workmanship, at the speed with 
 which the knowing brushes of this clumsy, awkward man 
 moved. " Why, you can never get that immense thing out 
 of the room, R. R.," she remarked laughingly. 
 
 118 
 
THE DISTURBANCE 
 
 " Eh ! what s that ? " he asked, looking down at her from 
 his ladder. " You get me a purchaser and I will get it out 
 fast enough. I ll tear down the front of this building; I ll 
 pull it through the roof." 
 
 " Why, that isn t the kind of thing people buy, R. R. ! 
 Why don t you paint a picture of Diana at the chase, or Or 
 pheus at the harp that s what takes? " 
 
 " Takes ! takes ! You can t serve the Almighty and the 
 almighty dollar, woman! What do I care what takes! 
 That s not my purpose on earth! Enough milksops have 
 put Orpheus to twanging his harp no wonder he flew to 
 Hades for refuge. And Diana has been hunted enough; 
 let her rest! I know what I m about. Rossiter Rembrandt 
 Dickinson wants to paint contemporary life ; I don t steal my 
 inspirations from Greece. I work like a slave for em here, 
 and now. Takes! takes! why don t you take yourself up 
 stairs? Why do you bother me to take Hi! hi!" He 
 interrupted himself with a yell, almost losing his balance 
 on the ladder and dropping his brushes and palette as he 
 waved his short arms. 
 
 Little Miss Weber shook her black head and with a laugh 
 that wavered between mirth and fright, she ran upstairs to 
 her vases and her roses. She never could stand R. R. for 
 more than a few minutes at a time; his brusqueness and his 
 violence frightened her timid, retiring nature; he was too 
 much like his own canvases, overpowering, huge, domineer 
 ing, and the gentle Madge preferred the more* subdued and 
 less assertive character, who would in turn have a preference 
 for dainty Dianas and melodious Orpheuses. 
 
 R. R. bent over laboriously to pick up his brushes and set 
 his palette to rights, apparently spending enough energy on 
 the task to pull out a Corinthian pillar from the Capitol. 
 " Women," he maundered contemptuously, " women! They 
 
 119 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 always throw me out of tune. I can t do anything when 
 they are around. I hate em! I detest em! If I wasn t 
 such a soft-hearted fool I d order them out before they got 
 in here." He climbed up on his ladder again breathing 
 heavily, as if he were carrying a man of his own weight on 
 his shoulders ; still fulminating against the sex that the inno 
 cent Miss Weber had represented so unfortunately. 
 
 At three o clock the knocker on his door a treasure that 
 the artist had unearthed in Georgetown was given several 
 smart raps. Absorbed in his work he did not hear. The 
 rapping was repeated. " Come in," he bawled, " man, wom 
 an or child, Christian or politician, come in ! I m not a serv 
 ant or a butler ; I have something else to do besides opening 
 and shutting doors. They want an artist to do all sorts of 
 menial tasks in this blamed country ; they don t show us suffi 
 cient respect." He ended his short essay on " Artists Open 
 ing Doors," and sprawling down from his ladder, looked 
 out of the window and saw Georgia Ten Eyck dismount with 
 Miss Hammersmith from Inez s victoria Georgia had man 
 aged to dismiss her own turnout while the footman, who 
 had tried the knocker first, was now assisting them to alight. 
 
 " Who s that other beauty that my subject has caught 
 in her net? Takes two horses, a carriage and two men to 
 haul one woman around nowadays," he grumbled. " I for 
 got all about the golden girl s appointment. My God, how 
 the time flies! How precious it is! There ought to be a 
 law making it a crime to waste a minute. I always have 
 to stop I never knew it to fail when I am most interested 
 in my series. Well, a man has to live ! " 
 
 The only change in the demeanor of the artist when those 
 two representatives of fashion entered his studio was a more 
 rigid projection of his eyebrows. He paid homage to great 
 souls. He blurted out an incoherent phrase about being 
 
 120 
 
THE DISTURBANCE 
 
 overworked a standing cause of complaint with him and 
 he shuffled over to the dais to fix a chair in place for Georgia 
 Fiske Ten Eyck. 
 
 Georgia drew back intuitively from R. R. s savage coun 
 tenance as he arranged a fold of her drapery, and she half 
 wished that she had gorxe elsewhere to an artist more polished 
 and a studio less musty, although her portrait would have 
 had to pay for the increase in her personal comfort. Inez 
 sat silently in a farther corner of the big room, thoroughly 
 enjoying the new experience and odd surroundings. Rossi- 
 ter Rembrandt bent over the oval canvas of the ivory and 
 gold portrait of his sitter, applying his quick, telling stroke 
 to it. "Bah!" he maundered to himself, "the daughter 
 of one of these politicians! He s visited the sins of his trade 
 on her ! Maybe I can t see her diplomacy peeping through 
 her skin. That face of hers can t hide it from me, not much ! 
 I suppose if I put her true self on canvas she wouldn t take 
 the portrait. And she s masculine too. There s something 
 mannish about her. I don t know just where, but it s there. 
 She s too powerful, too strong-minded for a woman. I ll bet 
 she likes to run things! She strikes me as beautiful at first 
 every time she comes in here, and then her masculinity gets 
 some subtle hold on me. That other beauty who came in 
 here is the better woman of the two, colder but more femi 
 nine, and more honest and sincere. They re curious crea 
 tures, women, but they don t fool me." 
 
 Thus he went on for half an hour, painting and talk 
 ing to himself, when another rap resounded on the door. 
 " Come in ! the tongue of my knocker must be feminine gen 
 der, it s always wagging," he shouted. Amid the laughter 
 of Inez and Georgia evoked by R. R. s peculiar invocation, 
 Elaine McAllister stepped into the studio. Towering above 
 her on the threshold the lank form of Bruce stood hesitatingly. 
 
 9 121 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 He had called to take his sister for a walk and he had in 
 sisted, ridiculing her protests, on stopping to see the eccentric 
 artist. 
 
 " Come right in, Mr. McAllister," called Inez encourag 
 ingly, witnessing his hesitation. 
 
 " Whose studio is this, anyway, hers or mine?" said to 
 himself the disgruntled R. R. bowing to his visitors coldly, 
 and then when Bruce brushed past him to extend his hand 
 to Inez he added: "That s the way with these politicians; 
 they have no more manners than buffaloes." He turned 
 bluntly and rudely to stare at Inez and Bruce. The well- 
 bred Georgia, from her coign of vantage on the dais, wrestled 
 with a broad smile and seeking, in obedience to the law of 
 habit, to hide it behind her handkerchief, she drew that article 
 from her long purse in a half conscious sort of way. A 
 letter, sealed in a small white envelope, fluttered to the floor, 
 clinging fearfully to the side of the dais. A noisy movement 
 of the artist s easel saved the truant document from detection. 
 
 " There s some kind of a love affair going on over there," 
 grumbled the artist to himself, his observant glances includ 
 ing Bruce and Inez. " He s a politician she ll get the 
 worst of it." 
 
 Elaine, exchanging a few formal words with the women 
 to whom she had just been introduced, drew bashfully to one 
 side. She occupied herself with admiring a hand-carved 
 Spanish writing desk that the artist had picked up in his 
 student days abroad. 
 
 " Well, has your nymph fallen into the pond yet or is she 
 still pulling at the lily?" 
 
 " She s better engaged she s eating chocolate creams." 
 She congratulated herself on the promptness of the retort 
 they usually came after the occasion for their use was 
 long by. 
 
 122 
 
THE DISTURBANCE 
 
 "Miss Hoity-Toity ! " he muttered to himself; then he 
 grinned. Sarcasm troubled his heart no more than paint 
 stains did his fingers. 
 
 Art meanwhile absorbed the conversation of Bruce and 
 Inez. Here, too, he had a cultivated point of view. Art 
 in the new democracy was a subject at which he was aiming 
 his shafts. She lured his arrows to aim at a mark that was 
 of a less remote personal interest to her. " Did Mr. Ard- 
 more keep his promise and give you the letter?" she asked. 
 
 " No, but he has given me his word of honor that I 
 am to have it Tuesday in the committee room." 
 
 Georgia overhearing the question and its answer, under 
 the impulse of the moment, turned her face fully around, 
 gazed at Inez with an expression that belonged half to sur 
 prise, half to inquiry, then blushed and bent her gaze on the 
 annoyed artist. Bruce and Inez tried in the quiet of their 
 own minds to unriddle the meaning of the odd, intense glance 
 that shot across Georgia s large face. 
 
 " It will come out all right," he said finally, lowering 
 his voice unconsciously. 
 
 " I hope it may," she answered, her voice attuning its 
 pitch to his. 
 
 The golden Georgia, straining her nerves to overhear 
 without seeming to do so, wondered at the nature of the re 
 lationship that might exist between Bruce and Inez, won 
 dered still more what sort of conspiracy those low tones 
 betokened. 
 
 Again he chose art in a democracy for his theme, and 
 he was launched in the midst of it when Georgia Ten Eyck 
 left her throne it struck Elaine that her movements were 
 those of a queen abdicating and she joined Inez and Bruce. 
 Her comment on the lateness of the hour put an abrupt end 
 to Bruce s reiterated arguments. It was on the way out to 
 
 123 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 their carriage that Inez remarked to Georgia: " I think that 
 Bruce McAllister has improved ever so much since first we 
 met in Chicago." 
 
 " He must have needed it, Heaven knows," returned the 
 golden Georgia, with an assumed indifference. " I never 
 could make up my mind quite if he was a man or a jumping- 
 jack." 
 
 Inez felt the warm blood heat her cheeks and into her 
 soft underlip her sharp white teeth sank. She once had passed 
 light remarks of a like nature about Bruce to Addison but she 
 resented them bitterly coming from another. 
 
 The subtle Georgia, watching Inez narrowly, guessed 
 even more than the heart of Inez would have revealed to her 
 self. " I have your secret, my dear young lady," she thought, 
 feeling as if her hands by clasping another guiding rein had 
 added to her power. 
 
 Inside the studio, meanwhile, Elaine covertly had sig 
 naled to her brother that the time for their departure had 
 come long ago, but he would pay no more attention to her 
 signs and her hints than to the gruff replies to his questions 
 that came from the inhospitable, disagreeable R. R., who re 
 fused absolutely to be drawn into a conversation. Bruce 
 tried a story that he revamped to fit an artist instead of a 
 carpenter, but Rossiter Rembrandt took the point of it with 
 a stolidity creditable to a Chinaman, and he was proof against 
 Bruce s repeated declaration that " The Man of the Mills" 
 was just exactly the kind of picture he liked. 
 
 Elaine finally dragged Bruce off much to R. R. s relief, 
 who grunted something about calling again an invitation 
 that came rather from the bottom of his throat than the same 
 place in his heart. 
 
 " Now I can work again," said R. R. with a sigh of relief 
 banging the door of his studio shut. " No, I can t either; 
 
 124 
 
THE DISTURBANCE 
 
 the light s gone. It s a shame ! Politicians, society and art 
 ist women all in one afternoon! Singly they re enough to 
 make a man want to tear his hair out by the roots, but to 
 gether what did I do to deserve this? " 
 
 He waddled off to the sink, hidden by a curtain, to clean 
 his brushes and put his palette away for the day. He was 
 removing a delicate bit of fabric from the chair on the dais 
 when his foot brushed against the lower edge of it and swept 
 Ardmore s much-sought epistle into the middle of the floor 
 near the spot where Bruce and Inez had held their disquisi 
 tion. The noise made by the disturbed paper attracted his 
 attention, but he dismissed it as altogether unworthy of 
 stooping to investigate. 
 
 A moment later when he was donning his hat and coat, 
 he noticed the missive and picked it up. Its white envelope 
 showed no superscription to his inquiring glances. "It was 
 dropped by that Hammersmith woman " was his careless and 
 quick conclusion. " I ll mail it to her. Just Washing 
 ton will do, I suppose," he soliloquized, addressing the 
 envelope on the opened leaf of the Spanish writing desk. 
 
 A knock called him; he arose grumbling, blotting the 
 envelope with a violent slap of his outspread hand. The 
 charwoman sought admission to his cavern. He chatted with 
 her for a while, and his rough and ready gallantry might have 
 surprised his more fashionable patrons. Afterwards, forget 
 ful of the letter and all his other studio cares, including his 
 rent for it, he strolled out for his daily exercise. 
 
 He waddled past the War, State and Navy building, 
 which he greeted with his usual remark: "An absurd old 
 pile ; looks as if it were put together by children out of their 
 toy blocks. Romanesque is it? Nonsensesque I call it." He 
 grinned at his own attempted witticism and stumbled along 
 toward the White House, where he paused to admire the 
 
 125 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 grounds and the front, as was his wont. " Wouldn t I like 
 to live in there, though, with a room facing the Potomac for 
 my studio? But, pshaw! What chance has an artist got 
 against a lot of pot-bellied politicians! They ve turned it 
 into a Black House, that s what they ve done ! " 
 
 He went by the noble Ionic portico of the Treasury build 
 ing, which it may please you to know is what his majesty 
 R. R. " considered architecture," and then he drew his walk 
 to a halt for a moment to watch the steady stream of clerks 
 pouring out of the offices on their way homeward. " The 
 dupes of politic s loaded dice " was his unfavorable comment 
 on these. He waddled southward toward the river, his eyes 
 fell on the Washington Monument and his soul was lost in 
 reverence and admiration. " Hi ! hi ! " was his salutation. 
 " The old boy is amethyst to-day, poking his nose way up in 
 the clouds. The mountains can t beat you for sublimity ! I 
 doff my hat to you. I don t see how the American people 
 were satisfied with anything as grandly simple and as beauti 
 fully plain as you." 
 
 He strolled on to the shore of the Potomac, then retraced 
 his steps through the Mall and toward the Capitol. At five 
 he limped wearily across Fifteenth Street to a long row of 
 decrepit Southern houses in I Street, facing Franklin Square; 
 in one of these he roomed with " Doc " Scollard, a clerk in 
 the Treasury Department, and his family. After dinner Scol 
 lard and he played whist from eight to ten precisely ; then he 
 betook himself to his bare room (an etched portrait of Rem 
 brandt Van Rijn was its sole adornment valued by R. R. as 
 the apple of his eye), lit his lamp and read, for heaven knows 
 how many times, the correspondence in which the genius and 
 the spirit of Balzac revealed themselves to Mme. Hanska. 
 It was a sight to see him read, to watch him bring his fist 
 down on some passage that excited his warmest approbation 
 
 126 
 
THE DISTURBANCE 
 
 and hear him say in a low, reverent voice, " Hi, there was a 
 hero for you ! " 
 
 And so passed R. R. s day and night; and so he spent. day 
 after day and night after night a simple, honest, lonely life, 
 true to his art as the muse herself could wish, whose innocent 
 pleasures cost no man pain and no woman grief. 
 
 His lamp is out; peace and sweet dreams to thee, R. R. 
 
 127 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 R. R. S DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS INCREASES 
 
 WHEN Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck opened her heavily 
 monogramed purse in the presence of Shaw to draw 
 from it the Ardmore letter and found that precious 
 document missing, she questioned her senses. A second 
 search, fortified though her feminine soul was by a touch of 
 the masculine, brought her to the very verge of tears. She 
 quarreled then with the deities whom she always had trusted 
 as the beneficent guardians of her destiny. It is likely to be 
 so with fair women, spoiled by an admiring world, prone to 
 find fault with what lies beyond them rather than with them 
 selves. 
 
 Sydney P. Shaw almost forgot himself and lost his temper. 
 He would have thought naught of it had Georgia failed in 
 her mission, but the fact that she had achieved what no man 
 could have done and then thrown to carelessness the fruits 
 of her labor, vexed him. But his usual policy came to the 
 rescue and bade him be suave; his was the horrible gift of 
 being angry when and with whom he chose. 
 
 " I am sure you will find it," he said in cheering tones, 
 dear to the heart of woman. " Undoubtedly you will find 
 it. You surely dropped it in that artist s studio and I am 
 positive he will keep it against your coming. It s a pretty 
 base sort of a fellow you know, anyway, that will trifle with 
 a letter. The trouble is, my dear Georgia, that the impor- 
 
 128 
 
R. R. s DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS 
 
 tance of the letter naturally makes you nervous and more fear 
 ful that it has been lost beyond recovery than the facts will 
 warrant." 
 
 " I hope so," replied the golden Georgia, her large face 
 lighting up. " I shall go to Mr. Dickinson s studio the first 
 thing in the morning to inquire." 
 
 " Fortune will refuse you nothing. You will find it, 
 never fear," he returned trying to silence his own worriment 
 by his own good cheer, as one might whistle to keep up one s 
 courage. Torrentwise he poured out his praise for the clev 
 erness she had displayed in capturing the brief. 
 
 She leaped responsive to his homage and as if beseeching 
 more of it she said : " I believe, Sydney, there is something 
 going on between Bruce McAllister and Inez Hammer 
 smith." 
 
 "What makes you think so?" 
 
 She detailed what she had seen and heard in the studio. 
 
 Astonishment gave vent to an exclamatory " Hm! " 
 
 " I twitted her afterwards on McAllister s ungainliness, 
 and although she said nothing I could see that she resented 
 it deeply." 
 
 " I suspected something," he commented, unwilling to 
 acknowledge that his superior masculine observation had been 
 at fault; " but I had no idea the affair had advanced so far. 
 I knew, of course, that McAllister was willing, but I thought 
 the Hammersmith girl aimed higher." 
 
 Georgia expatiated at length on taste, adding nothing to 
 the theory that the trite Latin apothegm does not cover. 
 
 " And you say that McAllister s artist sister has a studio 
 on the floor above this fellow s? " 
 
 She affirmed her assertion ; he looked as if he were more 
 gravely concerned about the lost letter than he had been will 
 ing to confess. It was she who brought consolation this 
 
 129 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 time. It would be the part of wisdom to spare their tears 
 and not consider the missive lost until her visit to the artist 
 failed to recover it. 
 
 In the morning she was in -R. R. Dickinson s studio not 
 so very long after he had opened it. He mumbled his aston 
 ishment at seeing her and growled forth something or other 
 about being interrupted. She expressed a consuming interest 
 in the portrait; he remained impassive, reflecting. Then she 
 remarked in quite a matter-of-fact way: 
 
 " I happened to drop a letter yesterday not one of any 
 particular importance and I wondered if I could have been 
 careless enough to have let it fall here." 
 
 " Ah," he thought to himself, " that s what she wants ! 
 It wasn t in her nature to come out straight and direct. The 
 daughter of a politician ! " and aloud he said curtly : " Yes, 
 I found a letter. I thought it belonged to Miss Hammer 
 smith and I mailed it to her last night." His absent-minded 
 ness saw the thing done that this very absent-mindedness had 
 failed to do. " It must be there by this time." He fastened 
 a longing eye on " The Man of the Mills " to show his 
 interest was there and that the interview was over. She 
 blushed for this crude fellow and bowed her way out. When 
 she passed down the four stone steps that led to the sidewalk, 
 she heard his studio door slam ominously and she laughed 
 aloud, finding something humorous in his exaggerated rude 
 ness. 
 
 " Supposing," she reflected, as she walked quickly and 
 gracefully in Seventeenth Street toward Farragut Square, 
 " that Inez has already received and read the letter what 
 then? " She found no answer to the question she put herself, 
 and she resolved to let circumstances solve the difficulty. 
 
 She discussed with Inez, her arm twined around her 
 waist, everything in Washington but the purpose that had 
 
 130 
 
R. R. s DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS 
 
 brought her thither; finally she introduced it with a " by the 
 way." To Inez, however, the letter that R. R. failed to 
 mail had not come. Georgia, her heart fluttering, suggested 
 that a mistake might have been made. A query among the 
 servants, a close inspection of the mail-bag proved none. 
 Georgia s conversation circled, moving away from the letter 
 only to return to it again before she had finished. Inez, 
 divining her method, wondered at her persistency and she de 
 cided that the missive was of importance. 
 
 " Artists," remarked Georgia finally when she was about 
 to depart, " are notoriously careless. He may have misad 
 dressed it. Supposing, if it happens to be on your way, that 
 we stop at the post office to inquire? " 
 
 Inez, her curiosity on edge, consented readily. As a mat 
 ter of course the post office was obliged to plead ignorance 
 of the letter that never had left R. R. s studio. Georgia, 
 dismissing the subject as one of no consequence, left the 
 aroused Inez to visit the artist again. His beclouded face 
 and his brow, jutting angrily, showed his displeasure at the 
 repeated interruption. 
 
 " I m not the post office! " he growled when she had ex 
 cused her reappearance, " nor am I responsible for their 
 errors." She praised " The Man of the Mills," its colorful- 
 ness, its action, its realism before she went on to say: 
 
 " We are all liable to mistakes, won t you look again ? " 
 
 " Thinks I don t see through her flattery," he said to him 
 self ; and aloud: " Look! Where in Heaven s name shall I 
 look? I tell you that, as sure as my name is Rossiter Rem 
 brandt Dickinson, I addressed the letter to Miss Hammer 
 smith on that Spanish writing desk, and then I walked around 
 the corner and dropped it in the mail box." By some peculiar 
 illusion of the memory and the senses he actually saw him 
 self taking the various steps 6f the process. 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 Georgia held her ground gently, trying to appease him 
 by the logic that since to err egregiously was human he need 
 consider it no sin in his particular case to have sent a trifle 
 amiss. The answer he roared out frightened her. 
 
 "Don t you think that I know that, madam? It s no 
 news to me! But I tell you I sent the letter, and I know 
 what I m talking about. Look here, see and satisfy yourself, 
 since you won t take my word for it." 
 
 He flung the leaf of the writing desk down with a thump, 
 disclosing its many-compartmented interior. An excited 
 rummaging of its contents failed to discover the letter. 
 Georgia departed, scattering behind her profuse apology at 
 the disturbance, to which came his grinning rejoinder that 
 he had told her it would be worse than futile. He heaved 
 a sigh of relief, forgetting the letter quite as thoroughly as if 
 he had never heard of it and he surrendered himself to " The 
 Man of the Mills." Georgia returned home disconsolate. 
 
 At noon Shaw telephoned to her from the Capitol. Her 
 guarded response alarmed him, but finding her so distraught 
 he made light of her fears and tried to calm her. He re 
 flected afterwards, seeking to find for his ruffled nerves the 
 consolation they needed, women were poor manipulators and 
 the probabilities were that she had not gone about her search 
 in a practical manner. There was, he felt sure, a fair chance 
 left that the letter was in the studio still. If that letter was 
 in Bruce s pocket and it might as well be there as anywhere 
 else McAllister carried with him the warrant for his 
 enemy s political death. Sydney again paid his respects to 
 the carelessness of women, and he consulted with his faithful 
 man Ommaney, resolving to send him to the artist s studio 
 since it might be hazardous to be seen there himself. 
 
 The crafty and resourceful Ommaney knocked at R. R. s 
 door at two o clock. This last interruption made the artist 
 
 132 
 
R. R. s DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS 
 
 fearful for the life of his inspiration, and the voice that bade 
 Ommaney to enter was an indistinguishable growl. To the 
 shaggy person, the beetling brows, the glowering eyes, the 
 statesman introduced himself as Right Honorable Richard 
 Ommaney, M. C., Chairman of the Committee of the Jud 
 iciary, etc., etc. R. R. was quite as overwhelmed as if he had 
 said, " I m Richard Ommaney, street-sweep for their triune 
 majesties the Commissioners of the District of Columbia." 
 
 " Well, what do you want? " he asked fretfully, his eyes 
 longingly traveling toward " The Man of the Mills." Then 
 he glanced at Ommaney piercingly and felt still less inclined 
 toward that gentleman s small, furtive face, his freckled 
 countenance and sandy hair. " Another of these cheap poli 
 ticians," he grumbled to himself. 
 
 " I have been recommended to you by my friends as one 
 of the best portrait painters in Washington, and since I hap 
 pened to pass by here to-day, I thought I would inquire about 
 terms." 
 
 " I m very busy just now," he said, his brow smoothing 
 slightly, " and I can t give you a sitting for some time." 
 
 " Oh, I can wait," said the obliging Ommaney as he 
 dropped down upon R. R. s lounge. 
 
 " Very well," replied the artist, hoping the hint would 
 dislodge his unwelcome visitor. " I ll let you know by 
 letter." 
 
 " And the terms? " Ommaney stayed where he was. 
 
 R. R. had his price and mentioning it he turned his steps 
 toward his ladder. Ommaney arose R. R. hoped to go 
 but he remained to praise. 
 
 " That s a wonderful picture you have there," said Om 
 maney, standing off to admire it critically, "just the sort that 
 appeals to me." He lapsed into a reflective quiet and then 
 said in a sharp businesslike tone, " What do you want for it? " 
 
 133 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 Dickinson grinned. Madge Weber s prophetic, " You ll 
 never sell that, R. R.," flashed through his egoistic mind. 
 The picture was not even done, the paint was not dry on the 
 canvas and here was gold in advance of fame to recompense 
 merit! There was such a thing as being too hasty in one s 
 judgment of people, and while a man might sink to politics, 
 still in the hidden resources of his soul he might nourish a 
 love for art as lofty as anybody s. Waxing eloquent, he des 
 canted on the merits of the canvas. Ommaney admired his 
 enthusiasm, estimating its dynamic value in politics, and he 
 turned a deaf ear to the laudatory criticisms that the artist 
 passed on his own work. 
 
 " But the price? " asked Ommaney, as if its merits were 
 so patent even to the layman that it remained only for the 
 price to settle the bargain. 
 
 " A thousand dollars," said the jubilant R. R., but so 
 hesitatingly that the least alert of men could have seen that 
 he would have been willing to have split terms with his own 
 rash exorbitance. 
 
 " I don t see any good reason why we shouldn t come to 
 an agreement," said Ommaney. He lured R. R. on, talking 
 about other artists and art in general, passing lightly and 
 logically to ask if women were more difficult to paint and 
 portray than men. Dickinson delivered himself to a sympa 
 thetic listener at length. The sympathetic one agreed with 
 him and ran on from women in art to mere woman. He 
 had observed in his time that the lighter-minded sex was apt 
 to be more careless than man. There was something peculiar 
 about that! 
 
 The artist nodded. He wondered at what his munifi 
 cent visitor was driving, but he interposed no argument 
 in defense of the carefulness of the fair sex. Much he 
 cared, ran his own separate conclusion, whether they were 
 
 134 
 
R. R/s DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS 
 
 careful as misers or careless as prodigals. Cautiously, in 
 directly, building around the hint whole walls of " ifs," 
 " buts " and " fors," Ommaney threaded the maze and 
 finally reached the end and aim of his verbose excursion, 
 the letter. 
 
 The ridge on R. R. s brow jutted ominously ; a faint sus 
 picion illumined him, throwing light over the real purpose 
 of this visitor. He was naturally mistrustful of politicians, 
 hating them with all his heart and all his soul, and the 
 shadow of a doubt needed but to cross his mind before he 
 filled in its baleful outlines with substance. Watchful, alert, 
 controlling himself with no end of inward effort, he let the 
 man talk on at length while he awaited his opportunity to 
 swoop down on him and take his vengeance for time lost and 
 hopes deferred. 
 
 Ommaney drew back from the subject merely that he 
 might gain more purchase and clutch it the firmer when his 
 conversational antennae reached toward it again. He inter 
 rupted himself to say: " I should think it would be mighty 
 attractive for a fellow of your artistic temperament to be in 
 Venice. A consulship, I should think, if you tried for it, 
 might not be very difficult to secure." 
 
 " Go to Venice ! " bellowed the exasperated R. R., un 
 willing to endure the ordeal longer. " What do I want to 
 do in Venice? There are enough things to paint here! 
 Go to Venice? You politicians don t need to come here to 
 bribe me! If I had that damn letter I d say so! What the 
 deuce can I do with it? I don t wish any more of my pre 
 cious time wasted on that nonsense. My time is my own; 
 I don t steal it from the people who pay me. You needn t 
 visit here and trick me into believing that you want your 
 portrait painted and that you intend to buy my picture 
 and " 
 
 135 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " My dear sir, I assure you " In vain Ommaney tried 
 to stop the raging torrent of abuse. 
 
 " Don t assure me ! Please leave ! This is a studio built 
 for devotion to art, not for politics." 
 
 Ommaney bowed his head to let the storm blow over it. 
 He feared to leave the vociferous artist in his present state 
 of mind, knowing not what gossip and what ultimate result 
 might be born of it. He drew nearer him to put a pacifica 
 tory hand on his shoulder. R. R. pulled it down in less time 
 than Ommaney had lifted it up, and he roared out at the top 
 of his lungs, his face matching the carmine of his palette as he 
 opened the studio door : 
 
 "Go to the Capitol ! That s the place the Government 
 keeps for your like ! I pay rent and I earn it honestly ! Join 
 your buccaneering comrades up at the Capitol, but you keep 
 out of here." 
 
 Obedience seemed to Ommaney the only part left of valor 
 and he deserted the field muttering under his breath dreadful 
 imprecations against the artistic temperament and the crazy 
 genius possessed by it. He sought out Shaw to acquaint him 
 with the failure of his mission, and Shaw, despite the fact 
 that his fix was desperate, laughed uproariously at Omma- 
 ney s adventure in the Cavern of Despair, and Ommaney, 
 whose sense of humor was only submerged in anger, rescued 
 that choice possession and joined in with him. Then they 
 exposed to discussion all sides of the issue and prepared a 
 plan of action that would keep abreast of all the predica 
 ments that arose. To search for the letter longer, they 
 agreed, was useless. Accident had taken it; accident alone 
 could return. 
 
 During one of those same beautiful twenty-four hours 
 Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck, in her overanxiety to find the letter, 
 gave the enemy a clue to its loss and sent them posthaste 
 
 136 
 
R. R. s DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS 
 
 in search of the treasure-trove. Circumstances dovetailed 
 nicely with the untoward fortune of the last few days; the 
 dinner to be given at her home that very night helped her to 
 take the false step easily. Among the social luminaries of 
 the first magnitude the guests numbered Count Villari, the 
 Polish minister, his daughter Anna Villari, and Secretary 
 and Mrs. Scarborough, and Secretary and Mrs. Kinkaid. 
 We forbear mentioning those of a radiance too minor to em 
 blazon their own names, and we conclude the list by saying 
 that Edward Donovan Butler borrowed from rather than 
 lent light to this mundane constellation. He felt himself 
 more invited than included. 
 
 In Washington, where a social position depends more 
 upon what you were before you came to the capital than 
 what you did to get there or what you have done since your 
 arrival, there must have been an unusual reason to explain 
 the correspondent s presence in the home of the rigidly exclu 
 sive Fiskes other than may appear on the surface. Georgia 
 maneuvered it. The press was a source of presidential 
 booms and the correspondents made them before they were 
 launched. She was quick to learn, her resourceful fingers 
 searching for power in the Press gallery quite as thoroughly 
 as they did in either of the two houses of Congress, that little 
 Butler was a man to be reckoned with in the newspaper 
 world of the great Middle West. With him for captain 
 she hoped her cohorts might seize that section. She counted 
 the East as her father s tributary and she feared that if the 
 Middle West were lost, her arch would tumble for the lack 
 of a keystone. 
 
 The chipper correspondent was not adverse to allowing 
 
 the Speaker s daughter to take her place in the complicated 
 
 mechanism he had built up for the gathering of news, and he 
 
 accepted the invitation more curious than suspicious of the 
 
 10 137 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 motive that lay behind it. In Washington everybody wants 
 something from everybody else and eternal vigilance is the 
 watchword of the successful and the ambitious. 
 
 It occurred to Georgia at the dinner table, as her clear 
 eyes fastened on the correspondent s sloping face, that he in 
 his full knowledge of current events and gossip might have 
 possibly an inkling of the whereabouts of the lost letter. She 
 knew that he was a close friend of Bruce s and she was not 
 above the suspicion that the artist, influenced by the insid 
 ious force of propinquity, had entrusted that precious bit of 
 paper to Elaine. Once in the hands of Elaine it would pass 
 on of course to Bruce and there complete the vicious circle. 
 
 Later in the evening when Butler was attempting a con 
 versation with the Polish minister s monocle the one re 
 sponsive feature of that gentleman s stony countenance the 
 subtle Georgia spirited him away to a Turkish corner in 
 one of the smaller rooms that opened on the parlor. Pasha- 
 like he was sunk in a sybaritic heap of pillows. Overhead, 
 between the folds of the heavy rug, woven in interminable 
 Persian scroll, the bejeweled lamps twinkled mellowly. The 
 pronounced colors of the room blended with a lulling effect, 
 all of its furnishings being too assertive to allow prominence 
 to any one feature. 
 
 Small talk occupied them. Her silvery laughter paid 
 a flattering respect to his pointed reflections. She was, with 
 a sort of piscatorial deliberateness, allotting him due time 
 to tire himself out before she gave her hook the incisive 
 jerk that was to add him to her already heavy string. Her 
 self-conceit, of which she had a degree rather than a share, 
 paid her brilliancy all the homage it deserved. 
 
 The conversation zigzagged, slowly climbing higher to 
 ward a more serious level. When they had scaled its top 
 most peak she gave her own impressions, befittingly colored, 
 
 138 
 
R. R. s DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS 
 
 of the last squabble in the rooms of the Interstate Commerce 
 Committee and she asked for Butler s. He responded ambig 
 uously. She abandoned the theme temporarily, merely to 
 play it more insistently and louder later on. His indirec 
 tion piqued her boldness and she asked, even though recog 
 nizing the danger of so doing, while she was fascinated by 
 it: 
 
 " Have you heard anything more of the letter itself? " 
 
 " Why, I have no doubt that McAllister has it," he an 
 swered, rubbing his eyes to conceal the expression that 
 wavered over them. 
 
 The sharp tone of anxiety that so suddenly betrayed it 
 self in her voice, the excitement suppressed but sensible that 
 had crept into it gradually, the reiterated beating out of the 
 same motive on the kettle drums, aroused his suspicion and set 
 his wits to work at a rate wearing to the machinery of the 
 brain. 
 
 He intensified her eagerness by a subtle evasion of the 
 subject, as if the reason for his avoiding it were that he knew 
 more than he wished to tell and therefore stood in fear of 
 what a slip might lead him to divulge. She directed the con 
 versation toward art and found her modern instances of 
 illustration in the work of R. R. Dickinson. An artist s 
 work being a key to his character, she could not help but won 
 der whether Mr. Dickinson himself was as honest and sin 
 cere as his work. 
 
 As she flashed through studio door and window with a 
 logical quickness past pursuit, the inner voice that cried in 
 Butler s ears, " Holy High Jinks, she had her hands on the 
 letter and mislaid it in that artist s room ! " almost startled 
 him into jumping to his feet. However, his was the part of 
 an impassive Pasha, and lolling back luxuriously on the cush 
 ions he laid no violent hands on the verisimilitudes. 
 
 139 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE INTERVENTION OF ELAINE 
 
 AT one o clock that next morning Mr. Edward Don 
 ovan Butler stood on the stoop of Speaker Fiske s 
 house and gazed down on the torches carried by the 
 flying Mercuries, burning dimly and uncertainly now as the 
 myriad stars in the Washington sky. He moved slowly 
 down the brownstone stairs, entered the Circle and stood for 
 a second irresolute before the low, long curving marble that 
 made a background for the Hahnemann statue. Then he 
 turned suddenly into Rhode Island Avenue. Now and then 
 the click-clack of a horse s hoofs on the pavement broke the 
 stillness in which the houses, huddled in the dense darkness, 
 seemed to sleep. 
 
 Iowa Circle was his quest. On arriving there he was 
 lost amid the high palms that turn the court of the Stanton 
 apartment building into a tropical forest. Stumbling 
 through the impenetrable thickness he picked out his perilous 
 way, and a moment afterwards he had the delicious sensa 
 tion of soaring skyward a sensation that might have ap 
 proached ecstasy if the elevator had been running to lift him, 
 or if the stairs had been less difficult of ascent. The top 
 floor circumscribed his pleasure ; for here it was that his more 
 prosaic labors of feeling his way along the dark winding 
 hall began. A resolute pull at the somnolent bell he prayed 
 
 140 
 
THE INTERVENTION OF ELAINE 
 
 under his breath it might be the right one brought to the 
 door Bruce McAllister, arrayed in a costume compounded 
 of articles half fit for the day and half fit for the night and 
 altogether fit for neither. He peered through sleepy eyes at 
 his nocturnal visitor. 
 
 " It s I Ed." 
 
 " Spare your breath," yawned the hero; " I knew it was 
 you. Only the mad arouse the sane at this hour." 
 
 He led the enemy of sleep into the library and lit the gas. 
 Its yellow rays open for us, as it were, the heart of democ 
 racy its lair, if you prefer. A long, pine table, protesting 
 against being pressed into service for a desk, groaned under 
 its weight, piled as for the ragman, of documents, reports, 
 papers and those other necessaries dear to the heart of Miner 
 va and our overworked congressmen. Fat books, dull as 
 their corpulent appearance implied, stretching out in every 
 conceivable position but the proper one, occupied shelves 
 that couldn t have been more uneven had our hero been their 
 constructor. So undecided was the color of the wall paper 
 that we pause to consider whether or not the room was pa 
 pered at all. Of the floor we speak with certainty it was 
 bare. When Bruce, lost in thought, was out of it, the room 
 itself was empty of ornament. 
 
 " Well, what s up? " asked our hero, the eagerness of his 
 swarthy face belying the indifferent tone of his voice. 
 
 " Oh, nothing," replied Butler sarcastically, seeking stim 
 ulus in a fresh cigar (democracy, misled by middle-class ex 
 ample, sought refuge in a plebeian pipe) ; "I just came 
 around at half past one in the morning for the fun of waking 
 you up. I wanted to do it so much that I have been sitting 
 up waiting for the hour to arrive. What the deuce do you 
 suppose is up on the morning when your committee is to 
 meet and Bruce McAllister s fate is to be decided? I sup- 
 
 141 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 pose you think the President is going to get out of his bed 
 to save your political life." 
 
 " You re up, anyway, to watch the execution, and that s 
 some consolation/ grinned Bruce. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I suppose as usual you see me and think every 
 thing is all right. Lean on me, that s proper, like a child on 
 its father. I don t doubt at all that you have the letter." 
 
 " No, but I presume you came here at one in the morning 
 to tell me you have. Otherwise you wouldn t have the heart 
 to awaken me. I knew the thing would turn up in some 
 shape." 
 
 "Faith is a beautiful thing; but if I had any faith in 
 that letter it would be torn into about fifty sections by this 
 time. And I want to tell you that if you don t put your big 
 hands on it between now and the time the committee meets 
 I would advise you to skip Washington and leave word to 
 have your trunk follow. They re going to turn you into a 
 national joke; the fellows that write humorous paragraphs 
 for the newspapers will be able to sleep an hour longer in the 
 morning on account of the easy copy you are going to give 
 them." 
 
 " If I make a nation s jokes, Ed, I don t care who makes 
 
 " It s a fine time to wax humorous! " 
 
 " Don t get excited, Ed ; Ardmore " 
 
 "Who s excited?" 
 
 " Ardmore promised me, I say, on his word of honor that 
 he would give me the letter in the committee room this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " Ardmore promised ! If Ardmore saw the truth com 
 ing his way he d turn tail and holler murder! He hasn t 
 got the letter himself." 
 
 " How do you know? " 
 
 142 
 
THE INTERVENTION OF ELAINE 
 
 " I never heard of a witness being haled into court to 
 answer questions at one-thirty in the morning." 
 
 " You have the letter, Ed ? " There was hope in his 
 voice. His swarthy face lit up and he twined his long legs 
 around the chubby legs of the cane-bottomed chair on which 
 he sat. 
 
 " If I had it I should be working the telegraph wires to 
 Chicago, not sitting here. I haven t got it ! " 
 
 "What brings you here, then?" 
 
 " Just to warn you to prepare for your approaching 
 fate." 
 
 Bruce breathed easier, believing somehow that warning 
 had put his doom to flight. Butler puffed at his cigar for 
 a second or two in scowling silence and then he added : " I 
 also came to tell you that Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck had that 
 letter and lost it." 
 
 Bruce unhooked his long legs and sat bolt upright. The 
 gray faded out of his eyes leaving them in full possession of 
 the dreamy blue, and through his mind there rolled the 
 golden Georgia s caressing voice heard but a few nights ago : 
 " You will surely keep your promise and call on Monday, 
 Mr. Ardmore! " Undoubtedly Ardmore had kept his word 
 for once, making the dangerous exception that proved the 
 undesirable rule. 
 
 " What s the matter with you, Bruce? " 
 
 " Nothing," he answered, swinging a long leg over his 
 left knee. 
 
 " Well, you look like a Chinaman on the moment of 
 discovering gunpowder." Unwilling that his thrilling feat 
 in the most rarefied atmospheres of intellectuality should go 
 unapplauded, little Butler in a way described it, telling how 
 he had leaped to the startling conclusion that Georgia Ten 
 Eyck had had the letter and lost it. Looking smilingly at 
 
 143 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the bedazzled Bruce, who sat there with mouth agape, he 
 drew his performance to a close by a wild flight through the 
 realms of space that ended with the deduction that Georgia 
 had dropped the letter in the studio of Rossiter Rembrandt 
 Dickinson. 
 
 But the seemingly bedazzled Bruce was lost in the mazes 
 of his own dreamy thoughts rather than admiration of the 
 correspondent s intellectual audacity and brilliancy. He re 
 called now the full avid glances, as of a wild thing startled, 
 that Georgia had shot at him and Inez in the studio but a 
 few days since when the letter claimed a few words of their 
 conversation. 
 
 " Strange," murmured Bruce. 
 
 "What s strange?" 
 
 " That she maneuvered to get that letter from Ardmore 
 in the first place and that she is so anxious to get it back in 
 the second place. There have been rumors, have there not, 
 about Shaw and Mrs. Ten Eyck? " 
 
 " I told you the other night, Bruce, that I had heard no 
 more than the echo of them. The story broke before my 
 time." 
 
 With this thought for his Ariadne-thread Bruce wan 
 dered again into the intricate maze of reflection. Butler 
 called an end to his excursion with : " There s not a second 
 to be lost in futile dreaming. Elaine knows this Dickinson ? " 
 
 Bruce nodded affirmatively. 
 
 " Your committee meets at ten-thirty and I ll meet you 
 in Elaine s studio at a few minutes after ten to learn what 
 she has discovered. We can go from the studio to the Cap 
 itol together. Meanwhile, having a hard day s work ahead 
 of me before night comes, I don t think it would be a bad 
 idea for me to get a little rest." 
 
 Bruce remained awake. He was a light sleeper at the 
 144 
 
THE INTERVENTION OF ELAINE 
 
 best and had an owl-like fondness for the darkness since it 
 seemed to serve him as a sort of a background to throw his 
 thoughts into sharper relief. He awoke the wondering Elaine 
 a full hour before her time and he awaited her coming rest 
 lessly at the breakfast table. 
 
 The dining room, lightened by Elaine s artistic touch, 
 was less severely democratic than Bruce s den. On the 
 border, between the ceiling and the wall, she had painted 
 running garlands of petunias, and softened the straight formal 
 lines of the gray wall paper with a woodland water-color or 
 two. Her knowing eye, trained by poverty to recognize 
 bargains, had picked out the rug, which was more cheerful 
 in tone than fine in workmanship possibly it may be strain 
 ing a point to say that Bruce would not have noticed its 
 disappearance from the floor. A piece of silver or two, be 
 speaking the family s faithfulness to tradition at the expense 
 of hunger maybe, decorated the oak-stained sideboard. A 
 canary bird sang in its cage, unheard by the abstracted Bruce, 
 and several rows of real geraniums and begonias competed 
 with Elaine s painted flowers. Let an impartial public award 
 the prize! 
 
 When Elaine appeared her brother put forth all his 
 powers to involve her in the mysteries of politics. She stood 
 aloof, uninspired and uninterested by intrigue or cabal. In 
 difference only made its slow exit when Bruce finally con 
 fessed that in the lost letter his future and his cause were 
 involved. But when he made the too sudden announcement 
 of the part he wished her to play in recovering that pro 
 digiously important document, indifference came stealing back 
 on the stage again. Her pointed nose lifted itself chidingly 
 and her sharp eyes glanced at him scornfully through her 
 glasses. Ask a favor of that rude, ill-mannered man who 
 treated her with either contempt or superciliousness! She 
 
 145 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 would rather die than do it! Even to speak of it angered 
 her! 
 
 In the old allegories Sisterly Affection, we believe, suffer 
 ing a rout or two from the armies of Pride, Humiliation, and 
 their like, was always victorious at the crucial moment ; and 
 even in our own day and generation, with an infrequency 
 that keeps it hallowed and aloof from the commonplace, the 
 same miracle comes to pass, and teaches life to preach by 
 example against our own growing cynicism. Let those still 
 skeptical ones ponder on how Elaine McAllister surrendered 
 pride for love and knocked at R. R. s door; nor does the 
 timidity of Elaine s knock, disturbing the artist s morning 
 labors, by any means indicate the amount of courage and 
 resolution it took thus to announce her presence. The very 
 thought of it humiliated her. 
 
 Circumstances altered cases, Bruce argued. He led her 
 on gently and then he laughed her fears down. She merely 
 mistook the artist s eccentricity for rudeness. He had always 
 said that she was a little hard on him. He liked R. R. first- 
 rate himself. He was a character, and characters all had a 
 streak of the eccentric in them. She consented finally. The 
 hardest part of that day s work for her began with the timid 
 knock at the artist s door. 
 
 " Come in ! " he bawled, and then descrying his visitor, a 
 broad grin usurped the place of the frown that wrinkled 
 its way across his jutting brows. "Oh, it s you, is it? I 
 thought you would want my help before very long." 
 
 " I don t want your help." 
 
 " Very well, then, what can I do for you? " 
 
 She stammered and turned red and he, taking a cruel 
 delight in her embarrassment, grumbled : " I m very busy ; 
 I hope you ll hurry." 
 
 She gasped; her inclination, if not her feet, rushed for 
 146 
 
THE INTERVENTION OF ELAINE 
 
 the door; but she stood her ground resolutely, her courage 
 growing with what assailed it, and she remarked, " I don t 
 want your help for myself." 
 
 " You came for another, then, philanthropic soul." He 
 laid long and sarcastic stress on each syllable. 
 
 The door tempted her again and, fearful of ignominious 
 flight before she even broached her mission, she blurted out: 
 
 " I was told that well, on Monday afternoon yes, it 
 was on Monday on Monday afternoon you found a letter 
 here written by " 
 
 "What, that confounded, unmentionable letter again!" 
 He was on his feet flapping his extended arms roosterwise. 
 His pretended anger changed suddenly into a rage that swept 
 away even his own pretext before it. " I said three times that 
 I mailed that accursed letter. I haven t got it! What do I 
 want with it ? Go home and tell your brother that I haven t 
 got it. I mailed it. Mailed it! Woman, mailed it! I told 
 Mrs. Ten Eyck that I didn t have it and she had to trot back 
 again to question my word. And yesterday afternoon a man 
 by the name of Ommaney, one of those cheap politicians, came 
 in here and tried to bribe me into saying I had the letter. 
 He offered me a thousand dollars for The Man of the 
 Mills/ and that not bringing the horrible letter, he offered 
 me a consulship in Venice. I haven t got the letter, I say! 
 Once and for all I haven t got it! And if I had it I d tear 
 it into shreds! I don t want to hear another word about 
 
 it, I " 
 
 Elaine fled, frightened, as by a threat of physical violence, 
 by the artist s mad aspect and his terrible whirlwind of words. 
 " That s the way it is with these women," he grumbled ; 
 " you can t lift your voice above a whisper but they take 
 offense. They bring em up in hothouses nowadays. They ll 
 preserve them in incubators next. I didn t want to hurt 
 
 147 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 her though I m sorry about ft. I ll apologize when I see 
 her again. But it was her own fault anyway; hers or that 
 rascally politician of a brother." 
 
 Bruce and Butler found her just after her unpremeditated 
 flight still inwardly aquiver though she said next to noth 
 ing about it from the indignity she had suffered. A few 
 minutes later, when they had left for the Capitol, Butler s 
 sloping face was black and despondent, but the swarthy Bruce 
 was light of face as of heart) and, bursting into eccentric and 
 unaccountable fits of laughter, he predicted that all would 
 end well. 
 
 " I suppose," said Butler angrily, when denied any solid 
 reason whereon the prophecy was based, " that you ve had 
 another attack of your superstitions again. Saw the sun over 
 your right shoulder or dreamed about a flock of sparrows in 
 flight." 
 
 Since his citadel of prescience was pinnacled with the three 
 pins he had picked up outside of Elaine s studio door, Bruce 
 believed it an unassailable sanctuary for good luck, and he 
 merely grinned in reply. 
 
 148 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PEA AND THE COCOANUT 
 
 BUT I didn t lose it. I say this for the hundredth time ; 
 the letter never passed through my fingers. I never 
 set my eyes on it," insisted Shaw. 
 
 "I know," said Anthony; "but your agent lost it." 
 
 " The same agent that was capable and astute enough to 
 lay hold of it," retorted Sydney testily. 
 
 " He ought never to have lost it." 
 
 " No," returned Sydney, his lips turning white along the 
 edges; " and it ought never to have been written that s the 
 truth of the matter." The words, in his petulance, slipped 
 from him unawares and he regretted them. Sydney had been 
 under a progressively higher tension all the week, and he 
 looked pale and worn, and his temper did what it listed with 
 his worn nerves. 
 
 Sir Anthony sucked in his underlip ; he was not used to 
 criticism and he chafed under it. Still he could not help but 
 recognize the justice of the reprimand had he not upbraided 
 himself severely every day since that man McAllister had 
 raised the fracas over the letter? and he was obliged to 
 apologize for his own conduct instead of devoting his atten 
 tion to criticising Sydney s. He went into a voluble explana 
 tion of his motives in penning the epistle. 
 
 Sydney s thoughts whirled elsewhere; time was too pre 
 cious to waste it by listening to Anthony s explanation of 
 
 149 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 his false step. The harm had already been done for one 
 thing, and Sir Anthony s excuses halted as much from lame 
 ness and fatigue as on account of their weak logic. Sydney 
 eyed the ormolu clock on the mantel nervously. In a half 
 hour the committee that would reshape his destiny was to 
 meet; only a few over thirty minutes could lift supplicating 
 and obedient hands to help him. How make the best use of 
 their assistance before they disappeared forever ? He mopped 
 his brows, pacing the floor quickly and turning with a short 
 nervous halt. 
 
 " The last moment and saved ! " he shouted suddenly, 
 wheeling around and hammering his fist into the open palm 
 of his left hand. "I ve got it !" 
 
 "Got what?" asked Anthony. 
 
 Sydney, as if to make his inspiration more substantial and 
 less elusive, clothed it in words. Sir Anthony must have 
 found its appearance good, for he laughed heartily, looked 
 relieved, and extended his congratulations to the resourceful 
 Sydney. " You re shrewd, Shaw ; you re shrewd ; if you 
 had devoted yourself to commerce you would have made 
 even a richer man than I. I would rather make it a university 
 than a hospital though, if you don t mind. I ve given two 
 hospitals away and I would like to diversify my philan 
 thropies." 
 
 " A university or a hospital, it s all one," said Syd 
 ney, plucking nervously at his blond beard, his oblique 
 eyes on the ormolu clock ; " anything to make McAllister 
 ridiculous." 
 
 Sir Anthony rubbed his hands, his cross eyes twinkled 
 gleefully and he burst out into a short cluck of a laugh. " I 
 don t see, though," he said, " how you are going to connect 
 the thing with child labor." 
 
 " Don t you? " Shaw started to explain, but noticing the 
 150 
 
THE PEA AND THE COCOANUT 
 
 time he checked himself and remarked instead : " Time is 
 rushing; you write and I ll dictate." 
 
 Sir Anthony sat him down at the writing desk and con 
 verted Sydney s words, almost as fast as they fell from his 
 lips, into his precise handwriting. When he had done Shaw 
 read over the paper carefully, laughed out his complete sat 
 isfaction, and thrust the missive into his coat pocket. 
 
 "Let me know at once how it turns out?" requested 
 Anthony. 
 
 " You ll hear before I can tell you. McAllister will 
 be the laughing-stock of America." 
 
 They shook congratulatory hands and Sydney, looking 
 as if a year were falling from his shoulders with every step, 
 hastened toward the Capitol, while Sir Anthony left the 
 hotel to attend to the myriad affairs that had summoned him 
 to Washington. 
 
 At the present time Anthony was revolving in his mind 
 the possibilities of a scheme whereby all the trusts might 
 be emerged into one colossal trust of trusts. He had been 
 dubbed the father of the trust long ago; he longed now to 
 be known as the mother of the progeny as well. Already 
 he had reduced Croesus to comparative poverty; he would 
 soon force his present self to appear as a wretched beggar 
 on the highways, mendicatory hat in hand, beside his future 
 self. When one descends to comparisons, one may rob his 
 tory of its legendary dignity. 
 
 Anthony Wyckoif s fortune had been estimated at five 
 hundred millions, which would have contented most of us; 
 but it is well to remember that there was a time when a 
 millionaire was considered a Croesus, and who knows but 
 that at the rate with which the world moves a half billion 
 may be considered but a modest competence ? Let us not be 
 overhasty in expressing a limit to our desires lest we chance 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 to find ourselves with a paltry billion among a host of 
 trillionaires. 
 
 Well, at any rate, Anthony WyckofFs trust of trusts 
 known hereinafter as the Universal Trust was to include 
 the railroad systems of America, foreign and domestic steam 
 ship companies, his own Cosmopolitan Oil Company, the iron 
 and steel industries, the coal business, the textile industries, 
 the national banks, the telegraph and cable lines, the tel 
 ephones, the municipal gas and street-railway companies, the 
 gold, the silver and copper mines, flour, sugar, salt and to 
 bacco and electrical supplies. It is possible that one or two 
 minor industries may have been omitted in this little list, 
 but suffice it to say that what Anthony left out was not at 
 all worth taking in. Industrially speaking, the world was to 
 be his and the limited group of lieutenants that were to serve 
 under him. 
 
 Scientists tell us that if a pea be placed at the side of 
 a cocoanut, the relative size of the sun and the earth will 
 find their just proportions represented, and if one takes our 
 United States Government, the money it controls and ex 
 pends, the number of people it employs, and place it beside 
 Sir Anthony s Universal Trust, the same pea and the same 
 cocoanut will do to show how the one shrinks in importance 
 beside the other. Anthony, then, would be richer and more 
 powerful than the Government; he would have a larger ma 
 jority of its voters on his pay roll, and he intended to have 
 the Government run to suit himself. The milk in the cocoa- 
 nut, to say the same thing differently, was in no way de 
 signed for the fattening of the despicable little pea; but, on 
 the other hand, to extend the figure of speech a little further, 
 the cocoanut had certain little designs whereby the pea was 
 to serve its ends. The sun, huge as it is, and the earth, 
 small as it is, are of mutual benefit in our vast solar system, 
 
 152 
 
THE PEA AND THE COCOANUT 
 
 and both help to keep the whole in motion. Surely, if the 
 cocoanut is kind enough to keep its place and distance, and 
 does not roll over and crush the pea out of existence, the 
 latter ought to show its thankfulness by sundry little deeds 
 of kindness. The right kind of tariff, taxation and laws, 
 were all the pea was asked to give for the privilege of exist 
 ing. But why poke fun at Anthony? Why belabor and 
 scold him? Was it his fault, was he to blame, if we pros 
 trated ourselves and gave him stilts to stride over us like 
 a Colossus? 
 
 His morning s calling list included a number of senators, 
 the President, several members of the Cabinet, the Speaker 
 of the House, and one or two congressmen. We are half 
 tempted to give the high-sounding names of those who made 
 up the truly Homeric roll, but we crush it lest the invidious 
 distinction seem an effort to pluck the sting from democracy 
 and to deny victory to liberty. And, wherefore, should we 
 seem in this hard battle of class interests to magnify the 
 insuperable difficulties that lie in wait for the people of 
 Bruce? 
 
 11 153 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE HERO AS A FOOL 
 
 IN the committee room Bruce stood in the corner made 
 by the projection of the old-fashioned mantel, his arm 
 leaning against its yellowed marbled edge. A fire sput 
 tered in the grate below, barely burning, as if, like the mem 
 bers there assembled, it were saving its energies for the 
 dramatic moment. The minute hand of Bruce s watch 
 summed up the situation poignantly and succinctly; if Ard- 
 more crossed not the door within five minutes it was all up 
 with our hero. He assumed the virtue, which he had not, 
 of being unconcerned. The members of the committee, who 
 were chatting together and scribbling at the table, glanc 
 ing surreptitiously at Bruce every now and then, would 
 have sworn that the letter was in his pocket. MacMillan, 
 of California, bet Sands, of Ohio, ten dollars to five that 
 Bruce would make good. The odds expressed the attitude 
 of the room. 
 
 There was a step in the corridor that set Bruce s heart 
 to sounding louder than it did the marble floor outside. 
 Ardmore entered and catching Bruce s confident glance as 
 the door swung open, that gentleman from Virginia dropped 
 his eyes to the floor, dashing with him there the hopes of the 
 gentleman from Illinois. Recognizing the utter futility of 
 questioning the uncertain one, Bruce, with a calm, smiling 
 face, put himself in the hands of inexorable destiny, insisting 
 
 154 
 
THE HERO AS A FOOL 
 
 that his wavering doubts put their faith in the three pins. 
 Shaw made a telling entrance a second later on a stage 
 already occupied by the chief characters of the drama. He 
 smiled and bowed from right to left, forgetting not to include 
 in his obeisance his archenemy, which was to be expected 
 from one as magnanimous and chivalrous as Sydney. Bruce 
 thought, without being sure of it, that a reassuring signal 
 passed between Sydney and his henchman Ommaney, on 
 the lookout. 
 
 Shaw called the meeting to order. Some eighteen anxious 
 gentlemen dragged themselves through the regular order of 
 business and its attendant dry-as-dust routine, as an audience 
 endures the dullest of plays in the hope that the denouement 
 may reward their patience by putting boredom, their common 
 enemy, to flight. 
 
 The room drew a deep breath. At last the chairman 
 gave a signal that the real action had begun. 
 
 "At the last meeting of this committee the gentleman 
 from Illinois charged undue influence was being brought to 
 bear on certain members of this committee in order that 
 the McAllister Anti-Child Labor bill might not be reported 
 out. 
 
 " Specifically, the gentleman from Illinois stated the gen 
 tleman from Virginia had received a letter from Anthony 
 WyckofT commanding him to do his utmost to prevent the 
 said bill from leaving this room. The chairman believes he 
 quotes the gentleman from Illinois correctly." 
 
 " Quite so." 
 
 The room, fearful of recantation and consequent dis 
 appointment, signified its relief. The sudden peal of the 
 cannel coal in the grate made the committee start back with 
 a shock; evidently its nervous organism had been wound to 
 the highest pitch of expectancy. 
 
 155 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 In his turn, the white-haired, white-bearded Ardmore, the 
 redness of his face vivid by contrast, arose to testify. He 
 acknowledged that he received a letter from Anthony Wyck- 
 off, and freely admitted he read its contents to the gentleman 
 from Illinois. 
 
 Our hero, swinging his leg along the floor, held his 
 face Spartanly impassive, forbidding victory to fly its insignia 
 there. He was conscious only of the removal of weights, of 
 a lighter heart, of blood circulating without strain or effort. 
 Well for him who has his faith, even though it rest on in 
 substantial pins ! 
 
 " Has the gentleman from Virginia that letter now in his 
 possession ? " 
 
 Ardmore, artistic soul, carried on the dialogue in panto 
 mime, opening his pocket with a grave and speaking hand, 
 waving that bit of stage property with dramatic ostentation. 
 Bruce took himself to task for his ignorance of physiognomy, 
 wondering how, forgetful of the omens sent by favorable 
 gods, he could have jumped to the erroneous conclusion that 
 when Ardmore entered the room the letter came not with 
 him. Honesty, he thought, was put to humiliation by the 
 low average given to it in this world by Shakespeare. If 
 the misanthropic learned of Ardmore and his noble resistance 
 to the influence brought to bear upon him, they would be 
 made whole. Truth had moved it battalions on the side of 
 righteousness, and our hero, blithe of spirit, sank back in his 
 chair and believed that his cause was won. 
 
 " Will the gentleman from Virginia read the communi 
 cation he has received from Mr. Anthony Wyckoff to the 
 members of this committee? " 
 
 "Certainly;" and then the smooth voice of honesty 
 purled to a world of skeptics the epistle Sydney P. Shaw dic 
 tated to Anthony Wyckoff. 
 
 156 
 
THE HERO AS A FOOL 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. ARDMORE: 
 
 " Ever since my return from Washington I have been 
 meaning to write you, but the pressure of business prevented. 
 I wish to say now, first of all, since the opportunity presents 
 itself, that I was deeply impressed by your visits to me in 
 behalf of the McAllister Anti-Child Labor bill. It is the 
 duty of all good American citizens, among whom I hope I 
 may honestly account myself one, to do all they can to save 
 our little children from the hardships that even manhood 
 should be spared. Count on me to do in behalf of the bill 
 whatever falls to my small and modest amount of influence. 
 
 " It seems to me that the people of our glorious country 
 ought to be educated to a point where they will have a keener 
 sense of their responsibilities and duties. If the multitudes 
 only knew, for instance, what the child meant to the State, 
 I have faith enough left in my fellow-man to believe that 
 no second appeal would have to be made to him to blot out 
 the curse of child labor. 
 
 " The more I think it over, the more it forces itself home 
 to me that there ought to be founded at Washington a 
 national university for the gathering and dissemination of 
 knowledge of this and an allied character among our people. 
 If such a university, I hold, were to speak on the question 
 of child labor, having the carefully collated facts at hand, it 
 would command the attention and respect of all our citizens. 
 
 " What better purpose can wealth serve than to assist 
 so worthy a project? And where is there a place more 
 favorable for the founding of a university of this character 
 than in our magnificent capital, where the finest of libraries 
 and the best equipped of scientific departments will lend their 
 valuable service to the earnest student ? 
 
 " I have had the idea in mind for many years of endowing 
 such an institution, and it seems to me that there could be no 
 
 157 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 better time so to do than the present, which is making such 
 hard demands on our scholars to solve its problems. While, 
 for reasons of convenience, I should rather not have it known 
 for some months to come, I pledge myself now to subscribe 
 ten millions in Cosmopolitan Oil Company bonds toward an 
 endowment fund to establish a national university along 
 lines of original research and study. I can only be grateful 
 to the Father of us all that He has permitted me to amass 
 the means of assisting my fellows in a project that will in 
 time inevitably assuage the sufferings of humanity. While 
 I wish to impose no restrictions to my gift at all, it seems to 
 me now that the money ought to be used chiefly in assisting 
 our poorly paid professional and scientific men in the prose 
 cution of their studies along the lines of their specialties; 
 but, of course, this may be considered in the light of a detail 
 which can be decided, like many other questions, later on. 
 Assuring you of my profound regards, and hoping that your 
 laudable efforts in behalf of the McAllister bill may bear 
 the desired fruit, I beg to remain, 
 
 " Your faithful servant, 
 
 " ANTHONY WYCKOFF." 
 
 Several members of the committee, for some inexplicable 
 reason, found humor in the idea of a national university, 
 and they laughed aloud until their peals echoed to the high, 
 frescoed ceiling. The rest of the committee looked on with 
 grave faces. Sydney, lifting aloft a dignified gavel, silenced 
 these boisterous ones and absolute quiet reigned. 
 
 " Has the gentleman from Illinois anything to say?" 
 
 The gentleman from Illinois, holding a parley with his 
 
 ears and questioning their veracity, answered after a pause, 
 
 " Nothing." Then, after a minute scrutiny of the epistle, 
 
 noting that it was written on different stationery and on a 
 
 158 
 
THE HERO AS A FOOL 
 
 date a week later than the genuine letter Ardmore had read 
 to him, he said : 
 
 " I am very glad to learn that the gentleman from Vir 
 ginia is so much interested in matters educational. It comes 
 as a complete surprise to me, for while I was well acquainted 
 with the gentleman s versatility, I never knew his tastes 
 were so catholic. I suppose this merely goes to show that we 
 may know our friends ever so well and yet not know at all 
 the precious secrets they carry locked up in their bosoms." 
 
 " The remarks of the gentleman from Illinois are irrele 
 vant; he is out of order." 
 
 Bruce said not a word further ; for wherein lay the use ? 
 He was in their trap, and he would merely wear himself out 
 if he attempted to evade the snares now. A few minutes 
 later the committee adjourned at the signal from Sydney s 
 gavel, swung triumphantly as the scepter of the gods whom 
 foolish mortals assail at their peril. The sandy-haired, 
 freckle-faced Ommaney looked at him, as the shrewd Mer 
 cury might have glanced at Jove, knowingly and slyly. 
 
 Bruce, seeking Butler in the Press gallery of the House, 
 passed hurriedly through the corridors, his face set somberly, 
 his ears anticipating the laughter of all America. He quailed 
 before the awful rumble. Terrible is the fate of the rising 
 star, signaled from afar with all honors, that must disappear 
 behind the impenetrable fogs of ridicule, worst of all elements 
 that throw reputation into eclipse and obscurity. 
 
 He hastened on, absorbed in himself and the pangs of 
 his overthrow, past portrait and bust of the forgotten great, 
 who in their little day might have risen victorious over a 
 like defeat only to have a commonplace effigy raise an un 
 heard whisper against the pall of oblivion at last. Consider 
 the busts in Statuary Hall of the Capitol, and lay to fame 
 the preacher s flattering unction ! Lo ! even the poor Indian, 
 
 159 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 at whose stern and stoned lineaments Bruce glanced as he 
 passed on his way up the west stairway of the House, dropped 
 back to the remote era from which the artist had tried to 
 rescue him the moment our hero met Ardmore face to face 
 on the landing. In stiffness of posture, in deadness of com 
 plexion, the Virginian might have vied with those whose 
 marmoreal effigies were honored with a niche in the Valhalla 
 just mentioned. He stood at gaze, startled and harried by the 
 lack of opportunity there was of running for cover. 
 
 Bruce took hasty counsel with his judgment. Should he 
 give the uncertain, characterless wretch the cut direct, look 
 ing on him as one unworthy of recognition even by democ 
 racy s prime exponent, or should he pass him the lie? His 
 cutting of the knot proved the lesson in worldliness that 
 Washington had taught him. 
 
 " Ardmore," he asked, his long lips opening humorously, 
 " what made you do that to me? " 
 
 Ardmore s fretful eye, evading Bruce, ran toward the 
 snow-capped heights of " Westward Ho! " but the big pic 
 ture was as blurred to him as his own thoughts. Finally, 
 glancing down on the floor, he drawled out his answer. 
 
 " Do what? Oh, yes, you mean the letter! Well, while 
 I value your friendship highly, McAllister, high as any man s 
 in Washington, and while I am thankful that the plain people 
 of this country have sent a man to Congress as worthy of 
 representing their cause as you are, still I wouldn t permit 
 myself I couldn t have it on my conscience to stand in 
 the way of a university that is going to do so much for 
 the poor talented youth of the land. Who knows, McAl 
 lister, but that when my boy grows up I may wish him to go 
 there and secure its benefits. A magnificent project, McAl 
 lister; a magnificent project." 
 
 Bruce continued his journey. 
 160 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ONLY THE PRESIDENT 
 
 BRUCE had an appointment with the President at 
 eleven o clock and, since he was a full half hour ahead 
 of time, he sat himself on one of the benches in La 
 fayette Square to squander it. What better place is there for 
 the spendthrift of time to lavish a purseful of that precious 
 gold? Pleasant it was for Bruce to find himself far from 
 the rumble of the noisy House, the crowded lobbies, the 
 squabbles of the committee rooms, from job- and favor-hunt 
 ing constituents. The fern-leaf beeches wore a new coat of 
 green, the tulips were flaunting bold heads above the ground, 
 the hyacinths were out in vivid glory, the golden bells swayed 
 their yellow chimes to the winds, and the pink and white 
 magnolia buds were unfolding to the warm air. Each of the 
 city s many squares and circles, into which the streets ran 
 as spokes into a hub, was aglow with color so many wheels 
 of a stately equipage bedecked for the festival of flowers. 
 Spring had come in all its glory ! 
 
 " How good it seems to be here ! " Bruce said to himself, 
 throwing his arms wide out, breathing in with full chest the 
 fragrant air. Nature, to his singularly unassthetic tastes, 
 made no appeal, but he had none the less a certain inconsistent 
 fondness for many of her choicest gifts, as one may be nega 
 tively responsive to one s godmother, but keenly partial to 
 her birthday remembrances. 
 
 " Talking to yourself? A bad habit, McAllister. It may 
 161 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 prove that unpopularity has reduced you to your own com 
 pany." 
 
 The ironical fanfare, announcing the great Fiske, fretted 
 Bruce s ear before he looked up to meet the equivocal smile 
 of the ironical potentate himself. " I am fond of talking 
 to myself," he rejoined laughingly by way of defense, " and 
 then I m sure of just the audience I want." 
 
 " I dare say. Stupid but select. All selectness has that 
 virtue, McAllister. I ve practically given up a search for 
 intelligence among the respectabilities." Delivering himself 
 thus, as if the temptation to which Bruce had exposed him 
 were greater than he could resist, Fiske sat down beside 
 Bruce on the park bench, his neatly gloved hand toying with 
 the light bamboo cane that he carried invariably. " His 
 tongue," says our gossip, " was so sharp that it was needless 
 for him to carry a stick for other than purposes of play." 
 
 " I am very fond of this spot. I never miss walking 
 through it when I can," went on Fiske. He removed his 
 hat and mopped his broad brow with his handkerchief. How 
 much older, more haggard and worn Bruce looked beside 
 him! What a poor figure his coarse-featured, swarthy face 
 and rail-like form cut when forced into comparison ^vith the 
 huge but finely proportioned Fiske, dressed as if in conformity 
 with the rules of Polonius, handsome but none the less strong 
 of countenance. Bruce s sensitiveness was painfully alive 
 to the difference. 
 
 "A grand morning nature has given us," continued 
 Fiske, who had laid his usual reticence aside as a monarch 
 his formal robes of state ; " and she doesn t want any office 
 for it, either. Lord, Lord, what weather we should have 
 if the office seekers had control over it! Summer will be 
 here, McAllister, before we know it ; the national convention 
 is right at our heels." 
 
 162 
 
ONLY THE PRESIDENT 
 
 While usually the subject that lay nearest Fiske s heart 
 was no more on the tip of his tongue than that perfectly 
 possessed and well-controlled organ would shock its owner 
 by appearing on his sleeve, still he had no discomforting 
 hesitancy about opening his mind to the trusty McAllister. 
 A smile played around Bruce s long mouth as he thought of 
 Fiske s valid claims to the presidency from a country that 
 vaunts so lustily of its democracy around election time! 
 Unlike Fiske he let his ironical thought pass unphrased. 
 The silent man often has the advantage of looking on the 
 world as from a curtained window, seeing everything that 
 goes on around him while he himself may be but dimly 
 descried. 
 
 Shaw s presidential star was in the ascendency just now, 
 and the mysterious laws of politics were weaving a nebulous 
 veil around the competitors anxious to display their brilliant 
 light from the same exalted position. Fiske, not philosopher 
 enough to see that justice has no more to do with astronomical 
 than moral laws, was cut to the quick that his country should 
 prefer a demagogue and a knave to a man like himself who 
 had served it patriotically if ironically. His judgment of 
 Shaw was not untinctured with jealousy, although he him 
 self would have scorned the insinuation. Which of the 
 passions can disguise itself so cleverly as jealousy in order 
 to become a welcome guest in the houses of those who hate 
 it most ? 
 
 Fiske s chances for the presidency were not flattering, 
 but he made them assume an obsequious position before his 
 ambition by turning his desires into hopes, his hopes into 
 belief, and arguing that when the decisive hour came the 
 bandage would fall from America s eyes and she would see 
 her mistake. He prayed that this might come to pass more 
 for his daughter Georgia s sake than for his own. His 
 
 163 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 conscience told him that he owed her the presidency, and 
 unless that debt were paid there could be no peace for 
 his mind. 
 
 He catechised Bruce unsparingly concerning the forth 
 coming convention, and the answers came with a bluntness 
 and rapidity that would have delighted him had they been 
 more favorable to his desires. 
 
 " Yes," said Fiske, knitting his ponderous brows, when 
 Bruce had done, " Shaw has Anthony WyckofFs support, 
 and that would seem to mean a good deal just now. They 
 say, you know, that a candidate without WyckofFs backing 
 stands no more show before the convention than a spell 
 binder who attacks the reputations of Washington or Lin 
 coln. I could have had WyckofFs support if I had bargained 
 for it with my independence; his go-betweens came to me 
 before they went to Shaw; but I declared myself frankly 
 upon the question of mail subsidies, and they went away 
 disgruntled. I can t stand up for what my conscience doesn t 
 approve, and I won t. All the same, the rope I ve paid out 
 to Shaw on the subsidy bill may hang him on the platform 
 of the convention instead of lifting him from it to the 
 presidency." 
 
 There was a half sardonic, half humorous light in 
 Fiske s fierce eyes, an expression on his bronzed face that 
 Bruce had never seen there before, and it set him as far 
 adrift as if the stream of conversation were carrying him 
 miles past the subject of discussion. Fiske drew a parallelo 
 gram on the sand of the path with his cane and went on : 
 
 " I ve often told you, McAllister, that I consider most 
 of your views madly radical, but at the same time I don t 
 believe in handing the United States over to a man like 
 Wyckoff, and saying, Here, you tell us what you want done 
 with the machine and we ll do it. There s no use in being 
 
 164 
 
ONLY THE PRESIDENT 
 
 President if there is to be another President over you. I 
 can t creep under any man s thumb, it isn t in my nature. 
 However, a good deal of this Shaw boom is mere noise and 
 inflation. You can take it from me that Shaw never will 
 be nominated." 
 
 Fiske rose, drawing out his watch. " I see I must go 
 now." He swung his cane jauntily and remarked : " Shaw 
 reminds me of that statue of General Jackson over there; 
 it s a ludicrously bad piece of art; but it s so unfortunately 
 well balanced on its hind legs that it would take an absurd 
 amount of effort to upset it." 
 
 " But what a noise it will make when it does tumble ! " 
 rejoined Bruce. 
 
 Fiske nodded, moving on with his sure step, his nervous 
 cane scattering the pebbles on the path to the right and the 
 left as if they were so many Sydney P. Shaws. Bruce 
 watched him and, guessing what was going on in his friend s 
 mind, he smiled to himself. Suddenly the Speaker drew to a 
 halt, lifted his hat, and stood talking with his bared head. 
 A slight curve in the path, a protrusion of a tree branch 
 hid from Bruce the woman to whom evidently Fiske was 
 talking, as the tangle of moss and vine in some long-neglected 
 garden might screen the statue of its protecting goddess from 
 view. A moment afterwards the Speaker s burly body passed 
 on and then, to Bruce s mild astonishment, Miss Inez Ham 
 mersmith came marching up slowly to the path that led 
 to his bench, much as if she were the tutelary goddess of the 
 square and had stepped from her boscage-hidden pedestal 
 into full sight. He rose. 
 
 " Lafayette Square seems to have been annexed by Con 
 gress this morning," she smiled. 
 
 " It would be a pity if it were," he returned, " to dis 
 possess spring and Miss Inez Hammersmith." 
 
 165 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " You might give us the privilege of the floor by special 
 legislation." 
 
 " After you have taken it by storm we may be lucky 
 not to be turned out." He entered into her lighter mood 
 with a laugh, and then he passed on to say, " I was won 
 dering who that was whom Fiske s big body hid from 
 view." 
 
 " What a splendid opportunity the situation offered to 
 your imagination." 
 
 " I dared not use it. My disappointment would have 
 been too great had I guessed you and discovered another." 
 
 " But your delight," she bowed, " might have been the 
 greater had you imagined it another and discovered me." 
 
 " I could not imagine it greater than it is." 
 
 " I shall," she said, seating herself in answer to his invi 
 tation ; " after so fine a compliment I should be churlish to 
 refuse it." 
 
 There was for her a peculiar delight in defying the con 
 ventions to occupy that seat a delight, let us hasten to say, 
 that was none the less great because the chances of being 
 seen at that unaristocratic hour were small. 
 
 " I think," he went on, " it s as aggravating to see only 
 one of two persons in a conversation as to hear only one 
 half of a dialogue." 
 
 " Do you think so ? It depends on the dialogue alto 
 gether." 
 
 " And on the person hidden." 
 
 " Come," she said, her brown eyes serious and staid, 
 glancing at her watch, " my time will be gone in a few 
 minutes and I so wish to know about the last developments 
 of your bill. It interests me immensely." 
 
 " It will come up for consideration in the House before 
 long that is the latest development. The unfortunate let- 
 
 166 
 
ONLY THE PRESIDENT 
 
 ter episode accomplished that much, anyway. You see, it 
 stirred up the curiosity and sentiment of the country, and 
 they were forced to let the bill go beyond the committee 
 walls to let folks see what it looked like. I was counting 
 on that." 
 
 " I wanted to tell you the night you called," she said, her 
 voice warm and low, " how sorry I was about the way they 
 ridiculed and abused you in the newspapers. But you saw 
 the situation? I intended to write afterwards I did start 
 a letter in fact but something interrupted and I was obliged 
 to give it over." She neglected to say that the interruption 
 came from within, it being none other than the difficulty 
 and inconvenience she experienced in expressing just what 
 she wished to say and still hold herself aloof from an un 
 dignified warmth and a frigidity that might conceal the very 
 sympathy she wished to extend. 
 
 " And I meant to tell you that evening, if I could have 
 seen you alone long enough to do it, that you were in the 
 very storm center of the letter episode." 
 
 "I was? How, pray?" 
 
 " The original letter was dropped on the floor of Mr. 
 Dickinson s studio on that Monday afternoon when Elaine 
 and I met you and Mrs. Ten Eyck there." 
 
 "Ah!" she gave a slight start. Her thoughts passed 
 through her mind so rapidly, each suggesting another with 
 which it was associated, that they seemed like a crowd in 
 which she could recognize no distinct face, but from which 
 she gained a distinct impression. The resultant impression 
 in this case was Georgia s expression when she overheard 
 Bruce and herself mention the letter in the studio and 
 Georgia s after-anxiety to trace a certain missing epistle. 
 
 " You remember, perhaps," he asked, seeking her confi 
 dence, " the way Mrs. Ten Eyck turned around sharply and 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 stared at us involuntarily when I spoke about the letter to 
 you?" 
 
 " I have," she said, excluding questions on that score, 
 " a distinct recollection of it." And immediately afterwards 
 she asked, like Columbine walking through the door that 
 Harlequin had opened and closing the window through which 
 she had leaped and he wished to follow, " And to this orig 
 inal letter there remains no clew ? " 
 
 For a second the closed window of conversation aroused 
 his distrust; he had opened all avenues of approach for her; 
 why had she baffled him when he wished to follow? Then 
 Faith pulled Doubt s finger down, and into her hands, to do 
 with what she would, he put his fate. He disclosed all : the 
 night at Ommaney s; the list of names he had secured from 
 Ommaney of congressmen who held stock in the Trans 
 oceanic ; the unaccountable loss of that invaluable document ; 
 the walk home with Ardmore; the early morning reading 
 of the original Wyckoff letter in the shadow of the Carnegie 
 library; Ommaney s vacillation; the broken promise. He 
 paused inadvertency had all but led him to link Shaw s 
 name with that of the golden Georgia. 
 
 " Go on! Go on! " She urged him forward as if she 
 stood with him in the chariot that his horses were pulling 
 toward a winning goal. 
 
 He went back to fill in the hurried outline he had 
 sketched, painting in vivid words the history of the Trans 
 oceanic, of the part he suspected Shaw of playing in it, and 
 how he had discovered through the agency of little Butler 
 that there was scarcely a man who had accepted a gift of 
 the stock from the Transoceanic who would vote in favor 
 of his Anti-Child Labor bill. The two were linked and 
 interlinked with condemnatory chains. 
 
 " When I knew that the Ommaney list was lost beyond 
 168 
 
ONLY THE PRESIDENT 
 
 the hope of recovery," he ended, " I built all my hopes on 
 the Ardmore letter. If Ardmore had kept faith with me, 
 and if I had that letter in my possession, I would make it 
 do service for complete and undermining evidence." 
 
 " And if by any good chance the letter was found ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Then victory would surely be within my reach," he 
 answered. " I would flash the recovered letter in the House 
 before the astonished eyes ot Messrs. Shaw and Ommaney 
 and declare that I had come by the telltale Ommaney list 
 in the same manner and the same way. I would threaten 
 to produce it and make public the names of the congressmen 
 who had accepted stock in the Transoceanic if they allowed 
 my Anti-Child Labor bill to go down in defeat. And the 
 bluff will work, because they will be afraid that I might 
 make good, and because their constituents will think if they 
 voted against the bill they must have been bribed with the 
 stock. I have them either way ! But at any rate," he ended, 
 " I shall have to face Congress soon and trust to the merits 
 of my bill for victory." 
 
 " Oh, if I could find it ! If I could only find it! " she ex 
 claimed. " You have interested me in it so deeply, so much 
 of the action has gone on or seems to have gone on under 
 my very eyes, that I feel very much as one does at the theater 
 when one knows what the marplot has done and when one 
 would give warning to the unsuspecting victim of his wiles. 
 What wouldn t I give to find it ! " 
 
 " I see," he said, " you wish to approach the illusion 
 from a different end, give up your spectator s seat and take 
 a place on the stage." 
 
 " It has the virtue at least of being more active, hasn t 
 it?" 
 
 " Yes. But the unfortunate hero will be none the better 
 12 169 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 off for it. For in either case you will lose your interest in 
 him when the curtain drops and he stands justified before 
 the world that ridiculed him." 
 
 Again she detached herself by assuming, to his more 
 bitter disappointment this time, an impersonal attitude. 
 " The impartial critic," she returned, " will hold his judg 
 ment in abeyance until the play is done. If we take part 
 in it we may not speak until the audience has pronounced 
 its verdict." She glanced at her watch and signaled her 
 despair at the lateness of the hour. 
 
 " I m in the same predicament," he smiled. " I had an 
 appointment with the President for eleven. I m ten minutes 
 late, you see." The appointment was rather indefinite, his 
 lateness a mere matter of conjecture. 
 
 "The compliment is subtle; I go before I succumb to 
 its craft." Her black hat with its bird-of-paradise plumage, 
 and gray gown, stood out in portraitlike definiteness against 
 the overhanging green of the fern-leaf beech when she bowed 
 her final farewell. 
 
 He watched her, vital, full of life and the love of life 
 as the spring morning itself, until she disappeared around 
 the angle of the historic St. John s Church, which, amid its 
 modern surroundings, stood out like an antique in the cabinet 
 of a parvenu s vulgar parlor. 
 
 "And I thought her all marble once!" he muttered. 
 " Well, she may be, but I ve had my hand on fire that left 
 me colder." 
 
 A moment afterwards he hastened across the street to the 
 White House, which loomed forth from the shrubbery like 
 a modest white flower, opening immaculate petals, fold on 
 fold, to a genial sun. The fountains plashed and played 
 musically; the green grass crept affectionately up to the 
 freestone as if it would linger there and not pass on. White 
 
 170 
 
ONLY THE PRESIDENT 
 
 and purple hyacinths, and tulips of gold, pink, and red, looked 
 longingly up at the balustrade that gave definite outline to 
 the second story. The massive Treasury on one side, the 
 big War, State and Navy building on the other, reminded 
 one that architecture, like politics itself, may force strange 
 relationships, and that harmony in the one case as in the other 
 may suffer rupture if left to chance instead of prearrangement. 
 
 Bruce passed under the four-pillared Ionic portico and 
 up the narrow black-walnut staircase to the President s office. 
 The small square room, with its old-fashioned grate and 
 white marble mantel, yellow now with age, simple almost 
 as Bruce s own living room, made democracy s exponent feel 
 at home. Only the secretary s desk that stood between the 
 oblong windows at the end of the room set the mild stamp 
 of contesting officialdom on it. Congressmen, senators, office 
 holders, army and navy officers, politicians, visitors, a diplo 
 mat or two, claimed each available inch of space. And still 
 the door opened and the colored doorkeeper passed in and 
 out, bearing cards to the secretary, and still delegations and 
 visitors sought admission. 
 
 The President, a tall, thin, white-haired man, moved 
 quickly from caller to caller, dismissing a delegation with a 
 polite word of welcome followed by a suave word of farewell, 
 granting this man s request and that man s petition. Bruce s 
 turn came presently and he said to him, grasping his hand 
 cordially: " Wait, if you can, McAllister; don t run off, I ll 
 be through soon." 
 
 The windows back of the secretary s desk, opening on the 
 south portico, attracted Bruce and he edged his way thither. 
 On the white sill of the further window sat a senator and 
 next to him the governor of his State, and the senator 
 whispered sardonically to the governor: 
 
 " Have you seen his majesty yet? " 
 171 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " No," replied the governor under his breath angrily ; 
 
 " but from what I gather it s useless; the old will turn 
 
 me down." 
 
 And still the door closed and shut, and shut and closed, 
 and visitors came in and passed out, some of them timidly as 
 to a sanctuary, others boldly and unannounced. The Pres 
 ident, husky of voice now, weary-eyed, moved back and forth 
 transacting momentous and trivial business with equal energy 
 and speed. 
 
 Bruce thought of the fair spring morning outside and its 
 whispered promise of peace, and of the faction, the intrigue, 
 the greed that wound their insidious ways here within, and he 
 recalled for the first time since he had read them years ago, 
 the words of the first Harrison, whispered in a death-bed 
 delirium: " My dear madam, I did not direct that your hus 
 band should be turned out. I did not know it. I tried to 
 prevent it." It s of a piece with the wisdom of destiny never 
 to tell us where and when our knowledge is to find its par 
 ticular application; otherwise we might prefer bliss at the 
 expense of instruction. 
 
 Bruce turned and gazed out of the window along the 
 green lawns south of the White House, tree and flower be 
 decked, that sloped away to the Potomac. Soft as the color 
 of silver, time-subdued, Bruce saw its lordly waters curve 
 broadly outward, and flash and sparkle like a field of jewels 
 in the sun. And there amid the generous sward apportioned 
 for it, upward toward the sky towered the Washington Mon 
 ument, aureoled with a sky of deep turquoise blue. 
 
 At length the secretary called Bruce s attention; he 
 turned. The President beckoned, and Bruce joining him 
 they walked through the narrow door and into the Cabinet 
 room. The room was like a man, capable and potent, in 
 tent on telling performances, relying on the power of his 
 
 172 
 
ONLY THE PRESIDENT 
 
 personality rather than his garb to enforce respect. The 
 long table with its chairs pushed under it in suggestive empti 
 ness, ran almost the full length of the floor, charts and por 
 traits claimed the walls; a bookcase and a huge globe held 
 sway in the corners. 
 
 " I m glad to get a chance to talk over your bill with you, 
 McAllister. I know your views express those of the radical 
 wing of the minority," said the President sinking wearily 
 on the large leather lounge that ran along the wall. The 
 President s eyes looked pathetically tired as he spoke and a 
 deprecatory smile flitted across his wan face the radical wing 
 of the minority was a phrase for the appearance of which in 
 contemporary politics Bruce was responsible. He looked 
 at Bruce like a man trained by long experience to read char 
 acter from physiognomy. Always the natural thing for Bruce 
 McAllister to do was the natural thing, and he slipped down 
 in his chair, flung his right leg over his left knee and chatted 
 on at his ease. 
 
 He pointed out that the Transoceanic Ship Subsidy bill 
 was class legislation, a present of so many millions that the 
 Government was asked to bestow on a handful of kings of 
 commerce ; and he hinted at the fact as broadly as he could, 
 that the enemies of his bill in Congress were the allies of the 
 Transoceanic s fortunes. He spoke eloquently of what his 
 own bill meant to the nation and the citizens of the future. 
 
 " I confess," said the President when Bruce had done, 
 " that you ve called my attention to features in both bills that 
 I hadn t thought of before, and while I can t promise now 
 to work in favor of the one or against the other, still I ll give 
 all you had to say my most earnest consideration. I m bit 
 terly opposed to the children of the nation being thrown into 
 what you call the hopper of capitalism and being taken out 
 of it crippled and injured, but at the same time, McAllister, 
 
 173 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the trouble with those whom you call your people is that they 
 never know just what they want. The people you inveigh 
 against come here with a definite scheme they want put 
 through; but your people seem utterly without any philos 
 ophy; they have no definite views." 
 
 " The time is fast coming when they will have, Mr. Pres 
 ident; they are becoming more and more self-conscious every 
 day." 
 
 " But meanwhile," smiled the President deprecatorily, 
 drawing in his underlip, " the big commercial interests that 
 make the country great come here with clear-cut and sharply 
 defined purposes. Now, where s my choice? Well, I m 
 glad to have had this confidential chat with you, and when 
 the time comes I won t forget what you ve said. If there s 
 anything you think that I can do for your people, come in 
 and let s talk it over. I don t suppose that I can ever do 
 very much; I m only the President you know, and while the 
 Constitution doesn t say so, my chief duty is to see that our 
 vessel of commerce doesn t smash up against the rocks and 
 drag the rest of us down in the wreck." 
 
 " The President," said Bruce to himself on the way down 
 stairs, " seems to be a very nice old gentleman ; but all the 
 same it s peculiar the different angles we get on the same job. 
 I suppose it all depends upon the boss for whom you think 
 you re working and the people to whom you think you re 
 delivering the meat." 
 
 174 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF SOAPSUDS TO DESTINY 
 
 RR. DICKINSON had taken to the woods for the day, 
 9 retreating in dismay before that invincible foe of 
 art s unconventionalities, the sworn and mercenary 
 enemy of its traditional love for those picturesque effects that 
 can be obtained only by throwing matter out of its proper 
 place. We refer to the naiad who has her aquatic retreat in 
 the bottom of a pail and who once a fortnight emerges, brush 
 in hand from its surface, foaming with soap, to wage Philis 
 tine warfare against the nonconforming Dickinson. 
 
 But the Virginian woods, their vernal robe bedecked with 
 the vestal white of the dogwood blossom, allured more for 
 the nonce than the musty studio, and off he went, merely 
 leaving behind him the injunction, more habitual than terri 
 fying, " Don t disturb anything! " 
 
 " An for phwat would th loikes av me disthurb any 
 thing? " soliloquized the Hibernian naiad, proceeding to an 
 swer her own query by straightway disturbing everything she 
 could lay her hands on. Over the floor rolled a stream of 
 soapsuds and hot water in amateur rivalry with the lordly 
 Potomac, sounding afar. " The Man of the Mills " trem 
 bled lest the naiad take off his head in her mistaken zeal to 
 wash his face. The grand settee, with its spangled and 
 diaphanous drapery, looked as if it would float away through 
 the window, and the Spanish waiting desk stood on three 
 
 175 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 undecided legs a proportion not conducive to stability of 
 character or of posture and in that decidedly dangerous 
 position it had the hardihood to contemplate whether resist 
 ing the stream was easier than riding off on the bubbling 
 waters. 
 
 The accidental assistance of Mrs. Kelly s scrub brush 
 and her plump shoulder ended its indecision and over it went, 
 throwing out its wooden leaf in terror at its own rashness; 
 while the discourager of hesitancy threw up her arms in dis 
 may at her recklessness and caught the sufferer from it in her 
 stout, rescuing hands. The desk was placed now beyond the 
 reach of danger on shore where the soapy sea broke wrath- 
 fully and ineffectually at its feet; but not so its contents, 
 which were scattered in all directions and floated off an easy 
 prey to the elements. 
 
 Against this sea of troubles the doughty naiad took up 
 arms and flew with mythological contempt for consequences 
 to the rescue. The waves retreated, surrendering to her in 
 cantations and her charms; so quick was she that there 
 seemed twenty-one slight and agile nymphs in twenty-one 
 different places rather than the one adipose naiad fixed in 
 separably to one set of rheumatic bones. The pile of papers, 
 letters, memoranda, bills, receipts and half finished sketches 
 gave willing witness to her life-saving powers. She put them 
 back where they belonged or where she thought they belonged, 
 and they were so rejoiced to be on dry land after their escape 
 from drowning that they were not disposed to raise any issue 
 on the propriety of their environment. 
 
 The red leather pad and its panoply of blotters proved 
 the least bit ungrateful and stubborn, but Mrs. Kelly, heed 
 less of its protest against the dimensions into which she in 
 sisted it should fit, whisked it into the place selected in less 
 than no time. With a groan, wrung from it by this pitiless 
 
 176 
 
SOAPSUDS AND DESTINY 
 
 treatment, it dropped a letter on the floor as a dumb plea 
 for a more humane and kindly regard for inanimate objects. 
 Mrs. Kelly stooped to pick it up and restore it to favor, but 
 on noting that the envelope was sealed, stamped and ad 
 dressed, she could not help concluding that it was meant 
 rather for the person whose name it bore than for herself. 
 Such intelligence, be it observed, is more mythological than 
 human ! 
 
 " Och, but thim painter byes be careless lads," said to 
 herself this Hibernian naiad and concluding, as the majority 
 of us will, whether scrubwoman, wife of Croesus, or blue 
 stocking, or social butterfly, that she knew better what the art 
 ist wants than he knows himself, she dried her hands on her 
 apron, walked outside and mailed her discovery. She returned 
 to her task, smiling blissfully at her good deed and accepting 
 in advance the artist s outpour of thanks. " Ye naden t min- 
 tion it at all, at all, Mr. Dickinson," she replied, holding 
 an imaginary conversation with the illustrious. " Many an 
 many is the toime ye wint out av yer way to do me a favor. 
 Shure it was nothin at all, the mail box bein just outside av 
 th dour an thin th sthamp was on th letter so I hadn t to 
 break a nickel to buy a sthamp, which I ginerally do thim 
 few toimes I sind a loine to me boy Moike, that s in Phila 
 delphia." 
 
 It was ten in the morning when the naiad ended her 
 monologue, divested herself of her apron and other garments 
 that in this Comstockian era of literature we dare not men 
 tion and disappeared whether at the bottom of the pail or 
 elsewhere we know not. And it was at one o clock of the 
 same afternoon that her maid handed to Miss Inez Hammer 
 smith the very letter over which the scrubwoman had waxed 
 voluble. So it is the most humble, all unbeknown to them 
 selves, may influence the destinies of the mighty, and we can- 
 
 177 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 not but wonder whether Mrs. Kelly would have disappeared 
 with her pail (or in it) in the same contented spirit if she had 
 known what effect her soap bubbles would have on the path 
 that the aristocratic Inez Hammersmith was to tread. 
 
 There were two other letters in the same mail and Inez 
 of course opened the most interesting last. Her ingenuity 
 having nothing better to do, tried to arrive at the name of the 
 correspondent and the nature of the contents by the hand 
 writing on the envelope. Baffled here, it turned to the com 
 monplace method of breaking the seal. A moment after 
 wards the letter fluttered out of her hand on the floor, and 
 her eyes, as wide open as astonishment could hold them, 
 followed it. 
 
 To solve the mystery of its presence fascinated her at 
 first, perplexed her afterwards, bewildered her finally a 
 process familiar to youth attempting to unriddle the meaning 
 of life. She gave it over, turning away from the impassive 
 sphinx, smiling enigmatically at her whys, whences and whith- 
 ers. The moral issue besieged her. Should she return 
 it to Georgia? Honesty said yes. But sophistry counseled 
 no, arguing that Georgia had not disclosed to her the nature 
 of the lost, misaddressed letter and that this might not be it, 
 anyway. Here, moreover, was the opportunity to take her 
 much-coveted place in the game of intrigue that Georgia her 
 self had played with such enviable, masterly skill. Inez was 
 not romantic; but she throbbed with the love of life, and life 
 ebbs and flows in plot and counterplot. 
 
 She recalled with a peculiar start, as if fate had prompted 
 them, her words to Bruce in Lafayette Square. They were 
 in the nature of a promise, and would it not be foolish to 
 listen to a punctilio and run the risk of being laughed to scorn 
 by opportunity afterwards? Her heart whispered that affec 
 tion for Bruce McAllister, a desire to further his fortunes, 
 
 178 
 
SOAPSUDS AND DESTINY 
 
 were makeweights that she was tossing on the scale to pull 
 conscience down; but she frowned the whisper into a sullen 
 silence. Against a cabal so formidable what chance had un 
 attractive honesty, standing alone? It acknowledged itself 
 in error and beat a gracious retreat from the field. 
 
 Bruce, she knew, was appointed by an arrangement with 
 the minority leader and the Steering Committee to speak on 
 behalf of his bill on the morrow, but Inez concluded that if 
 the letter was to lend service in accordance with the weight 
 of its merit, it ought to be in Bruce McAllister s hands to 
 day. Time to him probably was precious beyond price. She 
 looked out of the window on Farragut Square, her gaze wan 
 dering absently from the flower beds to the figure of the 
 admiral fixed in eternal bronze, and from the admiral it w r av- 
 ered back to the flower beds ; then her resolution was taken. 
 She would leave untrod the unending circle of Washington 
 calls for the afternoon, break her calendared appointments 
 and seek Bruce out at the Capitol/ 
 
 She strolled leisurely, choosing the longer road, veering 
 her course into the tree-shaded lawn of the Mall. Spring 
 accompanied her every foot of the way, and so finally she 
 entered the Capitol itself, standing citadel-like on its hill. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Bruce McAllister was well on the way 
 with his speech in favor of his own bill, for the Steering Com 
 mittee at the last moment compelled a change in plans, throw 
 ing its whole programme for the remainder of the session 
 forward in order to save a day. Bruce was perfectly amen 
 able; a day in so far as he could see made no difference at 
 all in results. If the maker of dies could hold converse with 
 the morrow, eternity might still be waiting for the cast. 
 
 The moment it was heralded around the Capitol unex 
 pectedly that Bruce McAllister " was up " the restaurant, 
 lobbies and lounging rooms yielded to the greater attraction ; 
 
 179 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 senators crossed over through the connecting corridors; un 
 occupied seats on the floor were scarce as unexpectant listen 
 ers. Correspondents scampered to their seats in the Press 
 gallery ; and soon the visitors galleries offered no discourage 
 ment to the orator by their frigid emptiness. Paulledet, of 
 Vermont, literally caught his death of cold a deplorable loss 
 to his country by jumping out of his hot bath in the base 
 ment, rushing upstairs and exposing himself to the draught. 
 
 Each listener awaited the entrance of that most interest 
 ing presence, the unexpected, and the quiet had the dramatic 
 intensity that befits the stage when no one knows, save the 
 actor, how things are going to turn out ; and in this case the 
 actor, not knowing himself, helped to create a situation 
 ideally intense. McAllister undoubtedly had brilliant qual 
 ities, ran the public version before the lifting of the curtain, 
 but he had made a hopeless fool of himself in committee over 
 the Ardmore epistle, and the question now was whether or 
 not he could remount the pedestal from which his own folly 
 so bunglingly had tossed him. Rumor even had noised it 
 about that at last he had gained possession of the compromis 
 ing letter of his boast and that he would read it. If so, 
 whom would it compromise beyond Sir Anthony and Ard 
 more of Virginia? Shaw, maybe? It is a terrible but 
 none the less absorbing spectacle to see a valuable reputation 
 go to smash, especially when it happens to belong to another ; 
 just as when we see a frail costly vase (of our neighbor s) 
 tipped from the mantel, and we hold our breath in suspense 
 while it threatens to evade a protective hand and establish a 
 disastrous acquaintanceship with the floor. 
 
 Even Edward Donovan Butler had his doubts, and al 
 though he knew very well what Bruce would say long before 
 he said it, having gone over the outline of his speech with 
 him, still he was fearful lest Bruce try to lift too great a 
 
 180 
 
SOAPSUDS AND DESTINY 
 
 weight with his too small enginery, and lest the whole ma 
 chinery give way with a crash under the strain and hurl its 
 engineer in the air. If he only had the Ardmore epistle to 
 complete the chain of evidence he might lift himself by its 
 
 links to But Butler was not the man to deal with 
 
 miraculous " ifs," and he bobbed up and down in his seat so 
 violently that it seemed only to serve the purpose of throwing 
 him out of it. 
 
 Bruce was proclaiming the object of his bill in terse, vivid 
 words. His full, musical voice, out of which the shrill note 
 already had passed, pulled down as it were the walls of shop 
 and factory that Congress might see the children at work. 
 Shuttles beat back and forth in the looms, guided by thin, 
 aching fingers, watched by sharp, hungry eyes, made sad 
 by cares no child should know. The wheels turned and 
 whirled; suddenly the piercing scream of a mangled body 
 echoed through the big House. 
 
 So did Mammon suffer the little children to come unto 
 him! 
 
 181 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE GODDESS DESCENDS FROM THE MACHINE 
 
 MEANWHILE, unconscious of what was going on 
 inside of the Capitol, Inez stood on the terrace of 
 that marble mount, porticoed with bewildering 
 rows of lofty Corinthian pillars. Climbing upward slowly 
 the immensity of it had impressed her ; looking downward she 
 received aesthetic enjoyment from the graceful retreat of the 
 giant stairway. 
 
 She was about to step inside to begin a search for Bruce 
 when spring whispered to her cajolingly to stay awhile out 
 doors. The view from the high terrace was so surpassingly, 
 so enchantingly fair! Pennsylvania Avenue, sweeping out 
 ward, lost itself in the wavering haze of the distance. The 
 city peeped through an olive-green canopy of tree leaves 
 freshly opened. A purple haze, shot through with russet 
 gleams, hung discernible as smoke over the zigzag line cut in 
 the sky by the Virginia hills and the heights of Georgetown. 
 The purple softened slowly down to an unobtrusive gray 
 where it embraced the Potomac s fretful waters. The Doric 
 front of the Lee house in Arlington looked forth invitingly 
 from its bulging brow of hill. 
 
 She observed, glancing downward again, the number of 
 people alighting from the Pennsylvania Avenue cars near 
 the Peace Monument and hastening into the basement of the 
 House side of the Capitol or up its broad tier on tier of 
 
 182 
 
THE GODDESS DESCENDS 
 
 stairs. She suspected nothing of the unusual until she over 
 heard a man passing under the huge pillared portico, say to 
 his companion : " McAllister is surely giving them hell ! 
 God ! I wish I d been there when his speech began ! " 
 
 Spring s fascination was gone for her, and detaching her 
 self easily from it she rushed inside with a haste that left all 
 thought of dignity behind. Unmindful of elevators, half for 
 getful of the very mission on which she had come, resolved to 
 hold counsel with herself afterwards, she tripped up the stair 
 way to the floor above. In front of the plain doors, paneled 
 with glazed glass, that opened into the various galleries, she 
 saw long cues of anxious people confronting the grim door 
 keepers and beseeching admission. 
 
 She was calling her precipitancy to account for rushing 
 her so thoughtlessly up the stairs before she had heard the 
 voice of common sense and sent in the letter to Bruce by a 
 page, and she turned excitedly to retrace her steps when that 
 very excitement inspired her with a seemingly better idea. 
 
 She hastened into the Press gallery and passed the rows 
 of clicking telegraph machines when a doorkeeper arising 
 from his desk stopped her with due Washington politeness 
 to ask the nature of her errand. She wished to see Ed 
 ward Donovan Butler of the Chicago Democrat , and in 
 order peremptorily to summon him, she scribbled on one of 
 her cards, which she enclosed in an envelope, " I have the 
 Ardmore-WyckofE letter." Then she followed this guardian 
 of the upper regions, who differs from those of the lower in 
 that he wishes to keep people out instead of letting them in, 
 until they reached the comfortable waiting room where he 
 left her to her own resources, while he went outside to look 
 for Butler on the benches. 
 
 She poured herself a glass of lemonade from the silver 
 pitcher and quaffed it. Her mouth was parched and her 
 
 183 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 tongue touched lips that cried for moisture. She moved as 
 if to seat herself in one of the chairs at the end of the long 
 table, but, in obedience to the inner throb of restless nerves, 
 she strode up and down the deserted apartment. 
 
 Butler appeared, distractedly crumpling her card in his 
 hand, looking for her with a glance that betrayed his fear 
 lest the whole thing prove a hoax. She placed the letter in 
 his hand, speechless. 
 
 He invoked his favorite divinity with a groan more de 
 spairing than worshipful, shot out of the doors, tore down 
 the corridor, and jumped into a descending elevator. His 
 movements had such a bewildering and kinematographic con 
 tinuity that the jumping, the shooting, and the tearing seemed 
 but one and the same and all in one. 
 
 Inez hurried into the corridor and finding herself an 
 atom in a crowd again, she remembered joyfully that her 
 purse contained a ticket admitting her to one of the exclusive 
 galleries where she could detach herself from the excluded 
 mass and become a segregated and privileged entity. But 
 here another waiting line frowned on her impatience; the 
 suave keeper of the gates expressed his regret at the lack of 
 an empty seat. Every single nerve at war with the calmness 
 she wished to maintain now of all times, she stood distraught, 
 perturbed, knowing not what to do nor where to turn, when 
 the voluptuous contour of the Countess Villari, leaning on 
 the arm of the Polish minister, caught her eager glance from 
 far down the corridor. 
 
 The Count paused in front of the Diplomatic gallery to 
 draw his ticket of admission from his purse. " Wait for 
 me!" Inez s extremity all but prompted her to call aloud, 
 when the door swung half open and the Countess disappeared 
 within. The taller figure of the minister was about to fol 
 low suit when Inez s gloved finger was laid pleadingly on the 
 
 184 
 
THE GODDESS DESCENDS 
 
 sleeve of his frock coat. He looked down with Slavonic 
 imperturbability on this unseemly exhibit of emotion and his 
 monocle only expressed his deprecation of it when she had 
 turned her back in order to precede him inside the gallery. 
 
 There were three vacant seats in the second row of the 
 narrow sloping gallery and they moved to take possession of 
 them. Across the aisle from Inez, Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck 
 was seated beside a young member of the British embassy. 
 She turned as if an inner shock rather than any outward con 
 fusion had announced Inez s presence and she detached her 
 self from Bruce s speech long enough to beam a welcome 
 on the new arrivals. 
 
 Inez gazed around the length of the full galleries that 
 lifted their gaping crowds toward the ceiling. Even the 
 usually empty Executive gallery numbered its exalted occu 
 pants. Then her eyes, trying to establish her relation to 
 this theatric environment, turned to the floor below, wan 
 dering from the eagle that flapped protective wings over the 
 ironical Fiske to the concentric circles of mahogany desks, 
 the radiating aisles of which curved toward completion on 
 either side of the Speaker s imposing marble desk. To Inez 
 it seemed like a huge web with all its cross threads alive and 
 freighted with human beings. 
 
 Through the glass-paneled ceiling, set in its iron frame, 
 the light fell with a chiaroscuro effect on Bruce, throwing 
 his rail-like figure and his swarthy, coarse-featured face into 
 a relief that tested its quality as rigorously as would a search 
 light itself. She was struck by its strength. It appealed to 
 her over that separating abyss as something wherein she 
 might find succor in an hour of her own weakness. 
 
 Then his voice claimed her the same voice that had com 
 pelled her admiration and carried her whither it listed years 
 ago in that little frowzy hall in Chicago. Eagerly her atten- 
 13 185 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 tion flew to him and she rode out on the crest of one smooth- 
 flowing sentence to catch the beginning of the next. 
 
 His rich, full, and golden voice rolled on and on, pouring 
 and pouring out its inexhaustible music. He was paying his 
 respects to commerce. Yesterday Baal and Moloch were de 
 manding black slaves for a sacrifice at their altars. The day 
 before it had been white slaves. Now their priests were 
 calling for the little children. The ritual changed from age 
 to age; the religion never! Wherein lay the cure? In the 
 destruction of Baal and Moloch! 
 
 Commerce was the slave driver, whip in hand, that w r as 
 forcing the children to become beasts of burden to carry loads 
 that rightly considered should be distributed equally among 
 all the elders of the land. Did they question the sorry role 
 that commerce was assuming now? Why then were the 
 great interests opposed to the bill? There was that famous 
 letter written by Anthony WyckofE forbidding it to pass be 
 yond the door of its proper committee. 
 
 Laughter silenced him boisterously. 
 
 The interruption recalled Inez to herself and her 
 thoughts moved back to where they were when he had 
 claimed them. Where was the letter at this moment? Did 
 he have it? Was it his invincible weapon now to batter his 
 way to success through the ranks of the enemy? Impatience 
 throbbed like fever in her veins and she thought of arising 
 to seek out Butler and inquire. Then gazing restlessly 
 around she caught sight of Butler on the raised white 
 benches of the Press gallery and noticed his sharp eyes fas 
 tened as if in eager search on the floor below. In search 
 of what? she asked, pressing her gloved hands against her 
 hot cheeks. 
 
 His voice was rolling its deep tones through the silence 
 again. The occasion deserved laughter for its ruling spirit, 
 
 186 
 
THE GODDESS DESCENDS 
 
 he said. There was a humorous side to that now celebrated 
 epistle, which had been written in an ink of a peculiar al 
 chemy to be made visible or invisible as the convenience of 
 its writer should determine. 
 
 Her thoughts divided into two currents, one carrying to 
 ward the illuminated chambers of her brain the words of 
 Bruce, the other bearing forward the visual images she re 
 ceived from the forlorn Butler, his eyes on the floor, bobbing 
 up and down on his seat. And now these two currents 
 seemed to merge and now to separate, and again to be racing 
 in opposite directions. Usually the most possessed of women, 
 she was utterly distracted. Her head was in a whirl. 
 
 Then all at once she saw on the floor of the House a 
 little page, with a letter in his hand; he stood at Bruce s 
 back, trying with all the wiles known to embarrassed youth 
 to attract the attention of the orator whose wisdom and 
 eloquence intimidated him. So, even as we write, may good 
 fortune stand with its message behind the back of him who 
 reads! " Turn, turn! " she was tortured by the mad desire 
 to call out to him. And Inez obliged to restrain Inez, in 
 voluntarily clapped a warning hand over her mouth. 
 
 Unmindful of this Ganymede, cloud hidden, who stood 
 at his elbow with Venus s message, Bruce spoke on. His ve 
 racity, he said, had been questioned, but he wished to repeat 
 that the contents of the Ardmore letter were such as he had 
 charged. Let those who knew the truth deny if they dared 
 that the original letter had been dropped on the floor of a 
 certain Washington studio ! The door of the studio had been 
 almost battered down by the men and women, partisans of 
 his opponents, in their mad endeavor to recover the lost treas 
 ure. The artist himself, his honor challenged, had been 
 offered a Venetian consulship, in return for that incrimi 
 nating bit of paper. 
 
 187 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 Ommaney rose to his feet. Him the mighty Fiske gav- 
 eled down. 
 
 The golden Georgia s face was aflame. Hers was the 
 sinking sensation, each throbbing nerve screaming plaintively 
 for something whereto it might cling. What if in the heat 
 and fire of this controversy that veil be destroyed behind 
 which her identity was hidden and she be dragged forth, 
 shorn of honor, to her father s view ? 
 
 Lifting her eyes as if the mere looking beyond herself 
 would take her outside of herself, Georgia s glance fell on 
 Inez, and then her aroused curiosity subtracted more and more 
 from the torture of her suspense. Inez s face, her move 
 ments, her muscles held at tension as if to repress her inward 
 agony struggling for expression, her unconscious gestures 
 carried on a pantomime that the quick-witted Georgia was 
 able to translate into words. She saw all and guessed much. 
 
 Bruce s voice sank to a minor key; humor was the instru 
 ment that accompanied him. His situation in the committee 
 room when he had come prepared to give in evidence one let 
 ter and had been obliged to hear the reading of quite another, 
 reminded him of the negro who, satisfied with the catch of a 
 seven-pound bullhead, went to sleep on his laurels. A less 
 favored brother chancing along replaced the bullhead with 
 a tiny perch. When the darky, awakening, beheld the trans 
 formation he exclaimed, " Ef dat bullhead had only shrunk 
 I d serspect de rum what I drunk, but when it done change 
 entirely I naturally serspect Andrew Jackson Jefferson ben 
 fishing on dis pier, too." 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Illinois wishes to 
 insinuate " Shaw was on his feet waving a denunciatory 
 arm, his cultivated taste inimical to humor of this crude 
 slapstick sort. 
 
 Bing! bang! " The gentleman from Pennsylvania is out 
 188 
 
THE GODDESS DESCENDS 
 
 of order; he will be seated," drawled Fiske, clasping the 
 gavel amatively. 
 
 " This is tyranny, Mr. Speaker, I wish to protest." 
 
 " The gentleman from Pennsylvania protests too much. 
 Unlike the gentleman from Illinois, who pins his faith to 
 what he calls the bigger democracy, the chair believes that 
 the House is in need of a benevolent despot. The gentleman 
 will be seated ! " 
 
 Laughter followed in the wake of the Speaker s ironical 
 drawl, but the grim Fiske gaveled it into silence. And it 
 was during this grizzly episode when Fiske s guillotinelike 
 gavel was separating Shaw s voice from his body that Bruce 
 felt the hand of destiny pluck with the insistence of despair 
 at his coat. He turned and relieved his beardless and 
 fatigued messenger of his message. 
 
 In the gallery, Inez, breathing easier, released a wrenched 
 thumb from a torturing fist. To Ganymede vanishing 
 heavenward she sent an unvoiced thankfulness from her 
 heart s depths. Butler sank back for a moment s restoration 
 before he played again at battledore and shuttlecock with 
 the bench. Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck s curiosity merely 
 joined forces with the suspense against which it had warred 
 before. The minutes harrowed her. 
 
 Meanwhile, as the laughter ebbed slowly away into 
 fainter and fainter echoes, Bruce s mind had made a conquest 
 of the letter. He was so utterly occupied in bending its 
 words to his purpose that he gave to the explanation of its 
 appearance only the first flash of thought that surprise waved 
 like a light across his mind. 
 
 He returned to his anecdote of the fishes, usurping the 
 author s right to lay a trifling and sacrilegious hand on his 
 own masterpiece. He was aware of the wily approach of 
 the fisherman and he had pretended somnolence merely in 
 
THE RADICAL . 
 
 order the better to trip up the thief and send him, flying head 
 over heels, into deep water. Behold proof of his wakeful- 
 ness the very original letter! His voice poured forth all 
 the volume of sound in its control, and that diminutive piece 
 of paper such were the dimensions that drama lent it 
 waved triumphant, fold on fold, flaglike, in the vast hall. 
 
 Consternation, retreating sullenly before it, leaped from 
 desk to desk. There was in the oblique eyes of Sydney P. 
 Shaw a glint such as one may chance to see in a watchdog s 
 when brought to bay at night. The resourceful Ommaney 
 fell prone, stripped of expedient, his inventiveness reduced to 
 formulating uncomplimentary names for the more immediate 
 ancestors of Bruce McAllister. Fiske, impartial as time, 
 with history s ironical disinterestedness, held a threatening 
 gavel aloft to recommend his own attitude to his subjects. 
 
 And just as Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck s attention was 
 divided between watching the expression that flitted across 
 the face of Inez Hammersmith and the understanding of 
 Bruce s words, so was her heart divided between sorrow for 
 Shaw and joy for her father; since she knew now, foreshad 
 owing Anthony s keen displeasure, that Sydney s chances for 
 the presidency were diminished and her father s chances in 
 creased. She realized too, for the first time in full measure, 
 the tragedy of a position that inevitably would involve her 
 deeper and deeper in its awful toils. She divined now that 
 she could not be false to one of the two men she loved best 
 of all men without being false to the other. 
 
 Bruce was reading Sir Anthony s original letter to Ard- 
 more, interspersing notes and comments of his own with such 
 wanton fecundity that the parent text seemed in danger of 
 going unheard amid the hilarious clamor of the offspring 
 called into being by it. The original letter, he remarked, 
 had been inspired by Anthony s fear lest the country and 
 
 190 
 
THE GODDESS DESCENDS 
 
 Congress refuse to exploit the child, and the second had been 
 prompted by Anthony s fear that he be exploited by Congress 
 and the country. The national university itself was, of 
 course, an afterthought, designed to make Bruce McAllister 
 ridiculous and to inveigle the country into believing that it 
 was Sir Anthony s intention to educate the mind of the youth 
 and not destroy the body of the child. 
 
 When his audience thought that the climax had come and 
 interest would slip down on the receding line of the triangle, 
 Bruce sent one sensation in pursuit of another. He was far 
 from wishing to intimate that votes against the Anti-Child La 
 bor bill had been purchased by gifts of stock in the Trans 
 oceanic, but he had in his pocket a list of names that might 
 show, after the vote on his bill was taken, that there was a 
 striking relationship between the enemies of the one and the 
 recipients of the other. The two rosters might make inter 
 esting reading when published for American students of com 
 parative perfidy. 
 
 Even Ommaney and Shaw, both of whom knew that the 
 telltale list of Bruce s threat had been recaptured and de 
 stroyed, suffered for a second from as great a stampede of 
 their wits as the more enlightened members of the House. 
 They had seen the man perform one miracle, and fear draw 
 ing the wool over the eyes of logic, told them there was no 
 reason why he could not work as many as he chose. Then 
 they recovered from the panic into which he had thrown 
 them momentarily and Ommaney jumped to his feet simul 
 taneously with Shaw shouting: 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, we challenge the gentleman from Illinois 
 to produce such a list." 
 
 The bold skeptic shall not lack followers among those 
 who would rather doubt than believe, and when faith begins 
 to slacken let the worker of miracles rest satisfied with a 
 
 191 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 single performance and retreat, refusing to bring to pass an 
 other. 
 
 The spirit of insurrection was agog, a hissing sound, slow 
 and sibilant, arose, gradually increasing higher and higher in 
 fury and volume until it all but drowned out the powerful 
 voice of Bruce, heard through it, if we may liken sound to 
 sight, as the rays of a candlelight seen through a mist. Fiske 
 said afterwards he could feel the atmosphere become sur 
 charged with rebellion and anger, and the spirit of it beat 
 like rain against his marble desk. 
 
 The sergeant-at-arms ran forward with his mace; Shaw 
 and Ommaney sank protesting but unconquered in their seats. 
 Fiske s gavel thundered its Bing! bang! through the vast 
 hall. The more timid capitulated; the braver, so few as to 
 be comparatively insignificant, were forced to follow suit. 
 Down came Fiske s hammer the final clap to clear the ter 
 rorized field and his voice droned and drawled : 
 
 " The House is a deliberative body, or it was a deliber 
 ative body before it became a mob. It will, therefore, come 
 to order ! The hissing of geese once saved an ancient capital 
 from the destruction of its enemies; the members need not 
 take it upon themselves out of emulation to perform that 
 function now for our modern Capitol, since it is guarded 
 over by a sergeant-at-arms and police." 
 
 Laughter started; his thunder, crashing ominously, si 
 lenced it. A handkerchief, fluttering softly from the gallery 
 above to the thick carpeted floor below, would have seemed 
 an intruder. The spirit of insurrection was crushed and 
 it crept away bruised and broken-spirited from the marble 
 throne of the terrible Thor, who stood there subtly contem 
 plative, leaning on the symbol of his indisputable authority. 
 
 192 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE FRUITS OF VICTORY 
 
 IT was a wonderful oratorical effort ! Wonderful ! " 
 whispered Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck across the aisle to 
 Inez Hammersmith when Bruce seated himself amid a 
 sort of curtained stillness. Georgia s face beamed as with 
 a sincere joy at the hero s vindication of himself. Inez, nod 
 ding, observed her friend s pallor, striking when thrown into 
 contrast with her mass of bright, golden hair, calling into 
 sharper relief by its impartial absence of color, the strong 
 features of the large face. She was about to reply, grasping 
 her enthusiasm with a firm hand, when the applause broke 
 faint at first, then with a stormlike abandon. 
 
 The honest provoked it; then the dishonest joined in as 
 if to save their reputations by calling attention to the com 
 pany they kept, finally freeing themselves as if by the use of 
 intoxicants from what they were and becoming what they 
 wanted to be. Their ardor led at last what it had followed 
 docilely at first. His unmasked batteries had broken down 
 party walls and the Republicans waxed as enthusiastic as the 
 Democrats. Primal emotions, not the subtle distinctions of 
 a too complex civilization, sat as dictator over the hour. 
 Fiske pounded for order, but his heart not being in his work 
 he pounded in vain. Our hero, shaking hands, grinning 
 broadly, acknowledging congratulations, accepted his triumph 
 with a modesty that he himself might have confessed was 
 
 193 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 more becoming than sincere. He was back on his pedestal, 
 folly dethroned, looking loftily down on an admiring world 
 that had bespattered him with ridicule when he fell. 
 
 Quiet was regnant once more; the Neptunal gavel con 
 trolled at least the waves of sound. A Republican leader 
 attacked Bruce s bill, hurling himself against its weaknesses 
 sentimentalism, sensationalism, injury to business and uncon 
 stitutionally. The letter, the hints at bribery, and all that 
 sort of thing were inconsequential, meretricious. He thrust 
 them aside disdainfully. The bill itself and only the bill 
 merited the close consideration of the House. His repeated 
 admonition that a vote in the negative might prove dishon 
 esty was disregarded. The suspicion of graft was too strong 
 to permit the taking of chances. In the coming fall election 
 it would be much easier to explain why they had voted for 
 the bill than why they had tried to defeat it. The age is 
 hard on innocence ! For the guiltless to lose their reputation 
 is lamentable ; to lose their reputation and their Transoceanic 
 stock at one fell swoop lies beyond the depth of sorrowing 
 tears to express. But since the Anti-Child Labor bill and the 
 Transoceanic Ship Subsidy bill are mortal and irreconcilable 
 enemies, to receive tribute from the latter is to acknowledge 
 one s unfitness to enter the temple of the former. 
 
 McAllister is manning the lifeboat, named in letters of 
 electric effulgence "Anti-Child Labor Bill." Hasten to 
 climb aboard its protective side or else be engulfed by the 
 swirling waters of Public Opinion ! Save himself who can ! 
 Jettison your Ship Subsidy stock lest it sink with you and the 
 omnivorous sea scavengers make food of both ! And let the 
 pure of heart take comfort while the gilded and decorated 
 paper sinks! the Ship Subsidy bill will go down in defeat 
 soon and its stock be worthless as the buried hulks it is 
 sent to join. 
 
 194 
 
THE FRUITS OF VICTORY 
 
 Thus do two hundred and sixty-five redoubtable sons 
 of the Republic pull laborious oars to send the McAllister 
 bill on the way toward Enrolment peak and land it safely 
 into Engrossing harbor. Never did honest sailors, conscience 
 free, welcome more heartily the oncoming night and its 
 promise of sweet rest. 
 
 Clambering ashore, we drop our marine metaphor. Al 
 ready the lateness of the hour has driven the less enthusiastic 
 from the galleries, and when Fiske s hammer clashed against 
 the marble of his desk for the last time the dusk was unroll 
 ing its dark curtain, and there was something of a rush for 
 the aisles, the corridors, and the elevators. The Count Vil- 
 lari, his wife and his monocle, left when they began to be 
 bored, which was over an hour ago, murmuring to them 
 selves " Oh, these Americans ! " 
 
 Inez passed out with Georgia and her escort, the stalwart 
 young Englishman, from the embassy. Being an Englishman, 
 who shall say from his expression whether he was bored or 
 not bored, and being an Englishman from the embassy, who 
 shall have insolence enough to ask? Georgia s arm slipped 
 with a clamorous affection around Inez s waist, declaring to 
 herself as she did so that in men only would she believe here 
 after! Inez had betrayed her. The letter had been in her 
 possession since the day of its loss, and she had merely awaited 
 the dramatic moment to give it to her lover. The artist, 
 whose candor she had challenged so persistently, had spoken 
 the truth. So w r ith a sort of shock to her protesting femi 
 ninity did Georgia accept the prejudice against her sex, and 
 so may a woman s arm slip affectionately around the waist 
 of another and be miles removed from expressing what its 
 owner feels. 
 
 Inez left Georgia awaiting the overcrowded elevators 
 that came slowly up as if from the bowels of the earth, in 
 
 195 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 charge of England and her embassy while she moved on in 
 the direction of the east stairway, past the uninspiring row of 
 uninspired portraits and the huge canvas over the first landing 
 that depicts Lincoln in the act of reading his Emancipation 
 Proclamation to his Cabinet. In this painting the critical 
 R. R. might have found much to admire in its size. But 
 lucky the woman so richly endowed spiritually that she need 
 but turn her eyes inward, away from walls made dismal by 
 art s failures, and say: " Here is beauty sufficient unto itself! " 
 And Inez, smiling, happy over the wonders her dazzling 
 diplomacy had brought to pass, tripped along, all absorbed 
 in her own wealth of thought. Whither her disregard of 
 her surroundings would have led her, if a voice had not made 
 her look without, we know not. 
 
 " So there you are! I was just coming up in search of 
 you ! How lucky ! " 
 
 It was Bruce McAllister, hat in hand, who stood before 
 her, his dark face wearing that half gratified, half startled 
 expression of one suddenly stumbling on the object of one s 
 search. Inez saw Butler s spruce, little form turn suddenly 
 and disappear downstairs. 
 
 " The play is done. Now what does the impartial critic 
 say? " he asked, reverting to a former conversation. He paid 
 her the compliment, in the full flush of his glory, of remem 
 bering. 
 
 " You must not ask my opinion. It cannot be impartial 
 since I left the critic s chair to take so unexpected a part on 
 the stage." 
 
 How for an adept man her answer throws wi de open 
 the gates of opportunity! And Bruce, before they are shut, 
 enters with : " Ordinarily one would regret the loss of a fine 
 critic, but when a great critic is lost to merely give a still 
 greater actor a place on the stage the world is the gainer; 
 
THE FRCITS OF VICTORY 
 
 and that small part of the world known as Bruce McAllister 
 was saved from ruin by it." 
 
 " Please say no more about it! " 
 
 " I should be ungrateful if I didn t." 
 
 Her face grew firm and serious. She assumed again the 
 impersonal attitude. It was as if she were fearful that the 
 part she had played in his victory might give him the right 
 to presume the existence of a greater affection than for rea 
 sons of her own she wished him to discover. On the other 
 hand, he was prone to consider the associations made by that 
 letter as a sort of bridge constructed by Venus s minions with 
 infinite pains, over which he might cross to the land of 
 heart s desire. He had rushed toward her, as it were, with 
 open arms, and while he was still suffering from the surprise 
 and humiliation of the repulse, he did not intend to surrender 
 a position so strategic without a struggle. 
 
 " May I ask how you came by the letter, anyway? My 
 curiosity gnaws ; relieve its pains ! " Footsteps echoed 
 through the corridors of belated visitors, of congressmen and 
 employees hastening homeward. 
 
 She smiled enigmatically, inwardly pleased at the secret 
 she controlled. 
 
 "You mean it is to remain of the mysteries? " 
 
 " Always," she answered. " It is late ; I must go now." 
 It was a violent turning of the course of conversation. 
 
 " May I go with you ? " 
 
 " As far as the cars, if you will let drop the subject of the 
 letter." 
 
 He lapsed into a respectful but rebellious obedience, won 
 dering like an enemy during truce how he might best open 
 warfare again. They walked outside, pausing for a moment 
 on the terrace. In the lowering dusk, tinted with the vivid 
 green of tree tops, here and there streaked with the gold 
 
 197 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 of a light prematurely lit, Washington, with its streets 
 radiating out from the massive Capitol as from a huge hub, 
 lay like a great wheel at rest, wearied from the work of 
 the day. 
 
 " It would seem to me to be the worst kind of ingratitude 
 if I should leave without firmly establishing my thankful 
 ness." 
 
 She answered him not, thinking to herself, " I lingered 
 here a while ago, his fate in my hands, playing with it." He 
 stood pondering over the reason why she appeared so care 
 less of his thanks when she evidently had gone to such infinite 
 pains to win them. Coquetry seemed too small an explana 
 tion for so true a woman and he scorned it. The thought 
 gave him the boldness to say: 
 
 " After all, you must have thought a good deal of me to 
 have secured that letter and put it into my hands ! " 
 
 " Isn t the craving for excitement an adequate explana 
 tion?" 
 
 " Not at all. If mere excitement were your purpose, you 
 could have gained more of it by giving the letter to Shaw." 
 
 " But motives of honesty prompted me ; the letter really 
 belonged to you." 
 
 " Only because you thought so. You made honor and 
 honesty a matter of sentiment. So if you insist I can only 
 feel my gratitude and leave it unexpressed." 
 
 Again, as if unrelenting, as if decided to spurn instead of 
 to accept the tribute he offered, she remained silent. In the 
 shadow of the Peace Monument they waited for the car; 
 she spoke of it in terms that would not have flattered its 
 sculptor had he been there to have heard her. " I shall be 
 where there is statuary soon," she said, with assumed care 
 lessness. 
 
 " Do you mean that you are to leave here? " His dark, 
 
THE FRUITS OF VICTORY 
 
 coarse-featured face peered at her wistfully. The car 
 rounded the curve. 
 
 " At the end of the month, for Paris," she answered. 
 
 "To return to Washington?" 
 
 " It depends on what my father and mother determine." 
 She sought shelter in the equivocation. 
 
 " And your own personal desires? " 
 
 " Here comes my car." She shook hands with him and 
 lightly mounted the halting car, and then rapidly rolled out 
 of his sight. 
 
 Late that night Butler, calling on Bruce to talk over at 
 length with him the eventful proceedings of that day, 
 found the hero in his den at work on a document of inter 
 minable length. His unlit pipe was in his mouth, the feet 
 of his long legs were twisted around the chair, his chest and 
 head were bent far over the paper. Every once in a while 
 Butler turned to look at the page after page of manuscript 
 that Bruce continued to pile on his cluttered table. 
 
 " Writing your will, Bruce? " he asked finally. 
 
 Bruce unhooked his feet slowly, tipped his chair back 
 and looked at the ceiling studiously, while the blue died out 
 of the irises of his eyes. " No, Ed," he answered mournfully, 
 " I could write that on the end of my thumb." 
 
 " Bruce, be candid; is it a woman troubling you? " 
 
 " Yes, it is, Ed," he answered forlornly. He rose and 
 walked up and down the compact room in his short, jerky 
 steps ; then he shrilled, his face a sight to behold : " Ed, I m 
 in love with the most beautiful and the most heartless woman 
 on earth. A coquette, a " 
 
 Strange, incomprehensible, buried beyond his or our own 
 efforts to solve it, is the motive that inspired him to sully his 
 lips with that word, above all to apply it to the woman he 
 acknowledged to be worthy of his love. Butler found it 
 
 199 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 hard work to believe his ears. He looked at Bruce as if 
 fearing the man had gone mad, and when he was about to 
 express himself in unminced terms, there sat Bruce with 
 his swarthy face buried in his large hands, the warm tears 
 trickling down his cheeks. 
 
 " Tell me about it, Bruce," said Butler, touched now 
 somehow to the core of him. 
 
 But not one word could Butler get out of him, and not 
 one word more could Bruce get out of himself, try as they 
 both did to the utmost of their respective abilities. 
 
 Bruce shook his head firmly and proceeded to tear into 
 shreds the sheets on which he had wasted such effort. They 
 formed a long and rambling declaration of his love for Inez, 
 a peculiar epistle half businesslike, stating all the " ands " 
 and the " buts," and half headlong and passionate; and he 
 knew very well before he penned a word of it that no eye but 
 his own would ever get a glimpse of its contents. 
 
 " Ed," he grinned suddenly, while going on with his work 
 of destruction, " it s more or less human to count your chick 
 ens before they hatch ; but it s kind of inhuman, I guess, to 
 smash your good eggs for fear they won t chick." 
 
 200 
 
BOOK THREE 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 A WHITE NIGHT 
 
 YOUR people, McAllister, are just as well off outside 
 where they are in the first place it s an extremely 
 mild March evening, and in the second place if they 
 got in here they would only be disillusioned, anyway." So, 
 pointing to the crowd gathered around the high iron fences 
 outside, did the ironical Fiske speak to Bruce McAllister 
 in the parlors of the Polish embassy. 
 
 They stood in the bay window, a little removed from a 
 choice assembly, gathered, so to say, by eliminating all but the 
 most distinguished people in Washington and tightening the 
 zone of welcome until it embraced only the elect. The re 
 sult, of course, was brilliancy; an effulgence of the kind made 
 where stars of equal magnitude sing together, and where the 
 radiance of the social heavens would have been diminished 
 if any one single planet had dropped behind the horizon of it. 
 Gold epaulets shone on the shoulders of stern commanders 
 of the nation s ships and its soldiers, gallooned diplomats, 
 whose costumes were as far apart as the nations they repre 
 sented, Cabinet members in a word it was all that one might 
 expect on an occasion chosen by the Polish minister to intro 
 duce a visiting admiral, general and statesman from his own 
 country to Washington. These dignitaries, we say parenthet 
 ically, told our reporters before they left for their native 
 shores, that never in their lives had they seen a more im- 
 
 203 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 pressive body of men and women; therefore, those whose 
 plebeian point of vantage was in the darkness of the outside, 
 lit though it was by calcium lights, may know what the en 
 chanted realm on the inside was like. 
 
 Fiske s remark, of course, paved the way for the apostle 
 of democracy to expatiate on the time when law of caste and 
 iron fences should make no distinctions between man and his 
 brother. His people becoming the only people on earth, they 
 were bound to inherit all the earth. But we are asked to 
 attend the reception at the home of the Polish embassy and 
 not to enter Utopia. Let us employ the interim rather to 
 explain that the legislature of Illinois, breaking a deadlock, 
 had sent Bruce McAllister from Congress to the Senate to 
 fill the four unexpired years of the expired Senator Reeves, 
 who, according to those disappointed wretches who longed 
 for his toga, had devoted as many years to dying as most men 
 to living. 
 
 Therefore, let us not be surprised when Fiske receded 
 and Inez Hammersmith, removing herself from that back 
 ground of silks, laces and diplomatic and martial gold, and 
 advancing toward Bruce, addressed him as Senator McAl 
 lister. Bruce himself felt an inexplicable tremor at Inez s 
 appearance. He had expected her ; he had come thither with 
 the sole hope of seeing her, but preparation under certain cir 
 cumstances hides a good deal more from sight than it prevents 
 from coming into being. The new year had almost arrived 
 before Inez returned to New York from Europe and over 
 another month had elapsed before she joined her family in 
 Washington. And this was the first time since the day of his 
 memorable battle and victory in the House that they had met. 
 Those threads, invisible to others, that love transforms into 
 impassable barriers, held them apart. He knew she had 
 returned and held that he should have heard from her. Her 
 
 204 
 
A WHITE NIGHT 
 
 reasoning steered in an opposite direction, and so they might 
 have drifted farther and farther apart had not accident, on 
 which love relies as impartial arbiter, brought them together 
 again. 
 
 On this straw they waged quarrel greatly for a while. 
 She believed herself neglected; he insisted that he had been 
 ignored. Inwardly he rejoiced not to find her indifferent. 
 For her, in an environment fast growing monotonous, he 
 struck a highly accentuated note of difference that fell on 
 a grateful ear. Here was the same social kaleidoscope 
 through which she had been looking until her eyes were tired 
 of seeing the same varicolored glasses in it form but slightly 
 different combinations, and here was a man who stood on 
 the outer edge of it, refusing to adjust himself into its color 
 schemes, and who, for that very reason, stood by himself as an 
 original and therefore an interesting entity. He had proved 
 stronger than Washington, being of it, but standing apart 
 from it with a sort of warm Lincolnian aloofness. 
 
 Stirred by a mood she sought an exchange of confidences 
 with him more intimate than seemed in tune with their in 
 trusive surroundings. She led the way, almost as impercep 
 tibly as she might have led a conversation, through the parlor 
 and toward the back of the large Southern house. He fol 
 lowed submissively. They paused for a moment to chat 
 with Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck, and a moment afterwards 
 Bruce avoided collision with the graceful form of Sydney P. 
 Shaw. 
 
 For the occasion an addition of floor space had been ac 
 quired by throwing open the dining room doors and building 
 a tentlike arrangement around the generous girth of the rear 
 porch. In the large old-fashioned garden below preserved 
 from a rigorous formality by a seemingly careless arrange 
 ment of fountains and rockeries innumerable red and blue 
 
 205 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 miniature electric lights came to life and died out like fireflies 
 amid thick shrubbery. The sudden change in the weather 
 from chilliness to a full spring warmth had permitted this in 
 novation at the last moment, and it had therefore some of the 
 charm of the unpremeditated. One or two of the younger 
 couples even, defiant of rheumatism and other ills, had strolled 
 outside. They could be traced only now and then by the 
 gleam of a masculine cigar or cigarette, the sound of crunched 
 gravel, moving aside with a protest, the light laughter of a 
 woman pleased. 
 
 Inez stood on the stairs undecided for a second and then 
 she said : " We will risk it." She threw over her bare 
 shoulder, with defiant carelessness, a light wrap, and they 
 stepped into the garden a garden up and down whose paths 
 Webster and Clay had passed in their day, whispering what 
 sweet nothings, meditating what fond-laid plans, history 
 luckily never may know. 
 
 In front of a clump of lilac bushes she stopped and said : 
 " How warm it is! I fancy that I can smell the lilacs and 
 hear their buds open." 
 
 The night was full of the soft musical noises of nature s 
 resurrection. Under one s feet the earth stirred. Over 
 head the stars laughed in the golden joy of being; and a full 
 moon, cloudcircled as with a cap of white lace, looked down 
 on the world in a solemn, grandmotherly sort of content. 
 To the night there was a certain whiteness, a certain lumi 
 nous quality, impossible for the colors of mundane palettes to 
 express. 
 
 Even Bruce, whose inner life was so intense that he had 
 little eye and small sensitiveness for externals, came under its 
 influence. Inside, one was hedged in by the four walls of 
 a crowded room, one s utterance was choked, but here one s 
 spirit expanded to meet the ever-widening proportions of the 
 
 206 
 
A WHITE NIGHT 
 
 infinite. One could talk ! With her and the rapturous stars 
 for listeners what could he not say? He would grow ec 
 statically eloquent, carrying away her, the world and him 
 self. And of eloquence aroused, most unerring shaft in 
 Cupid s quiver, let all women beware! 
 
 " Perfect! " she said and became silent. Her mind trav 
 eled to France in August when the moonlight poured on the 
 white clover fields, swimming in fragrance, dazzling white 
 as with winter snow; a land soft as Cazin had limned it. 
 
 She leaned on his arm. Her presence, mingling with his, 
 thrilled him. Intruding cigar and cigarette disappeared ; 
 they had the garden to themselves. There was about her, 
 clad all in white as she was, a luminousness, an emanating 
 radiance as from the white night itself. A mad impulse, 
 suggested as by another self, seized him to drop at her feet 
 and sob out his love as the universe was proclaiming its 
 passion for the white night, and the night was proclaim 
 ing it for the universe. He felt her complete mastery over 
 him, knew his complete surrender, and he trembled with a 
 delicious, unnamable sensation that robbed him of his voice. 
 
 " It was cruel of you not to have let me hear from you 
 for so long," he choked out at length. Behold his eloquence 
 reduced to a poverty-stricken phrase! 
 
 " And of you ! " she answered, turning her beautiful face, 
 moonlit, full on him. 
 
 He thought a second. " But I didn t know." 
 
 She answered quickly, " Nor I." The tortuous pathway 
 brought them before a bench, shielded by the rockery. She 
 sat down murmuring, " How beautiful it all is! " 
 
 " Very," he answered. Between her last two sentences 
 he felt that the whole world had slipped his grasp. He bent 
 his head, bewildered by his emotions, his rush of tangled 
 thought, her presence, the munificent night. She leaned 
 
 207 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 him. His dark face turned white with passion. She 
 could hear his labored breath; her own heart beat quicker. 
 ** I lone joo," lips within his lips were saying, when there 
 was the disconcerting crunch of gravel on the walk, the patter 
 of an inconsequent conversation, and they arose. The garden 
 had been taken away from them. The commonplace had 
 its right of eminent domain. A moment later both 
 it they recognized Georgia and Fiske in those barely 
 voices, in those indistinct forms, but. quite taken 
 up with themselves, neither passed any comment. She re 
 newed her ooogratulations on his elevation to the senator- 
 ship. 
 
 " If it pleases you it gratifies me," he said. 
 
 She remained thoughtful a second but answered him 
 nothing. 
 
 " And your Child-Labor bill ? " she asked. " I have car 
 ried it around in my subconsciousness all night. I meant to 
 ask about it earlier." 
 
 He told her how pettifogging, how the shifts and tricks 
 of Senate procedure had thrust it aside every time he arose 
 to bring it before the consideration of that august body. He 
 explained the ruses by which it was done so adroitly that even 
 the visitors in the gallery might have thought that those who 
 were attacking his bill from ambush were friendly to it, how 
 even the readers of the congressional proceedings in the 
 Record might have discovered no word of enmity on the part 
 of those who were attacking the bill from behind their im 
 pregnable fortress of subterfuge and chicanery. 
 
 The pressure of her hand on his arm, light, transitory 
 as it was, expressed her sympathy. " In spite of their efforts 
 to bury it, however, one hears much talk about it. One reads 
 much of it. And public opinion, you say, is a great force in 
 these matters." 
 
 art 
 
A WHITE NIGHT 
 
 " If it is persistent enough. Then after the Senate comes 
 the Supreme Court. I fear it equally." 
 
 " With good cause perhaps," 
 
 " Doubtlessly," he replied, looking at her intently, " but 
 why do you say so? " 
 
 She was silent. He repeated the question. 
 
 " I thought I wouldn t tell you, but since you wish to 
 know " she hesitated, waited for his encouragement and, 
 receiving it, went on. ** I dined at the Blackmaurs the other 
 night. Justice Addams was among the guests. I don t re 
 member just how the subject of your bill came up, but come 
 up it did I think it was brought about by one of the sena 
 tor s questions but at any rate I heard Justice Addams say: 
 I don t think the Supreme Court will countenance it. We 
 are trespassing too violently on individual rights in this 
 country. The parents ought to decide whether their chil 
 dren are to work or not. Those may not be the precise words 
 but they are reasonably exact. We must go in now," she 
 ended with sudden irrelevance. * We have been out here 
 too long. We may have been missed inside," 
 
 Bruce nodded. On the stairs he turned to look at the 
 garden seat occupied, he thought, by Georgia and Shaw now. 
 It was singular that the disconcerting news she had brought 
 him did so little harm to his tranquillity. His imagination 
 carried him back to that bench, held him there for many long 
 nights to come. 
 
 aog 
 
CHAPTER II 
 GEORGIA S SCHEME 
 
 THAT was Miss Hammersmith and McAllister who 
 went into the house then, was it not?" asked Shaw 
 of Georgia, as he leaned far back in the garden seat 
 to gain, as it were, a firmer hold on the elusive beauty of the 
 night. 
 
 " Yes, I think so. How wonderful it is for April." 
 
 He nodded. " They are engaged, I hear." 
 
 "It is hard to tell, Sydney; one hears one rumor one 
 day, another the next. She is a peculiar girl." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 " Such an odd mixture of cold and warmth. I have never 
 met anybody quite like her." 
 
 " Peculiar, I should say, for falling in love with a man 
 as ugly and uncouth as McAllister." 
 
 " That may be just the charm, Sydney. I see a falling 
 star! " She pointed upward. 
 
 " McAllister! " he laughed softly. 
 
 They were quiet a while, listening as Inez and Bruce 
 had before them, to the voices of the night. She spoke ab 
 ruptly : 
 
 " Sydney, do you know I think you re foolish." The 
 moonlight falling on that firm hand toying with a fan, 
 showed her nervous, as if she were venturing on something 
 more perilous than the lightness of her tones divulged. 
 
 210 
 
GEORGIA S SCHEME 
 
 " The discovery is as sudden as it is radical. What led 
 you to it?" He spoke half banteringly, half sarcastically. 
 
 " A remark of my father s the other night." 
 
 " Out with it, Georgia." 
 
 " The Senate Committee on Public Lands, I understand, 
 is considering a bill to dispose of something like forty 
 million acres of coal and oil land." 
 
 " For a woman, Georgia, your aptitude for figures is re 
 markable." 
 
 " Thank you. The bill, too, was introduced by you. It 
 has the honor, they say, of bearing your name. The Shaw 
 Coal and Oil Land bill they call it." 
 
 " I cannot deny the relationship though I would. And 
 then?" 
 
 Before she answers him we would say, which their con 
 versation does not, that Shaw, after losing the nomination 
 for the presidency and secretly helping to defeat Fiske, bobbed 
 up serenely in the United States Senate to fill the last two 
 years of the term of the junior senator from Vermont who 
 had died before he could perform that duty for himself. 
 
 " And then," she went on, " if the bill passes, Anthony 
 Wyckoff will get all those acres for a mere song." 
 
 "Who told you this?" 
 
 " My logic." 
 
 " Against a woman s logic a man s reasoning is powerless. 
 Go on, Georgia. Tell me where my folly comes in ? " 
 
 " In not keeping those forty millions of acres for your 
 self. You know what poverty means in this world. You 
 at least can never be President and be poor. With wealth 
 you can control conventions, without it you are Sir Anthony s 
 puppet. I see him dangle you, making you perform antics 
 to suit his every whim." 
 
 Georgia, understanding that to hope for the day when her 
 
 211 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 father should enter the White House was to squander the 
 very substance of which hope is made, had resolved during 
 the next four years to place Shaw on the nation s altar and 
 make it take him for its idol. 
 
 " I don t like to dance either, Georgia," he went on won 
 dering at what she was driving, " especially this string and 
 wire dance. But perhaps in your wisdom you can tell me 
 how I can unfasten myself. Cheap as the Government, by 
 virtue of the bill, may dispose of those lands, still it will 
 take an enormous fortune to purchase them, another enor 
 mous fortune to develop them. A senator s salary and 
 perquisites are scarcely equal to it. Perhaps you can tell 
 me though, sorceress, how one may perform that miracle in 
 finance! " 
 
 " I am surprised at your density, Sydney." 
 
 " Let me wonder at your brilliancy, Georgia! " 
 
 " There is Wall Street." 
 
 " It was before us and will be after our departure." He 
 looked searchingly into her large face and the strong features, 
 softened by the gracious moonlight. 
 
 "If it is always there it offers a permanent opportunity. 
 Grasp it! Organize your land company there secretly, and 
 until it is organized and ready to take control of the lands 
 keep your bill in the committee." 
 
 " But if Anthony hears of this! " He whistled. 
 
 " I laid emphasis on the word secretly." 
 
 " You have a wonderful mind, Georgia. You ought to 
 have been a man ought to have been, that is, if it wouldn t 
 have robbed the world of such a magnificent woman. We 
 surely ought to name our company after you." 
 
 " Well for you," she laughed, pleased by his double com 
 pliment, " that your adroitness slipped in a saving clause. 
 As for naming the enterprise after me, I would rather have 
 
 212 
 
GEORGIA S SCHEME 
 
 the honor of naming it. Trite as it is, the word Excelsior 
 has always appealed to me. I said it when the star fell." 
 
 "Excelsior then! Under that banner do we march! 
 Let us not forget obstacles, however! Remember that 
 McAllister and your father serve on the same committee. 
 You recognize a double danger? " 
 
 Again we interrupt. When Fiske was defeated and the 
 incumbent of the presidency was nominated to succeed him 
 self, the great man retreated during the campaign like a 
 sulky Achilles into his tent and would do nothing at all. He 
 threatened to retire from politics and devote himself to the 
 law once more, knowing that if he returned to Congress he 
 would not be reflected Speaker. But Fiske s State held the 
 man at his own sterling worth even if the country at large 
 did not, and with no effort on his own part he was sent to the 
 Senate. So it came about, the whim of destiny wishing it, 
 that Bruce, Fiske and Shaw took their places together with 
 ten other senators on the Committee of Public Lands. En 
 mity and friendship alike would seem to draw tightening 
 bands around the world. 
 
 " I know our dangers," resumed Georgia, " but one can 
 hardly hope to play for stakes so enormously large and run 
 no chance. Since I am ready to take them, why should you 
 hesitate? " 
 
 " You are best and wisest among women ! " he said en 
 thusiastically, after thinking around all the edges of her 
 scheme quickly and searchingly. 
 
 " But I am not altogether unselfish in this. If successful, 
 I should claim my share of the reward." 
 
 "Which is?" 
 
 "You know, Sydney." The hand that held the fan 
 trembled visibly. 
 
 " Our marriage? " 
 
 213 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 She nodded. " You have always told me that when your 
 finances were in shape and you found yourself settled in 
 life " 
 
 " Nothing in the world would make me happier than to 
 make you happy," he interrupted. 
 
 Looking into her blue eyes, in that face of intellect and 
 power, modeled to the most feminine of contours by the 
 moonlight, he saw no reason why he should ever live to 
 regret or wish to take back these words. 
 
 Her lips rested on his lightly as suddenly. They arose 
 and entered the embassy. 
 
 214 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A DAY WITH SENATOR MCALLISTER 
 
 BRUCE MCALLISTER hastened through the base 
 ment of the Capitol to the Senate room of the Com 
 mittee of Public Lands. A meeting had been called 
 for ten and Bruce, delayed by some business to which he had 
 been attending in one of the departments for a constituent, 
 was anxious to be no later than he could avoid. 
 
 On this morning there would come up for discussion a 
 bill introduced by Senator Sydney P. Shaw for the lease in 
 perpetuity of something like forty million acres of public land, 
 most of it rich in coal or opulent in oil. In the mind of 
 Bruce McAllister, who had given the subject close thought, 
 there was no doubt at all that the whole affair was being 
 manipulated for the benefit of Sir Anthony Wyckoff. 
 
 He saw Anthony s Napoleonic shadow fall athwart Shaw s 
 Coal and Oil Land bill. His common sense raised small 
 question that if the bill was reported out of committee and 
 passed both the Senate and the House, Anthony would sweep 
 the vast territory into his insatiable coffers at a price so ridicu 
 lously inadequate that even that acquisitive stronghold 
 wouldn t object to a few millions passing beyond its gates, 
 especially when they were expected to return and bring back 
 so many more millions with them. 
 
 Bruce had expected that during this meeting of the com 
 mittee, Shaw s bill for the lease of the coal and oil lands 
 
 215 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 would come up for a lengthy discussion and perhaps for a 
 vote, but much to his surprise it passed with a bare mention 
 again, and was postponed for a future consideration. The 
 delay puzzled him. He suspected the enemy s subtle hand 
 working by invisible means. The Fabian policy, pursued so 
 long, baffled him. At eleven o clock Bruce left the commit 
 tee room of Public Lands and old Stoutenbury, its chairman, 
 fast asleep in his chair at the head of the mahogany table, 
 and he hurried through those endless lengths of corridors, 
 their yellow walls decorated with formal arabesque of con 
 ventional birds piping no ditties to measured vine and pat 
 terned flower. Finally he reached his own room in the sub- 
 basement of the Capitol. The Arlington experimental farm 
 needed additional accommodations, and therefore a com 
 mittee had been appointed to fit the farm to the accommoda 
 tions, and since democracy could do no harm here, being at 
 home in rural retreats, Bruce was made its chairman. At 
 the disposal of sacred simplicity senatorial courtesy put a 
 room that was wedged in between the janitor s den on the 
 one side and the coal bins on the other. Diogenes, deprived 
 of his tub, could ask for no less! 
 
 Here after all, Bruce had reflected as he passed through 
 those interminable corridors, where committee room opened 
 on committee room, was the ponderous gigantic machinery 
 that turned the wheel of governmental legislation, destroying, 
 throwing into dark corners as into a dust and refuse heap, 
 what was favorable to his people whence came the power 
 of the complicated mechanism and what at the same time 
 was inimical to the great god of commerce for whom this 
 ponderous complicated mechanism was run. 
 
 At exactly twenty minutes to twelve Bruce emerged from 
 his room where he had been dictating letters to his secretary, 
 plowed his way through that labyrinth of corridors again 
 
 216 
 
A DAY WITH SENATOR MCALLISTER 
 
 and up the bronze stairway, reserved for the senatorial foot 
 step, that ascended to the main floor. 
 
 Bruce walked through the cloak room to his seat in the 
 last row of the Democratic side of the Senate chamber, dig 
 nified and solidly impressive enough to serve the gods in 
 council. At a few minutes to twelve, their hands in their 
 pockets, in strolled the gods themselves, chatting as they 
 moved over the affairs of Olympus and the deeds of puny 
 mortals, crawling like ants on the mundane sphere far, 
 far below. Each particular divinity found his desk in 
 one of the concentric rows that circle about the wide dais 
 where Jove himself, wielding a presidential gavel, sat en 
 throned. 
 
 Once in their desks the senators, who have certain dimen 
 sions and attributes in common with mortals, busied them 
 selves with their private correspondence, deaf to the clamor 
 of the clerk droning on and on through a list, high as 
 Olympus itself, of pensions, memorials, petitions, reports, 
 bills all that vast river of legislation presto ! our mountain 
 is turned into water! that flows on silently and without 
 interruption into the lirritless sea made by the outpouring 
 that has gone before it. 
 
 A bill to encourage the destruction of Canadian thistles 
 was up for debate, having been given the right of way by the 
 Steering Committee, and as unfinished business it would com 
 mand the floor of each afternoon session until it was sup 
 planted by another measure. Therefore, the McAllister 
 Child-Labor, bill could only be indulged in the morning hour 
 and after the consideration of what is known as the morn 
 ing s business. 
 
 When the moment came around Bruce arose in his seat 
 to call up his bill; whereupon a senator from Massachu 
 setts, who ran most of the woolen mills of his own State and 
 15 217 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 various cotton mills in the South, arose to ask if the McAllis 
 ter Child-Labor bill had been read; and thereafter a senator 
 from New York, who was a greater banker than a legislator, 
 bobbed up to remark that he hoped if the bill was taken up, 
 it would be read at length; and immediately afterwards a 
 senator from Virginia, who owned enough coal to keep the 
 whole world at fever heat, requested that the bill be read 
 for information, which provoked from Bruce the statement 
 that he had not asked for a unanimous consent to call up the 
 bill, which in turn brought a protest from the senator of 
 Arkansas, who told the South what to do with its politics 
 and its cotton, and it did it, that unanimous consent was cer 
 tainly necessary, which lofty and weighty opinion found a 
 second in the voice of the venerable millionaire senator from 
 Michigan, whose avowed object in life it was to marry labor 
 to capital, and to live to bless the morganatic union, which 
 finally brought forth a ruling from the President of the Sen 
 ate against Bruce and in favor of the protesting senators, 
 which left nothing else for Bruce to do than to say he would 
 move to proceed to a consideration of the bill on the follow 
 ing Monday. 
 
 Bruce recalled bitterly that thus chicanery had bandied 
 about his Income Tax bill, his Anti-Injunction bill, and as he 
 peered around at those venerable, white-bearded faces and 
 divined what was stirring in their world-building minds, a 
 feeling of helplessness, of utter dismay came over him. 
 What did the struggle avail? He was merely wasting his 
 energies, awakening to laughter their cynical indifference. 
 They regarded him probably as a Don Quixote who was 
 hurled into painful notoriety by the protesting sail of the 
 windmill he had attacked. 
 
 At four the Senate adjourned and Bruce retreated to his 
 allotted space in the sub-basement to take up his unfinished 
 
 218 
 
A DAY WITH SENATOR MCALLISTER 
 
 business with his secretary. At dusk Elaine called for him 
 and they left the Capitol to dine in a restaurant near by, and 
 an hour or so later they walked over to the Baltimore and 
 Ohio depot to meet their brother Peter, who was coming on 
 from New York. 
 
 Peter McAllister, who has dropped out of these chron 
 icles for so long a time, left for Europe when Bruce was 
 elected to Congress and there he had continued his scientific 
 studies in the universities of France and Germany. Bruce 
 had obtained for him a position in one of the laboratories in 
 the Department of Agriculture and Peter intended to make 
 his future home in Washington. 
 
 Tired and dusty from his journey Peter, after greeting 
 his brother and sister warmly, suggested that they at once 
 make for their apartment ; but nothing save a moonlight visit 
 to the Capitol on this perfect spring night would satisfy 
 Elaine. Bruce acquiesced with his usual good nature, but 
 Peter yawned, declared Elaine s vagary sentimental and went 
 under protest, loitering behind. He had come to engage in 
 his profession in the capital much like a priest going to an 
 unvisited city to celebrate a mass, the church itself counting 
 for naught, the ceremony for all. 
 
 It was Elaine who had nicknamed Peter the priest of 
 science, and the sobriquet was apt in more senses than one. 
 Portly, rotund, although but three inches shorter than Bruce, 
 his fatness had the ecclesiastical cast. A long residence and 
 speculation in the realm of scientific ideas and ideals gave 
 Peter the air of one who dwelt apart in his own world. His 
 head was bald on its broad top and a ring of black hair sur 
 rounded it, tonsurelike. He dressed soberly in a worn, black 
 frock coat that flapped below his knees. Peter in a way 
 was to science what Bruce was to politics. Science was his 
 shrine. His was a whole-hearted devotion, a mania that 
 
 219 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 would have destroyed him had not his nerves been made of 
 steel. 
 
 When the trio surveyed the Capitol from the Senate s 
 terrace, Elaine s imagination was touched by the somberness 
 of that great pile a colossal shadow thrown against the 
 vaster shadow of the infinite night. Then the sable cur 
 tains were tossed aside and the moon rolled forth in all her 
 splendor and the stars drew around her their glittering 
 phalanx. 
 
 Elaine, responsive to the change, indulged a happier imag 
 ination and let her thoughts populate the fountains, the trees, 
 and the grottoes of the moon-flooded park with vivacious 
 armies of legendary folk. What a place for them to make 
 merry! In her eyes it was as if the witchery of the hour 
 almost seemed to signal each dryad and nymph from her 
 imprisoning tree or shrub, each naiad from the depths of her 
 mossy fountain. It was now the time and place for Titania, 
 clapping her hands lightly, to summon her elfin bands that 
 they might fill the park with their mischievous, laughing 
 voices. 
 
 While Elaine s fancies occupied her, Bruce looked out 
 ward from his coign as if he were surveying the whole land. 
 The tired Peter asked him with a yawn of what he was think 
 ing. Bruce, ashamed like a virgin in love of the fine emo 
 tions that were kindling in his breast, gave no answer. 
 
 220 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PETER S JOB 
 
 SIR ANTHONY was growing impatient. Sydney s 
 dilatoriness fretted him. He thought it was high 
 time, public sentiment being quiescent, that the Shaw 
 Coal and Oil Lands bill be reported out of committee. He 
 summoned Sydney before his august presence and lectured 
 him severely, saying that if he didn t move and move quickly 
 he would command those of the majority members of the 
 committee, who were his tried henchmen, to see to it that his 
 will was done. 
 
 " Senatorial courtesy," started Sydney. 
 
 " I don t care a snap of my fingers about senatorial cour 
 tesy," replied Anthony, his little eyes glowing. 
 
 " Neither do I," said Sydney, " only, and especially in 
 questions of delay, it is a cast-iron rule that the majority 
 accept the wishes of the chairman of the committee. Even 
 the minority members will refuse, unless an agreement is im 
 possible, to snatch a bill out of the chairman s hands and vote 
 to report it out in spite of his desire." 
 
 " And so that doddering old idiot of a Stoutenbury stands 
 between me and those forty millions of rich acres. It s pre 
 posterous." 
 
 " But it s the truth." 
 
 " All this folderoy and circumlocution and mummery 
 ought to be thrown to one side," scolded Anthony. They 
 
 221 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 interfere with business. The country needs a new constitu 
 tion." 
 
 Sydney bowed. " And then it must be remembered that 
 that man McAllister is on the committee, too. He s a 
 ferret!" 
 
 " I guess my national university will take care of him. 
 If it doesn t, other things will," said Anthony. " Don t you 
 mind him; go ahead just as if he didn t exist and get your 
 Coal and Oil Lands bill reported out." 
 
 Sydney, pouring forth regrets as freely as Anthony s vats 
 poured forth oil, promised that he would hurry, and he kept 
 his word by goading his Wall Street agents, Messrs. Gore 
 and Fry, into greater and greater efforts in behalf of the Ex 
 celsior. 
 
 Only a few days after this unpleasant interview the 
 national university was founded and put into operation by its 
 board of trustees, made up partly of representatives from the 
 Senate, the House, the Cabinet, scientists from the depart 
 ments and scholars of national repute. And but a few days 
 after the wheels of this academic machine made their first 
 revolution, Peter McAllister, the sober priest of science, 
 came to Bruce rejoiced beyond measure, ebullient as a master 
 of dances. 
 
 Bruce, who sat at one of the side windows of their apart 
 ment, gazing out over Arlington Heights and the distant hills 
 that rose, tier on tier, far beyond it, looked up as his brother 
 entered the room, wondering what his elation meant and he 
 asked coolly: " Who s the lady, Peter? " 
 
 " It s a bigger thing than a lady," answered Peter some 
 what scornfully. " There s been some talk of giving me an 
 original research department in chemistry in the new univer 
 sity." 
 
 " That s the new school that Mr. Anthony Wyckoff is 
 
 222 
 
PETER S JOB 
 
 founding for those who already know nearly everything, to 
 learn all there is, eh? Well, seeing that you are so happy 
 over the prospect, I hope it will turn out to be more than 
 talk. But why are you going to be any better off than you 
 are now? What s put all the rubber into the heels of your 
 sobriety?" 
 
 Peter sat down beside Bruce, leaning his square shoulders 
 and his bald head toward him. " You see it s just exactly 
 what I wanted in fact exactly what I ve wanted nearly all 
 my life. I shall have my living assured, and I can quit this 
 irksome routine work and follow a line of original investi 
 gation." 
 
 " Cut loose from the cart you ve been hauling all these 
 years and turn around to browse on what s inside of it, eh ? " 
 
 " That about expresses it, Bruce." Peter s face grew 
 more serious yet brighter and his eyes opened wide and 
 dreamily; at that moment there was a striking family resem 
 blance between the two brothers, who looked as different as if 
 they had been born of different parents. Peter drew his 
 chair closer. " I ve never told you, Bruce I m not much 
 of a hand to talk until things are done; but I ve been work 
 ing away night and day for years on a theory of mine. 
 There are times when I don t like to even let myself dare to 
 think of the possibilities of it; but I think I have good solid 
 reasons for knowing that I am on the brink of one of the 
 greatest discoveries ever made in biological chemistry." 
 
 Bruce studied his thumb nail closely as if his whole mind 
 were fastened there, and Peter, despite the stoicism in which 
 he had trained himself, felt hurt at what appeared to be a lack 
 of gladness and sympathy on his brother s part. Surely there 
 is nothing sadder in life than to be compelled to bear what 
 should be the source of a great happiness all alone! 
 
 " I m positive," continued Peter, " that my discovery 
 223 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 when completed will do more to cure the horrible diseases 
 and ills that now afflict humanity than anything brought 
 to light by the centuries of science. Modern medicine will 
 find it as important and revolutionary even far more so 
 than Pasteur s contributions to science. I don t want to 
 bore you with the details of it, Bruce; it s too long and 
 dry for a layman; but you will grasp my theory when I 
 say that the central idea of it is that the ions of the blood 
 unite chemically to produce electricity instead of heat; in 
 other words, that the combination and recombination of ions 
 in the human system is the source of electricity which, in 
 turn, through its many transformations, evolves all our life- 
 giving energies." He paused. 
 
 " I see," said Bruce, " you ve got a little patent to do 
 away with doctors and remove sickness automatically." His 
 voice, the eagerness of expression on his face, proved the 
 interest and the emotion that his words denied. 
 
 Peter shook his big head, impatient of interruption, and, 
 bringing his finger tips together, he clapped his hands 
 slightly as he ejaculated: "Now, when certain chemicals 
 are absent in the blood the ions fail to give this electricity, 
 and you have an impoverishment of the system, a weakness 
 of the nerves and the diseases consequent upon it. I hope 
 to supply the chemicals artificially by the injection of salts 
 and serums; and I believe that the cure of consumption, 
 insanity, of the scourges of existence that have baffled science 
 for so long are in my hands." 
 
 " And you ve carried ideas like that around with you in 
 silence all these years? It s a wonder the pressure didn t 
 blow the top of your head off! But I always expected big 
 things of you, Peter," he added gravely, " and the fact is 
 that I ve been disappointed not to have heard of them 
 
 224 
 
PETER S JOB 
 
 " What was the use of telling anybody," groaned Peter. 
 " My theories are just in that state where if I announce 
 them I ll be laughed at as a charlatan or denounced as a 
 sensational advertiser, whereas if I have money and leisure 
 enough to continue my investigations I ll be accepted as a 
 discoverer and a scientist." 
 
 " So you have been floating between sky and dry land 
 until this offer from the national university comes along, 
 settles your difficulty and drops you where you want to go ? " 
 
 " Yes, it does, Bruce." He arose and, standing at the 
 window, looked out on the white Doric front of Arlington 
 House, which under the softening influence of the dusk 
 took on the nobler aspect of the Grecian temple after which 
 it was modeled. Did it symbolize to him the new temple 
 of science whose portals he yearned to enter as high priest 
 to dedicate it to humanity? 
 
 " Wasn t there a string tied to that offer, Peter ? " There 
 was just a slight throb of pathos in Bruce s voice, as if, 
 despite his efforts at the humorous, pathos had gradually 
 been gaining an upper hand over him. 
 
 Peter turned, as if shocked by his brother s question and 
 his changed tone, as if he had seen the pillars of Arlington 
 House totter and tumble. "What do you mean, Bruce?" 
 
 " I suppose you think your brother is an awful skeptic, 
 Peter; but I believe if a man is hungry and penniless and 
 he stumbles on a pocketbook in the street suddenly, he wants 
 to look around carefully and see if there s a string tied to 
 it before he stoops to pick it up likely as not there s a bad 
 boy behind the fence." 
 
 " You re speaking in riddles, Bruce," he said anxiously. 
 
 " Well, Peter," explained Bruce, pulling his long right 
 leg around his left and twisting the right foot around the 
 left ankle, " that new prospective job of yours is a lure 
 
 225 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 they ve put out to catch me. I have only to behave myself 
 according to their standards of behavior, never pull on the 
 bills they shove and never shove on the bills they pull, and 
 you re to have the job that your heart is set on. Anthony 
 Wyckoff and his interests are the bad boys behind the fence ; 
 do you see ? " 
 
 Peter turned his face and looked out of the window 
 again, saying nothing in reply. Bruce arose and put his 
 big hand on his brother s shoulder affectionately: "It s a 
 pretty hard position they ve shoved me into, isn t it ? I know 
 just how you feel about it, Peter; you needn t tell me 
 you re a McAllister." 
 
 " It isn t altogether for myself, Bruce; I don t want to 
 be either hypocritical or vainglorious, but I m perfectly will 
 ing to give up my life what does a man without wife or 
 family need to care about that? -to relieve the suffering 
 and wretchedness of humanity." 
 
 " You re a McAllister and I understand that, too, Peter ; 
 and it makes it just that much harder for me to bear." 
 
 " But the changes you want, the principles you are trying 
 to establish are bound to come anyway; I ve heard you say 
 a dozen times that the change is as inevitable as the coming 
 of spring after winter it s in the evolution of things." He 
 was silent as if he wished to say more, but as if his own 
 conscience would not allow him to influence his brother s. 
 
 " And with your discovery it s different, I know. It 
 may be lost forever or held back all the way from twenty 
 years to a century, and in the meantime you see people that 
 you could save suffer, go insane, and die in torture." 
 
 Peter s big bald head nodded hopefully as if Bruce s un 
 aided grasping of his own point of view would lead him to 
 the sure acceptance of it. " But, Peter, I guess the same 
 principle is at the bottom of both our problems. It boils 
 
 226 
 
PETER S JOB 
 
 down to a question of conscience, and both of us are McAl 
 listers I can t help that and I don t believe you want to. 
 Supposing we change shoes, and some one should come to 
 you and say: Here, we ll put that long brother of yours 
 into the Cabinet or the Supreme Court if you will just 
 keep quiet and stop denouncing our scientific methods for 
 shams and lies, and if you ll admit you ll only have to 
 keep still to do it that you have been mistaken. Would 
 you do it, Peter? " 
 
 " I don t think that I would, Bruce," came the slow reply. 
 Bruce felt Peter s burly body quiver, as with suppressed emo 
 tion, and he knew what those few words had cost ; or it may 
 have been that only Bruce s hand trembled and that he 
 translated his own feelings into his brother s. 
 
 The darkness closed in quickly on the dusk; the sun s 
 glowing red ball, sinking swiftly behind the Virginian hills, 
 lost color and died out. Bruce arose and walked over to 
 a front window, giving on the south. As the darkness grew 
 blacker and blacker the white lines of the Monument stood 
 out clearer and sharper, as if, too, like the moon and the 
 stars, it had been waiting in patience for the night to come 
 and give it life. The old dreamy look passed over his face, 
 and he broke the deep silence with : 
 
 " Quite a bit of stone over there, Peter; you d better come 
 and have a peep at it." 
 
 227 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CAT SCRATCHES AT THE BAG 
 
 IT was the boast of the argus-eyed Edward Donovan 
 Butler that he never traveled anywhere without learn 
 ing something the pity was that his travels were cir 
 cumscribed. The vaunt, to give it significance by attachment, 
 was made on his return from Chicago, when he went to 
 Bruce, as Achates to his /Eneas, with the information, given 
 him by a Chicago attorney, that a gigantic deal in Western 
 land was being underwritten by a big New York law firm. 
 
 Thereupon the argus-eyed Butler flew to New York, 
 and one eye following one trail and another scouring a by 
 way of its own selection there was at least one path for 
 every eye he soon discovered that Messrs. Gore and Fry 
 were organizing a company to develop the resources of that 
 vast Western territory as soon as it should pass out of the 
 Government s control. It will be seen that the farther But 
 ler traveled the more he learned. 
 
 " It hardly seems probable to me," said Bruce, discussing 
 the deal with Butler, " that Anthony himself would go 
 about floating the thing in quite that way. I suspect com 
 peting interests at work. The whole affair has baffled me 
 since the beginning. It would seem to Anthony s interest 
 to have had the Shaw bill reported out long ago, and yet it 
 sticks there in committee." 
 
 " Of course you know Shaw could have the bill reported 
 out if he wished. He controls old Stoutenbury. He owns 
 
 228 
 
THE CAT SCRATCHES AT THE BAG 
 
 him. The old fellow is under the thumb of his beautiful 
 young wife, who used to work in the Census Bureau, and 
 they say Shaw fixed up the match. 
 
 Bruce nodded. " Yes, I know." 
 
 "Do you suspect Shaw s hand in it anywhere?" 
 
 " I m willing enough to, Ed, but I can t see why I 
 should. His interests must be Anthony s. There is no 
 reason in the world why they should be opposed." 
 
 " None that we can see." 
 
 " Nor reason out, either." Bruce reflected deeply, the 
 foot of his right leg clamped around his left ankle. " I tell 
 you, Ed," he spoke suddenly, his swarthy face lighting up, 
 " we might get an inkling of what s in the air by letting 
 Wyckoff know that you have learned about the organiza 
 tion of his new company. If he s in it, and knows about 
 it, then there s no harm done. If he doesn t know about 
 it he might ask questions of us that would let the cat out 
 of the bag." 
 
 Holy High Jinks, Butler s divinity, gave enthusiastic 
 sanction to the idea. " But who s to go to Anthony? " he 
 asked, his calmer thought weighing difficulties. " Clearly 
 you can t. I can t either; the very terms under which the 
 story was given me make it impossible. In a way I m under 
 oath. If we send anybody else, and the story breaks, it s 
 all over with us." 
 
 Bruce s foot sought his ankle. " I ll find somebody." 
 
 "Whom?" 
 
 " Somebody." 
 
 Butler knew that Bruce s nothings and his somebodys 
 were as insurmountable as stone walls, and having had his 
 forlorn experiences in attempting to scale them he let the 
 matter drop. 
 
 Our own abilities for ascension being bounded only by 
 229 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the skies, we are enabled to look over Bruce s as over all 
 other walls and to tell the inquisitive that the person whom 
 he intended to honor with the carrying of that veiled mes 
 sage to Sir Anthony was Miss Inez Hammersmith. His 
 choice did credit to his astuteness. Every namable circum 
 stance favored the accomplishment of that task. To him 
 only one slight obstacle presented itself, slight but still of 
 moment enough to block the undertaking would she ac 
 cept that mission? 
 
 Here was another situation to test the mettle of eloquence. 
 It had failed him once, but the fault had been his own ; this 
 time it would stand, as it were, on its own intrinsic merit, 
 and if it fell short of opportunity again he would number 
 it among the shattered illusions. 
 
 The trial came in the Hammersmith library a day later. 
 Here it was, the drum beats of his heart arousing martial 
 courage, he eagerly challenged the issue. Awaiting her he 
 gazed around the dignified room, all hung with dark-red 
 velvet, the woodwork of its high cases and furniture re 
 strained and self-contained in hue. Here might the sages, 
 whose life-work was told in the volumes upon those shelves, 
 be content to pass their immortality, brooding somberly in 
 undisturbed quiescence as in an eternal twilight of time. 
 
 Inez entered laughing. The room lightened as if the 
 gold of its trimmings had been scattered with a more un- 
 reckoning hand, and the sages retreated, scowling, before 
 youth wisely heedless of any problems but its own. 
 
 " I came for a favor," spoke Eloquence baldly, stripped of 
 verbal ornament. 
 
 "The wherefore matters but little; you are here," she 
 said. And then half archly, after her fashion, before he 
 could gain advantage from her graciousness, she went on, 
 "Is it Child Labor again?" 
 
 230 
 
THE CAT SCRATCHES AT THE BAG 
 
 " No," he returned, 
 
 " Then it may wait, may it not? Meanwhile, tell me 
 what new fortunes our bill has met." 
 
 " Well, the moment they passed the bill to encourage 
 the destruction of Canadian thistles I moved that the Senate 
 proceed with a consideration of our Anti-Child Labor bill, 
 but they executed a contretemps by forcing an executive 
 session." 
 
 " But with your path cleared of thistles " 
 
 " And made worse by the introduction of another bill 
 to refuse the use of the mails for transporting insect pests! " 
 
 " The insects will disappear like the weeds." 
 
 " To give way to something worse ? " he asked. 
 
 " You have fought too long and valiantly to lose heart." 
 
 " I am far from it." He peered into the dense green of 
 the rug as if he were gazing into the translucent waters 
 of the sea. " Another bill is making big drains on my time 
 and sympathy now." 
 
 "What bill?" Curiosity, standing on tiptoe, its hand 
 rounded over its ear, was wondering whither he tended. 
 
 " That Shaw Coal and Oil Lands bill. Have you heard 
 of it?" 
 
 " Only remotely." 
 
 He outlined it, summarizing the parts that he thought 
 Shaw and Anthony were playing in it. He himself wished 
 to preserve the territory for the United States. Give the 
 Government possession in perpetuity of the land, and here 
 was an estate sacred to the rights of his people on which 
 monopoly never could trespass. Here were forty millions 
 of Government acres that would exist as a threat to greed, 
 ready to encroach on its privilege and destroy them if nec 
 essary. These acres might form the open road by which 
 his people might advance to take possessions away from 
 
 231 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 Government and form the Cooperative Commonwealth. 
 These forty millions of acres would lend themselves, so to 
 say, for the posting of signs to instruct the citizens of the 
 morrow. 
 
 Invisible were the cords that for her bound him to his 
 cause, his cause to him; and equally slight, working with 
 a like subtlety, was the same cord that acted as a dividing 
 line between the two a barrier easily and often passed. 
 
 Her eager questions proved her warm interest. 
 
 " And now we discover that a rival company is being 
 organized in New York to purchase and develop this land," 
 came his answer to one of them. 
 
 " And that leads you to believe? " 
 
 " I don t know what to believe. I am entirely in the 
 dark." 
 
 Her sympathies fluttered dovelike to him. " And the 
 favor for which you come to me ? " 
 
 "Light!" 
 
 " Your answer," she said, her face softened, " puts me 
 where you were, in the dark. Need I say what I would do 
 to help you if it lay in my power? " 
 
 " I had thought," he explained half reluctantly, " of 
 sounding Sir Anthony in an indirect way. If he happened 
 to know of this other company our ignorance would be none 
 the less dense ; if he himself is in ignorance his own questions 
 may give us the clew to the knowledge we seek." 
 
 Her face was thoughtful. " And you wish me to be the 
 direct plummet that is to sound those waters for you ? " 
 
 He nodded, leaning nearer toward her, his gray-blue 
 eyes fastened piercingly on her. 
 
 She pondered again. " I will do it," she said slowly. 
 
 And behind those words he thought he heard the welling 
 echoes cry, " I would do anything for you." His spirit 
 
 232 
 
THE CAT SCRATCHES AT THE BAG 
 
 rushed toward her. He felt she would deny him nothing 
 now. His ardent love pleaded for utterance. 
 
 At that moment Mrs. Hammersmith, silver-haired, beau 
 tiful as in youth, stepped through the half-opened door. Inez 
 saw the lengthening shadows cross his swarthy face and, 
 guessing what substantial presence had cast them, her own 
 heart trembled. 
 
 16 233 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ARMS OF THE ENEMY 
 
 SHALL Bruce McAllister be accused of consistently vot 
 ing with the radicals and persistently dining with the 
 conservatives ? If so, shall we visit upon him the pangs 
 of indigestion or shall we deprive him of his franchise ? The 
 double chastisement might better fit his perfidy! For woe 
 to him who barters his principles for his dinner, which every 
 man, wisely not quarreling with his bread and butter, does 
 almost as often as he seats himself at the table. 
 
 We mention this subject merely because when Bruce 
 McAllister and his sister Elaine, guests at the dinner of 
 the Hammersmiths, stepped into the great drawing-room, 
 prodigal as the renaissance of massive splendors, he let his 
 curious mind weigh for a second the cunning corruption 
 wrought by social bribery. It was as potent, as tireless, here 
 in Washington, lifting the gifted out of the class whence 
 they come to the circle above, changing, as it lifted, their 
 sympathy for the class they left behind for the ideals of 
 the resplendent circle in which they are permitted to 
 enter. 
 
 But let the warm-hearted, healthy Addison drive such 
 morbid vapors out of the eccentric brain of our hero ! Were 
 the whole world as hearty and hale as Addison into what 
 an unlocked inn would it be converted! Against his pink- 
 ness, his blondness, and his rotundity, Bruce appeared as 
 
 234 
 
THE ARMS OF THE ENEMY 
 
 lean, lank, and swarthy as ever. Time has intensified, not 
 softened, the differences. Addison has changed in nothing 
 save in his attitude toward politics, for which he has fast 
 been acquiring a relish bred of success, for his is the seat in 
 Congress left vacant by Bruce. The congressman is dead 
 or moved to the Senate long live the congressman ! 
 
 Addison introduces Ruth Wyckoff, daughter of Sir An 
 thony, who is quite as small as her father in stature, with 
 hair, complexion, and features of a kind that did not find 
 as many admirers as her money. Addison had met this 
 heiress to inexhaustible millions on the Continent, and the 
 young man being human we cannot blame him for talking 
 himself into the belief that it was the power such wealth 
 conferred and not the money itself he wanted. Her con 
 stant harping on religion and philanthropy bored her blond 
 lover to death ; but her fad might have been women s clubs 
 and lectures, and that was worse. Had such been the case 
 Addison would not have married her for all her money. 
 What Addison wanted, when all was said and done, was 
 the easiest of easiest lives, and Ruth Wyckoff seemed the 
 easiest of all easy means to attain it. 
 
 A moment afterwards, for the very first time in his life, 
 Bruce was introduced to Sir Anthony Wyckoff himself, who 
 remarked let the future historian note the gravity and im 
 portance of it: 
 
 " I m very pleased, indeed, to meet you. I ve wanted 
 that honor for a long time," and then he went on in his 
 deep rich voice to declare that he admired our hero s de 
 mocracy immensely. He was a democrat among democrats 
 himself, and he lamented the fact that people didn t know 
 it. They would discover the fact later on when he cor 
 nered the earth and allowed them to live on it. Than this 
 no man has greater love for his fellows! 
 
 235 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 But lest in time to come it be recorded in musty annals 
 by sociologists, attempting to sow the seeds of class hatred 
 in a country where there are no classes, that wealth alone 
 attended this dinner, we hasten to add that among the others 
 chosen on the occasion to bask in Sir Anthony s golden 
 smiles were Sydney P. Shaw, who had nothing in the world 
 save an ever-growing hope of coming into his due share of 
 those forty millions of acres, and Franklin De Wolfe Fiske, 
 who had even far less. 
 
 Inez had protested that the presence of the two enemies 
 so bitter could not help but wreck the success of the affair. 
 But her mother was carried away with the idea that she 
 might achieve a reconciliation, and she smilingly overrode 
 her daughter s objections. Previously Mrs. Hammersmith 
 had been abetted in her project by Sir Anthony Wyckoff, 
 who, for certain reasons of his own, wished these enemies 
 to be made as friends. What could better show that An 
 thony s heart, like a big percentage of his money, was in the 
 right place? 
 
 Aristocracy the dinner like ourselves is without class 
 prejudice is represented in the imposing monocle of the 
 Polish minister and the haughty lorgnette of his wife; who 
 shall face either of them unafraid? Of the law it shall be 
 said that it was no more absent now than in many another 
 crisis of the nation. Its majesty was upheld by Justice 
 Addams and his wife, of whom the justice stood in more 
 dread, so they say, than all the rest of the nation of the 
 justice. 
 
 Bruce, anxious to take the justice s intellectual measure, 
 had just finished talking with him when Inez strode for 
 ward with Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck. Light words passed 
 between them, shot forth and back as shuttles in the loom, 
 when Georgia dropped her point-lace handkerchief, and 
 
 236 
 
THE ARMS OF THE ENEMY 
 
 Bruce stooped to pick it up in so awkward a manner that 
 she could not restrain her lips from pursing into a smile. 
 
 " What an odd and delightful fragrance," commented 
 Inez, as if to shield Bruce s embarrassment with a phrase. 
 She was willing he should be laughed at, provided only that 
 she was the one who laughed. 
 
 " I noticed it," said he, still inhaling the faint delicate 
 aroma, flowerlike, as of rose leaves crushed. 
 
 " Both of you," laughed Georgia, " have cultivated and 
 cultured noses. It s attar of roses from the precious bottle 
 that the Persian minister sent to me." 
 
 Thus they chatted on, turning nothing into the rivulets 
 of conversation, the river of conversation itself toward noth 
 ing, when dinner was announced and the guests, according 
 deference to precedent, passed into the dining room as the 
 order of their importance made place for them in the pro 
 cession. 
 
 The dinner over it was one of those interminable affairs 
 that attest, before they reach a surfeited end, to the infinite 
 resources of the modern cuisine and the endless straits of 
 modern wits the guests left the dining room as they had 
 entered it; and the only difference to mark their exit from 
 their entrance was that they looked more bored on going 
 out than when they had come in. Certainly the fault was 
 not the chef s! 
 
 Anthony s daughter had fallen to Bruce s lot by that 
 inevitable social lav that joins us, in the spirit of marriage, 
 to the person to whom we are least suited, and he was glad 
 when the proper signal permitted him to escape from her 
 table talk, confined to the elevation of the soul of the black 
 folk, and fly to his cigar and coffee, which would be inter 
 ested solely, he hoped, in soothing the vexed digestion of one 
 overfed white. 
 
 237 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 But just before that so-wished-for moment, when he was 
 making his bow in the drawing-room, Inez hailed him and 
 she half said, half whispered, leaning over a book of photo 
 graphic views: 
 
 " I broached the subject of the company to Mr. Wyckoff. 
 If he wasn t aware of its existence, if it took him by surprise, 
 he didn t show it. His eyes twinkled a little brighter for 
 a second and that was all. It may have been that I imag 
 ined it!" 
 
 " Did he ask any questions? " 
 
 " Not one. He changed the subject at once." 
 
 "O wise Sir Anthony!" 
 
 " But that isn t all. My father went to New York last 
 week and he invested in the company." 
 
 " I might be able to tell much if I knew who solicited 
 the investment." 
 
 " Senator Shaw recommended it, I know." 
 
 " Hm ! But after all that tells nothing. Shaw might 
 have been merely acting as Sir Anthony s agent." 
 
 " We are no nearer, then? " 
 
 He shook his head. Her face fell. The intrigue had 
 stirred her pulses; it had given her a hand in affairs of 
 moment and accentuated her importance in the world. 
 
 " Other avenues may open," she said to encourage her 
 self as well as him. " Meanwhile I may need your as 
 sistance." 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 " On account of my father s investment. I believe it 
 has been heavy." 
 
 She might count on him, he assured her before retreat 
 ing, as the mariner on the northern star, unfellowed for 
 constancy in the firmament. When he stepped in the library, 
 and lit at last a reflective cigar, Anthony came and sat 
 
 238 
 
THE ARMS OF THE ENEMY 
 
 himself down beside him on the brocaded seat that ran 
 along the foot of the stained-glass window. Sir Anthony 
 began with a reference to the subject of nicotine first, noting 
 the black cigar between Bruce s teeth. He didn t indulge 
 himself, still he nourished no objection to the weed; in 
 fact, he even found a certain comfort in its fragrance. He 
 told a story or two about the use of chewing tobacco in the 
 pioneer days of the West, joining in Bruce s laughter with 
 his own hearty bass, and then before it died away he grad 
 ually led the subject up to the Shaw Coal and Oil bill, and 
 said: 
 
 " It seems to me a pity that the resources of that vast 
 Western country should lie undeveloped. It would mean work 
 for thousands and thousands and add to the wealth of the 
 country." 
 
 Bruce, wondering where Sir Anthony was tending, agreed 
 with the statement, only he added in reserve : " It appears to 
 me to make all the difference in the world just how that 
 section of country is developed." 
 
 " Certainly," posited Sir Anthony, his shrewd little eyes 
 trying to find more in Bruce s face than his words discov 
 ered. " It seems to me that the Shaw bill is most excellent 
 in some respects, although it has pronounced shortcomings 
 in others." 
 
 Between Anthony s Scylla and Charbydis a whole ocean 
 of ships, not alone our lean and lank hero might slip; so 
 easy was the escape that, robbing adventure of excitement, 
 it made the emprise scarcely worth the while. " I am in 
 clined to agree with you," said Bruce. " But it would seem 
 to me that its faults are more pronounced than its virtues." 
 He was trying to entice Anthony s ship into the narrows, 
 wreck it, so to say, that he might learn the nature of the 
 cargo. 
 
 239 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 But during the commercial Odyssey the wily Ulysses 
 had learned to beware of dangers he once had escaped ; and 
 his ship turned, making for the open seas of conversation, 
 leaving our hero with no more knowledge concerning the 
 course mapped out on its charts than when he had first 
 hailed it. 
 
 The watchful Bruce, letting his observing glances wander 
 around the room, met an inquiring glance of Sydney, who 
 was quite as anxious as Bruce himself to know whether An 
 thony had any suspicions as to the existence of the great 
 reefs and shoals that lay in his course. 
 
 It might have been quite as fortunate for Sydney in one 
 way as it was unfortunate for Bruce in another that he 
 did not know what thoughts were whirling through the 
 dark inner recesses of Anthony s mind. Inez s remarks, 
 dropped as they were by a babbling woman ignorant of 
 business, Shaw s delay in getting the bill reported out, 
 aroused in the financier horrible suspicions. He would bide 
 his time, and, if investigation proved Shaw treacherous, he 
 would pay him out sufficient rope to dangle his political corpse 
 from the beams of his thwarted and disappointed ambition. 
 
 A few seconds later the nervous, restless Anthony shifted 
 his position again, and he was holding a low-voiced con 
 ference with the Polish ambassador near the shadows of 
 the black velvet draperies. The subject must have been one 
 of more than ordinary importance; for Anthony s crossed 
 eyes gazed anxiously into the Count s heavy Slavonic face 
 looking stoically ahead into space. Bruce sought distraction 
 by trying to imagine the words that passed between the 
 magnate and the minister; but with eagle wing outflying 
 the sparrow, Anthony s boldness let Bruce s fancy sink far, 
 far below. 
 
 "If then " so ended Anthony s long discussion " your 
 240 
 
THE ARMS OF THE ENEMY 
 
 minister of finance will divide your territory, regulate your 
 prices on oil, and force your producers to combine with us, 
 I ll do all I can to see to it that the Extradition Treaty goes 
 through the Senate in the shape you suggest." 
 
 The Count rubbed his thickly veined hand from his cheek 
 bones to his nose and proceeded, much to Anthony s annoy 
 ance he could see through a stone with a hole in it to 
 go over the same ground once again; and again Anthony 
 explained and agreed. And so was concluded that mo 
 mentous bargain by which Cosmopolitan oil was to go 
 abroad to be burned, and Polish political refugees were to 
 be sent home to meet something like the same condign pun 
 ishment. 
 
 Meanwhile, the hours were growing small, and Bruce 
 arose to remind Elaine, deep in Polish sculpture with the 
 Countess Villari, that a new day was well on its way. When 
 they went in search of their wraps the imperial Fiske blocked 
 their path to remark that he was on a still hunt for his 
 daughter and to vent some ironical phrase or other on the 
 elusiveness of women. Fiske, making for his hat and coat, 
 ranged himself beside Elaine, and Bruce moved slowly ahead 
 down the broad Caen stone stairway. 
 
 The door, respecter of persons first and last, opened 
 gravely to let pass Justice Addams and his wife. The justice 
 paused while his wife gave the final arrangement to her 
 cloak, and a sudden gust of wind, seizing the opportunity, 
 blew aside the curtains in the deep recess of the landing, 
 a step removed from where Bruce stood. The blown drapery 
 gave him a glimpse, shadowlike in the way it fell across his 
 vision and darted away from it of Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck 
 in Sydney P. Shaw s arms. Even before his senses could raise 
 a question as to the reality of the scene, fearful lest Fiske 
 and Elaine budge another inch, and Fiske s mere seeing of 
 
 241 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the incident give it a tragic emphasis, he remarked in tones 
 unusually loud: 
 
 "I ll bet neither of you can touch both banisters with 
 your ringer tips like that." 
 
 " And he represents one-ninetieth of the dignity of the 
 Senate, too," drawled Fiske s ironical voice. 
 
 242 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SERVANTS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ROSSITER REMBRANDT DICKINSON quit 
 work on his huge canvas " The Shut Down," the 
 fourth in the Great American Series of ten a little 
 earlier than usual, for the day had been a severe drain on his 
 emotions" and sympathies. Both Captain Jack Munger and 
 Lieutenant Glenn Dodson had broken the news to him of 
 their immediate departure under Government orders one 
 to the far West, the other to the far East ; and R. R. was 
 heavy of heart and depressed in mood. He strolled out 
 through the Mall and, sitting himself down on a bench, drank 
 in deep breaths of the crisp wintry air, and gazed at the 
 Monument, the clear-cut outlines of which were gradually 
 merging in the clouds and the softer atmosphere of the sun 
 set. It stood there solitary and lonely, resting on the earth, 
 merely resting there and leaving it as if too majestic for 
 aught but the heavens. 
 
 " It s like me," reflected R. R., through whose mind a 
 kindred thought was traveling; "it s lonely and alone. 
 Maybe that s why I like it so much. All my friends going, 
 leaving here, and I stand lonely and more lonely. Captain 
 Jack going, Lieutenant Glenn going. And when Captain 
 Jack cornes back he s to marry little Miss Weber. Well, I 
 suspected as much before he confided it to me. I ought to 
 fall in love with some woman and marry, too, I suppose. 
 
 243 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 But I can t do it; it doesn t seem in me. They bother me, 
 women do; they bore me. My God, how lonely I m getting! 
 I m as far off from the rest of the world and its people as 
 if I were on the top of the monument looking down. It 
 may be majestic for a piece of stone, but it s hard on a man ; 
 that s what it is it s hard. But look how nobly the old 
 fellow stands on guard to-day ! Upon my word, the monu 
 ment is alive. Almost as human as if he knew what a com 
 panion he is for me. You go home, R. R., and cheer up ! " 
 
 He arose and hobbled along sadly, his head down, his 
 shoulders shrugged, his long ridge of eyebrow shooting out. 
 " Four of the ten almost done," he murmured, " and no more 
 recognition than if I had never lifted a brush ! I don t care 
 a hazelnut, though, if I starve to death. I ll finish the series. 
 I m right; I know I m right and I m going ahead. I can t 
 paint chinee roses and I can t pick chocolate-cream nymphs 
 out of clay with a toothpick; I can t, and what s more, I 
 won t." 
 
 He turned to look at the Monument again, his sad 
 thoughts centering around it. 
 
 " I can t make life out," he maundered, " it s too much 
 for me. It s tragedy, it s comedy; it s a whirligig that you 
 can t stop long enough to find out what it means. It s a 
 wheel, that s what life is, that keeps turning and turning 
 ^around until your head gets dizzy from trying to follow its 
 whirl; and the rogues and the rascals are safely sheltered in 
 the hub of it, directing its course to suit themselves, and the 
 sycophants and the parasites manage to find comfortable 
 places on the spokes, and the able and the good and the 
 gentle and the honest are pushed on the rim and crushed 
 to death when it revolves. I m tired of it; I ve had enough 
 of it! I m willing to cry quits. My God! how I m wearied 
 of it all!" 
 
 244 
 
SERVANTS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 He reached the end of the Mall and he wheeled around 
 to take one last lingering look at the obelisk before going 
 home. The sky, flushed by the setting sun, was still bright 
 with colors, as mixed and various as if selected at haphazard 
 from R. R. s lusty palette. The darkness came faster and 
 faster, the glowing pinks and scarlets were fading swiftly; 
 the night had come, but the Monument was still discernible, 
 erect, guardant, as if defying all the powers of nature to 
 force it to yield the smallest fraction of an inch. 
 
 He drew himself up to his full height, moved his shoul 
 ders as far back as they would go and touched his hat. 
 " May I stand thus when my night comes and the darkness 
 falls over me," he whispered, plowing on to his room in the 
 house opposite Franklin Square, trying to solace himself with 
 the reflection that a rubber of whist awaited him, and that 
 his book lay on his table ready to open its covers and spread 
 its usual consolation before him. 
 
 He bade his fit of blues good night; it had dogged him 
 up to the doorstep and he would have no more of its de 
 pressing company; rudely he shook it. But happiness had 
 not calendared that day and night for its own, and the cards 
 were to remain unfingered and the book unread; for while 
 the artist had been counting on his landlord to cheer up his 
 downcast spirits, Scollard was waiting for R. R. to per 
 form something of a like service for him, and the deluded 
 Rossiter Rembrandt found out soon enough that he had been 
 drawing up one reckoning and his host another. Even the 
 bevy of boarders that gathered twice daily around the Scol 
 lard table was by no means up to its standard of light-heart- 
 edness and merriment. 
 
 Unexpectedly, on that very afternoon, Doc Scollard had 
 been dismissed from his position in the War Department, 
 and his poor hand, trembling with age, lacked the confidence 
 
 245 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 to try new doors, and he stood, so to say, shivering in the 
 cold outside, benumbed by despair. The world was black 
 for him. Turn out the gas jet around which a myriad of 
 sand flies swarm at night, and to them the whole universe 
 must seem engulfed in darkness; it is much the same with 
 weak mortals when their little two-penny candle of hope 
 is extinguished. 
 
 Doc Scollard, leaning far back in his chair, ate scarcely 
 a morsel and said not a word. His dim eyes, usually vitre 
 ous, were red, as if from weeping. Now and then he stroked 
 his imperial and mustache nervously, and ran his hand, curi 
 ously marked by reddish spots, through his glossy brown 
 hair that curled back from his forehead and fell on his 
 shoulders in a style that was considered poetic once upon a 
 time. His eccentricity ran to his long hair and stopped 
 short with his habits. His linen was frayed but spotless; 
 his clothes were shabby but clean; his whole attire spoke 
 pathetically of a hard battle against an unrelenting, grind 
 ing, humiliating poverty. Fate had been playing with him 
 all his life as the cat played with the mouse giving him 
 a temporary escape from his misfortunes for the cruel joy 
 of capturing him again to increase his misery. He was not 
 without his share of intellect, taking intellects as they run, 
 but he seemed to have every other ability save the ability 
 of putting his ability to use. He had tried almost every 
 profession known to man, and he contrived to fail lam 
 entably in all of them. He was simply one of those bub 
 bles of chance that the winds of circumstances blow into 
 Washington. 
 
 He belonged to that class of government clerks, called 
 " Sundowners," who seek to add to their slender incomes 
 by doing outside work after the short office hours of the 
 departments are over, and even now the sign " Dr. Scol- 
 
 246 
 
SERVANTS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 lard " hung from his house front inconspicuously, as if rather 
 ashamed of being there, where it invited the hostile action 
 of all the elements and the friendly regard of no patients. 
 He had had only one case in all the years that he had been in 
 Washington, but as that resulted in a damage suit for mal 
 practice he would have been better off without it. There 
 is something about the persistent hard luck of some men 
 that arouses our humor rather than our pity, for the various 
 incidents of their ill-starred careers accumulate one on the 
 other with the comical regularity of a French farce. When 
 Scollard began to detail his misfortune, for which he had 
 an insuppressible fondness, even R. R., who was just as 
 sympathetic as any man could be, found it hard work to 
 restrain a grin, although angry at himself for the ap 
 parent lack of feeling. Scollard, in a word, may be 
 described as the kind of a man whose wife keeps a board 
 ing house. 
 
 Mrs. Scollard shot sundry shy glances at her husband 
 from her end of the table, wondering if it was possible that 
 fate could have a new sorrow in store for them, and if its 
 resourcefulness in that direction had not been exhausted long 
 ago. She was still a good-looking, well-preserved woman, 
 despite all the efforts of carking fate to undermine her health 
 and her attractiveness, and she was usually cheerful and 
 sunny, the result of a frivolous temperament rather than a 
 strong will and mind. A few deep wrinkles, a wide patch 
 of gray hair on her black pompadour were all that her buoy 
 ancy and youth had surrendered to worry and nagging care. 
 Her talk ran entirely to her ancestry she came from the 
 old South and the good times of her youth. 
 
 Fanny Scollard, their only daughter, whom Bruce had 
 the pleasure of meeting at the card party given by Ommaney, 
 lacked but a shade or two to turn her blondness into yellow- 
 
 247 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 ness. R. R. called her " Miss Polly Peroxide " in jest. 
 With her inheritance of good looks, which was not small, 
 the frivolity of one parent and the weakness of the other 
 had come contingently. She was a stenographer in the Pat 
 ent Office and, if one were to judge by her clothes and her 
 jewels her income was suspiciously larger than her salary. 
 She explained away this mystery of finance with an ease 
 and glibness that ought to have won the admiration of the 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 Miss Fanny came and went at what hours she pleased, 
 and if her father remonstrated in his mild, timid manner 
 she retorted that she was earning her own living; and her 
 mother usually flew to her aid with the observation, " That 
 the time to enjoy oneself was when one was young! " 
 
 Rossiter Rembrandt Dickinson, whose quiet observation 
 nothing escaped, often wondered if the father and mother 
 ever questioned their daughter s method of financing her 
 queenly luxury and her flaunting extravagance; as for him 
 self he entertained no doubts on that score. R. R. had 
 lived with the family for years; he had watched the girl, 
 for whom he had a fondness, grow from girlhood into 
 womanhood; he had followed her course from the high 
 school into the Government office, and the decadence of her 
 character had cost him more than one sharp pang. She 
 liked R. R., too, in her own fashion, and she respected him 
 and feared him more than she did any other being on earth. 
 He was downright honest with her; his friendship was 
 without motive, and she felt his superiority and humbled 
 herself before it. She would have blacked his boots had it 
 contributed to his happiness. 
 
 He had had a serious talk with her on one occasion, 
 pointing out, as gently as was in him, how her career must 
 end, and she had burst into tears and said she knew it, that 
 
 248 
 
SERVANTS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 she had lain awake more than one night and sobbed herself 
 to sleep over it, and she promised, with God s help, to mend 
 her ways. She did it, not a week thereafter, by throwing 
 over a congressman and taking up with a senator. The 
 member of Congress, wild with jealousy, had her turned out 
 of office; but the senator ripped up the department and had 
 her restored immediately to a better position at a higher 
 salary. There are times when ambition is to be reckoned 
 among the virtues. 
 
 Grant Scollard, the only son, was the practical member 
 of the family; he earned twenty dollars a week in the Post 
 Office Department and he spent thirty-five. Women of Fan 
 ny s type would have thought him handsome, and Grant 
 himself thought that there was no type of woman who didn t. 
 He was tall, with a good proportion of breadth of chest to 
 length of limb; his blond hair was combed in neat curly 
 layers and his pretty face had as much character as an equal 
 weighty of putty. R. R., whom Grant despised as a vulgar 
 person and a moralist, nicknamed him " Beau Baxter-Street 
 Brummel." 
 
 Grant used what brains he had in the devising of two 
 schemes one for borrowing money and the other for avoid 
 ing to pay it back. He borrowed from generous fellow- 
 clerks, who willingly lent him part of their salaries, asking 
 nothing in return but ten per cent interest. He borrowed 
 freely from Fanny, suspecting whence the money came, and 
 Fanny lent him with an equal freedom, suspecting where 
 the money went to the race track at Benning and the 
 gambling hells just outside of the district line. Vulgar as 
 R. R. was, he had no hesitancy in borrowing from him 
 until he told the profligate, with a grave mien, that it was 
 an insult to take an artist for a banker. He borrowed from 
 his mother, who pinched herself to lend, and he borrowed 
 17 249 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 but suffice to say that he tried to borrow from everybody 
 who would lend. 
 
 Grant never worried, for his faith in the ability of the 
 family and the United States Government to support him 
 was unbounded. His extreme reliance on Uncle Sam s 
 good nature all but cost him his freedom once. He and a 
 number of other clerks made a little too free with the Post 
 Office funds, and before they had time to gamble away 
 their ill-gotten gains warrants were sworn out for their 
 arrest and they were landed in jail, cursing the sternness of 
 a master who had so much and raised such a fuss over so 
 little. When Fanny received a hurried line from her brother, 
 setting forth his trouble and beseeching her aid, the poor 
 girl cried her eyes red and went about the house disconsolate, 
 moaning, " To think that my brother should disgrace our 
 old Southern family like that! " Then she calmed down and 
 had a stormy session with her senator in Grant s behalf, 
 and it ended with the hushing up of the scandal, as far 
 as Grant s part in it was concerned, and the restoration of 
 the young scapegrace to office. One sees what an influential 
 member can do for the rest of the family. 
 
 Despite these trivial faults of character, Grant was his 
 mother s favorite; for she got it into her silly head that his 
 fine looks kept up the family s aristocratic traditions and that 
 he bore a strong resemblance to Bushrod Washington, from 
 the day of whose birth she dated the Christian era and the 
 rise of her family. Grant himself set little store by his 
 ancestry, and every time that his mother boasted of it, which 
 was nearly at every meal, he jeered : " If they d left us less 
 blue blood and more yellow coin, I d go out to see what 
 their graves looked like." 
 
 " But blood will tell," was the mother s cheery reply. 
 She considered Grant very witty. " Yes, it keeps on telling 
 
 250 
 
SERVANTS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the same old story over and over again until you get tired 
 of hearing it," was the response. 
 
 Besides the Scollard family and Rossiter Rembrandt 
 Dickinson, five clerks roomed in the house and as many more 
 came there for their board, and last but foremost in his own 
 modest estimation was a senator s private secretary a man 
 with flaming red hair, freckled cheeks, and a humorous cav 
 ity in the end of his pointed nose. He was the self-elected 
 oracle on all matters appertaining to Washington society 
 and politics, and although his income from this source was 
 far less than from his secretaryship he enjoyed the work far 
 better. 
 
 " There is a great surprise in store for this country a 
 sensation," began the secretary mysteriously, trying to break 
 the cloud of silence that hung over the dinner table that 
 night. "What is it?" asked the dark-faced, dapper clerk 
 from the State Department. He was always in dread of 
 the things that might happen. 
 
 "Oh, nothing!" replied the secretary with portentous 
 vagueness. " All I am willing to say is that there is a great 
 sensation in store for the party in power," and satisfied with 
 the awe awakened by his mysterious givings-out he plunged 
 his fork into a baked potato and refused to say anything 
 further. 
 
 " I wish you would tell your senator," piped Miss Cour- 
 celle, a plump brunette, whose short fat fingers were cov 
 ered with rings, " that the girl he winked his eye at yes 
 terday in the elevator of the Post Office building is apt to be 
 out of a job and she wants to meet him." 
 
 " I ll do that," said the secretary seriously, as if the de 
 mand required grave consideration, " when I catch him in 
 a good humor. He s bothered these days." 
 
 " Well, they don t fire me," chimed in Miss Matheson, 
 251 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 who conformed to Fanny s type in looks and dress, " or I ll 
 make it hot for somebody I know that s all." 
 
 The other clerks, most of whom were employed in the 
 Census Bureau and who had just heard that a large squad 
 was to be laid off, envied Miss Matheson her self-assurance, 
 listened to her in amazement and ate on in depressed silence. 
 
 Dinner over, Miss Fanny Scollard and Miss Matheson 
 put on their hats and went out together, and Miss Courcelle 
 retreated with the oracular secretary for her evening s escort. 
 
 " Mr. Dickinson," asked Doc Scollard, catching the 
 artist as he was about to leave the room, " may I impose 
 on your good nature for a few minutes, may I request the 
 pleasure of your company in the parlor for that length of 
 time?" 
 
 " Certainly," answered Rossiter, forseeing the black 
 shadows of some dire event. 
 
 " Mr. Dickinson," he remarked, slamming the parlor 
 door, " the seriousness of your character separates you at 
 once from the other patrons of my wife s humble board. 
 You are a gentleman and an artist." 
 
 " Which is tautological," said R. R. to himself. 
 
 Scollard paced up and down the room as if propelled by 
 the emotion which he was trying in vain to control; finally 
 he stopped short and dropping into a chair beside R. R. 
 he put his hand on the other s knee in a confidential sort 
 of a way. 
 
 "Well, prepare your mind for the worst; I am out of 
 a job." His excitement had exploded what he had been 
 meaning to take involved and verbose sentences to explain. 
 
 R. R. did his best to console the old fellow, exhausting 
 his resourcefulness in an attempt to trump up reasons why 
 one should not take it sadly to heart when one loses a job. 
 
 " I might feel worse about it," said Scollard, his hand 
 252 
 
SERVANTS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 trembling, his voice husky, " if I thought I had been at all 
 amiss in my duties; but I haven t. No, the whole thing 
 has nothing to do with the faults or virtues of my own. 
 It is all due to the action of Senator Sydney P. Shaw, who 
 had me removed to make room for one of greater political 
 influence. He has entirely forgotten my former valuable 
 services to him. That s the way of the world, Mr. Dick 
 inson ; when a man s old and useless he is thrown aside like 
 an old shoe." 
 
 Scollard drew several sheets of closely written note paper 
 from his pocket and he glanced around the parlor search- 
 ingly, not only to emphasize the importance of secrecy but 
 also to show his peculiar regard for the confidant he had 
 chosen. " I am more apt in written than in verbal expression, 
 and I have resolved not to let this occasion pass without 
 telling the senator my opinion of him." 
 
 Like many a man of weak character, who shrinks from 
 facing a stronger one, Scollard had lashed his timidity into 
 anger, and taking a quick advantage of his momentary and 
 enforced bravery he had hastened to put down in ink what 
 he feared might ooze from his finger ends if he dared a 
 personal encounter. He was vain of his sudden gust of cour 
 age, and he was glad that the signs of it had taken a per 
 manent form for exhibition. 
 
 " Senator," he began to read, adjusting his glasses, " I do 
 not flatter myself that the end of this letter will be other 
 than the waste-paper basket or the fire; but it is sometimes 
 well to recall how we humble ones have helped to assist the 
 mighty in their day of small beginnings. But, lest benefits 
 be forgot, let me recall several of the services that may 
 have slipped your mind, now taken up with affairs more 
 momentous. 
 
 " No. I Senator, who other than Albert Galantin Scol- 
 253 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 lard secured for you the handsome maple tree as well as 
 the honor of planting it on the ground of the State Capitol 
 when the Grand Army of the Republic was there assembled ? 
 
 " No. II Senator, when you were lieutenant governor, 
 whom did you intrust with the delivery of the tents and 
 provisions appropriated by our State to the sufferers of the 
 Johnstown flood, and who saw to it that your name received 
 sufficient laudation for this supposititious act of philanthropy 
 from our local and national press? 
 
 " No. Ill Senator, when you sought your present illus 
 trious position, who was it you intrusted to see certain of our 
 State legislatures with certain messages? 
 
 " I need not go on mentioning other services, for undoubt 
 edly these already detailed have started a chain of associa 
 tion that will bring up only too quickly what I have failed 
 to expatiate on. 
 
 " Now, senator, you say it is due to no fault of your 
 own if you have not at your disposal sufficient patronage to 
 satisfy the clamorous demands of insistent office seekers; but, 
 then let me ask you why you go outside of the borders of 
 your own State to choose strangers who have done nothing 
 for your political fortunes to fill those positions at your com 
 mand? How, senator, can you explain to your friends at 
 home the fact that you have selected a young, beautiful, and 
 enticing widow from Kentucky for your private secretary? 
 Do you think, when once known, this will increase your 
 popularity among the deserving but unemployed citizens of 
 our mother State?- 
 
 " Senator, you know that unlike yourself I cannot betray 
 the man, whatever his debt of gratitude to me, from whom 
 I once have accepted favors; therefore, you need have no 
 fear of me if I say to you that when I called at your home, 
 at your own request to assist the said young, beautiful, and 
 
 254 
 
SERVANTS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 enticing widow from Kentucky may your enemies never 
 learn of her existence! in the distribution of an extraor 
 dinarily heavy mail, I found by the merest accident im 
 portant documents that would spell your political ruin if 
 they had chanced to fall into any other hands but my own. 
 The first of these documents, written in your hand, is self- 
 explanatory. I humbly beseech you for the sake of your own 
 good reputation to take better care of it. The second ex 
 hibit, which I hold of no inferior value from a sensational 
 point of view, is a series of newspaper articles that show 
 your connection with the long-forgotten scandal concerning 
 the contracts for the erection of one of our State buildings. 
 The past, it is true, dies, senator, but it is never buried. 
 
 " Can it be possible, senator, that the suavity which 
 allows you so easily to explain to your old friends that you 
 have no jobs for them when you fill fat positions with 
 slender, young, beautiful, and enticing widows from Ken 
 tucky, will help you to pluck the deadly sting contained in 
 these documents? 
 
 " To relieve you from all apprehension, and to read you 
 through my own humble self a lesson in gratitude, I here 
 with enclose the aforesaid documents, urging you to destroy 
 them before they fall into the hands of men less scrupulous, 
 honest, and punctilious than he whom you sent to assist the 
 young, beautiful, and enticing widow from Kentucky." 
 
 " Ha! ha! " burst out the old man suddenly, " that will 
 make him squirm, I wager; that s heaping coals of fire 
 on his head ! That will make him regret his perfidy. What 
 do you think of that for a letter, Mr. Dickinson? " 
 
 " I think," advised R. R. gravely, " that it would be 
 the biggest mistake in the world to put that letter in the 
 mails. You will only anger Shaw and you can t gain any 
 thing by the transaction. Besides, I know some people of 
 
 255 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 more or less prominence here, and I might prevail on them 
 to find something for you in another department, and there 
 is no good in having Shaw s enmity to blacken your character 
 to start with." 
 
 Scollard s woe-begone face darkened, then it brightened 
 again like that of a man who has been cheated by hope 
 so often that he is unwilling to trust in its blandishments 
 again. After all, hope offers the same refuge to mortals that 
 the sands of the desert do to the terror-stricken ostrich; a 
 something wherein to hide our heads when we are utterly 
 routed and afraid to face life. It may be worse than foolish to 
 seek such a flimsy shelter, but it has its comfort for a terrible 
 moment just the same. The luckless Scollard had been taught 
 long ago, by bitter experience, the vanity of that expedient. 
 
 " It s always time enough to despair shove that off to 
 the last moment," piped R. R. as cheerily as he could. " You 
 leave it to me, I ll find you as good a job as you lost or I ll 
 never put brush to canvas again." 
 
 " Well," remarked Scollard, with a show of bravery 
 under adversity, " I suppose matters are never so bad that 
 they might not be worse." 
 
 " Never, and we re never so badly off that some one is 
 not still worse off, which is meant for consolation to all but 
 the one man in the world who is the worst off of all." 
 
 They arose together to leave the room when R. R. 
 stopped to add : " Supposing you give me those incriminating 
 documents. I won t do any harm with them, I promise 
 you, and they might be good batteries to hold in reserve." 
 He thought thus to take from him one of the most besetting 
 of the temptations to send that ill-advised, bombastic brief. 
 
 Scollard offered an objection; R. R. argued against it, 
 then they debated his counter argument for a moment, and 
 Scollard yielded as a child to its parent. 
 
 256 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A FALLING OUT 
 
 RR., in strict accordance with his promise to Scollard, 
 9 paid his second visit to Elaine s studio early the 
 next morning; as on the first occasion, he opened 
 the door without announcing his coming by a preliminary 
 knock. Even before she looked up, an intuitive flash told 
 Elaine who it was. He stood there abashed, hardly knowing 
 how to word the errand on which he had come ; it seemed such 
 a wrench of the fitness of things to request a favor of her. 
 She stood in expectation of some more gratuitous criticism of 
 her work, and she stiffened up ready to resent it. She shot 
 a protecting glance through her glasses at her statuettes, 
 just as naturally as a mother s eyes turn toward her children 
 at the first warning of danger. R. R. caught the movement 
 as well as the motive, and he grinned. 
 
 " No, I didn t come in about that," he explained, shaking 
 his head solemnly; " its politics in a way I want you to help 
 me." 
 
 "You in politics!" 
 
 " You needn t laugh," he broke forth, turning red, " I m 
 not in it in any but a charitable sense. I want to help some 
 body." 
 
 " I can t imagine your doing that, either." 
 
 " I didn t come to squabble. I don t want to squabble," 
 he spluttered. " I want your assistance for a worthy cause. 
 Will you give it to me? " 
 
 257 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " Certainly, you might have asked that in the first place." 
 
 His grin changed to a pleasant smile, for he was glad to 
 be taken thus, and without more ado he stated Doc Scollard s 
 plight, asking Elaine to seek her brother s influence in his 
 landlord s behalf. She promised her assistance with more 
 warmth than he had requested it, and after making an ap 
 pointment to meet her at four o clock in the library, where 
 she had some work to do v he waddled downstairs to his studio. 
 
 He quit work ahead of time that afternoon and waited 
 for Elaine in the lobby of the building, treading up and down 
 restlessly, muttering to himself. 
 
 " You seem to be amusing yourself," said she when she 
 joined him. 
 
 " Not particularly." He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " You ought to, amid these splendors of art and marble." 
 
 " Splendors of marble, yes and no ; the hand of the poli 
 tician and the loud, vulgar parvenu taste of the Government 
 contractors are here; splendor of art, absolutely no. I hate 
 to come here for some reasons it is such a blasting ser 
 mon on our artistic achievements. Look around you ! " he 
 waved his short arm and an expression of disgust crept over 
 his face. 
 
 " What don t you like about the paintings? " she asked. 
 
 "What do I like about them!" he roared. "They re 
 only fit to adorn a young lady s boudoir, together with her 
 fancywork and her knickknacks and her fans and her toilet 
 articles of sterling silver. They re pretty, they re soft, they re 
 namby-pamby. They re painted with water and thistle 
 down brushes. There is no feeling in em, no life, no red 
 blood! They re weak imitations and anaemic copies of the 
 robust masterpieces of the past. That s a good phrase, that 
 last one! " he interjected. 
 
 They moved along through the corridors slowly and he 
 
 258 
 
A FALLING OUT 
 
 poured forth his invective as they went past the various panels. 
 "American art, bah!" he growled; "it all reminds me of 
 the Californian claret that goes over to France and comes 
 back here with a foreign label. My compliments to these 
 daubers" he doffed his hat burlesquely " they belong to 
 America s Barber s Own school of painting. One honest 
 American theme, done by a man of blood and iron, would be 
 worth the pack." 
 
 "And the Evolution of the Book?" she asked, it must 
 be confessed with something like timidity. 
 
 "It s done to order; it s forced; it s trumped up. It s 
 no good. The book was born of agony of the mind, of trav 
 ail of the soul, of the blood of the heart. It came of a faith 
 that mocked at the tortures of the thumbscrew and the 
 flames of martyrdom. Did your artist feel that? Did he 
 show it ? 
 
 He turned toward the ornate marble stairway, and 
 Elaine followed him, curious to hear his scathing criticisms 
 and his vehement manner of delivering them. 
 
 " The higher up you go;" he commented, " the worse 
 it gets, more allegories, more vapid symbolism and less art. 
 The pictures on the Arts and on War and Peace in these ad 
 joining rooms aren t worth one stone of the stairs up which 
 we came. War is hell, that s what war is it s carnage; 
 it s slaughter ; it s all that s terrible, and these dainty, affected, 
 sentimental paintings give one no more the idea of war than 
 so many lavendered fops in dress coats would do. Peace 
 gives me the horrors worse than * War that jumble of 
 priests, with their votive offerings must have marched out 
 of a convent of the conventionalities. The pictures breathe 
 no calm, no beneficence, no blessed tranquillity." 
 
 " There is some justice in what you say," she remarked. 
 
 " Some justice! It s all as just as justice itself! Come, 
 259 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 let us get away from this. It depresses me. I hate it! 
 Let us look at some real art and lift up our souls." 
 
 He strutted along hastily, pushed forward by his enthu 
 siasm, all forgetful of her and entered the pavilion devoted to 
 the Hubbard collection of Rembrandt etchings and engrav 
 ings. 
 
 " We ve got out of the muck of the alleys and into the 
 temple of art," he said. " I wouldn t give one of those little 
 etchings of Rembrandt s beggars for all the yards of the 
 painting we have seen. One doesn t know what to turn to 
 first here. What character, what ease, what genius in every 
 thing that his hand touched. Here s the portrait of the 
 * Shipbuilder and his Wife ; you can hear them talk if you 
 listen. She s a shrewd, knowing, kindly housewife, isn t she? 
 And he s a busy, absent fellow, hard to take away from his 
 accounts. And those quaint Jewish patriarchs and the blind 
 Tobit ! The poetry, the strength, the originality ! And the 
 power and the sympathy in those portraits of his mother! 
 And his Christ Healing the Sick, what love and humanity 
 are there in that! What supreme and masterful skill in 
 every detail, in every light and shadow! He s my artist! 
 I wish I could have been with him in his day of adversity, 
 to have waited on him, to have cleaned his brushes, to have 
 run his errands. Just to have seen him, to have heard the 
 sound of his voice would have been worth it all." 
 
 " Do you really mean it? " she asked. 
 
 " Do I mean it ! " he said with a full and quiet emphasis, 
 as he stood lost in admiration for the marvelous composition 
 of the " Ecce Homo," its Christ, sublime and luminous, 
 struggling between divine faith and bodily torment. She 
 imagined that there were tears in R. R. s eyes. 
 
 " I never thought it of you," she murmured. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Rembrandt represents all 
 260 
 
A FALLING OUT 
 
 that I worship sincerity, strength, and love. Who wouldn t 
 grovel in the dust before the incarnation of that trinity?" 
 
 " I thought " She paused. " I have learned many 
 things this afternoon," she said. 
 
 He looked at her inquiringly for a moment. His rugged 
 face softened as if one of the master s pictures was before 
 his eyes, then his ridge of brow lengthened and his usual ex 
 pression came over his countenance as he cautioned : 
 
 " It s long after four. We shall have to hurry or we 
 shall miss your brother." 
 
 R. R. s warning had but one fault it came altogether 
 too late the Senate had adjourned over an hour ago and 
 Bruce was not to be found in his committee rooms. The 
 artist gave vent to his usual plaint about the loss of time, but, 
 nevertheless, he was quick to urge a call early in the morning 
 of the morrow in order to guard against all danger of missing 
 Bruce a second time. 
 
 " I grumble, but I do it anyway," he complained, as he 
 dragged his fat body up the stairs at the hour appointed; 
 " and that s where I m foolish; either I ought to do it and 
 not grumble, or else I ought to leave it alone. What I need 
 is philosophy." 
 
 " Ah, you ! " exclaimed Elaine, her white cheeks coloring 
 the least bit, for despite the fact that she had been awaiting 
 him, his entrance came with an unaccountable shock of sur 
 prise. 
 
 " Ah, me ! " he mocked in return, his visage solemn, his 
 ridge of brow projecting. " For once you are glad to see 
 me." 
 
 "I? Glad to see you How do you know? " 
 
 "You can fool Rossiter Rembrandt Dickinson about 
 everything else, but you can t fool him about the human 
 countenance I ve painted it too long." 
 
 261 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " Oh, R. R.," she exclaimed impulsively, "did ever a 
 man s words and manner so belie his heart?" Now that 
 she was getting used to the roughness of this singular 
 man, she caught the humorous instead of the irritating angle 
 of it. 
 
 " I don t know whether they have or not ; and what s 
 more I don t care. Let s make for the Capitol." 
 
 She removed her blouse and they hastened to catch their 
 car. " Another morning gone to rack and ruin," he scolded, 
 when he passed the door of his closed studio. 
 
 " But I am giving up my morning, too," she objected. 
 " I know all that," he put in complacently, " but that s 
 different." 
 
 " I don t mind your conceit half so much since I have 
 learned your virtues," she laughed. 
 
 " It isn t conceit," he pleaded earnestly, " it s knowledge 
 born of faith." 
 
 His face was solemn, lit up as with the consciousness 
 of a high and firm purpose. Elaine perceived the fading ex 
 pression, and she recognized how necessary his conceit was to 
 his faith, his faith to his accomplishments. Yes, she was 
 ready to forgive the egotism that had repulsed her so much 
 at first ; she was forming an attachment for this rough, crude, 
 sterling man, with his host of contradictions. Before one 
 understands the finer qualities from which conceit is so often 
 radiated, it is the most difficult of faults to overlook; after 
 this understanding it becomes the easiest. 
 
 They found Bruce alone in his room in the sub-basement 
 of the Capitol, looking worn and preoccupied, but a pleasant 
 smile lit up his face the moment his eyes rested on his sister 
 and R. R. While Elaine was telling the purpose of their 
 visit, Rossiter Rembrandt sat by in a glum silence, twirling 
 his slouch hat, scowling murderously. In the narrow, con- 
 
 262 
 
A FALLING OUT 
 
 suming hatred that he entertained for all politicians, it oc 
 curred to him that he was debasing himself by seeking a 
 favor, even though for another, from the hands of Senator 
 McAllister, who was of the genus; wondering why he had 
 not thought about that before starting out on his quest. 
 
 Bruce listened patiently to Elaine until she had done 
 R. R. put in but a curt word here and there despite her ap 
 pealing looks for assistance and then he remarked that he 
 didn t know but that the children learned to say in the public 
 schools that the three departments of the United States Gov 
 ernment were the executive, the administrative and the jobic- 
 uary. " I just wrote a fellow last week," he went on, " that 
 the only job I had left was my own, and he had the impudence 
 to write back that he was perfectly willing to humble his 
 pride and take that. I sometimes wish he had." His gray 
 eyes twinkled undecidedly between humor and dreams, and 
 sadness. 
 
 Bruce s quips fell flat and met with a dismal failure 
 in so far as R. R. was concerned ; he listened with an angry 
 face, his eyes shooting from the floor to Bruce, from Bruce 
 back again to the floor, as if he wished to say something and 
 yet liked not to let himself go. 
 
 " You see," Bruce proceeded, " it s a rather delicate piece 
 of business for me to put Scollard right back to work after 
 Shaw has removed him, especially so, since my relations with 
 Senator Shaw are what you might call a little strained. 
 However, I may be able to get the thing done indirectly so 
 that my hand won t show in it. Call up at the house some 
 evening, Mr. Dickinson, and see us." 
 
 Bruce s eyes wandered with an unwilling and weary 
 glance toward the papers and documents heaped up before 
 him on the long table. 
 
 " Yes, I ll call," said R. R. in a way that showed he in- 
 263 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 tended to do nothing of the sort. The artist wobbled to the 
 door, fished through his various pockets, and finally drew 
 forth the documents Scollard had abstracted from Shaw s 
 correspondence. " I won t give it to him," he said. " It 
 wouldn t make any difference if I did; these politicians all 
 stand in with one another, anyway." 
 
 When they left the basement and passed through the corn 
 stalk columns at the foot of the East stairway this Samson 
 of criticism pulled them up root and all and when they 
 wended their way through the stretches of corridor and down 
 the Capitol stairs, R. R. turned a deaf ear to Elaine s defense 
 of her brother s attitude. He nodded his big shaggy head 
 mechanically and his face grew black outer signs of the 
 tempest raging within. "They re all like that!" he 
 grumbled to himself, " they ll tell you a funny horse- thief 
 story that s what I call them, horse-thief stories and they 
 will laugh while their poor victims eat out their hearts. 
 Those demagogues and thieves! If one of them didn t watch 
 the other they d tear down the Capitol to sell the marble and 
 old iron. Whenever there s a big theft, it s merely a sign 
 that there has been a truce between them, and a laying down 
 of arms. They stop throttling each other to join hands and 
 throttle the public. Those humorous senators are like the 
 Capitol dome beautiful and imposing on the outside but a 
 lie and a sham inside, propped up by false scenery and hidden 
 screens. They remind me of the slums of Washington, rele 
 gated to the alleys behind rows of fine residences. I d like 
 to let out! I d like to tell her! I m burning! I m scorch 
 ing! But what s the use? It s her brother and she knows 
 that it is no secret that he is a politician. That s what I m 
 afraid of her own brother is a politician and there must be 
 bad blood in the family." 
 
 " It might all be different," interposed Elaine, embar- 
 264 
 
A FALLING OUT 
 
 rassed by his ominous silence, " if my brother and Senator 
 Shaw had not had a political difference." 
 
 R. R. grinned savagely, showing his teeth. " I wonder 
 if she expects me to swallow that excuse?" he muttered 
 privately, and then he said aloud: " I know what Shaw is! 
 I know just as well as your brother does. Doc Scollard is 
 a better man any day ; I don t care a drop of blood from the 
 top of my thumb if the one is an unfortunate devil out of a 
 bread-and-butter job and the other a senator. It s the old 
 story of truth on the scaffold and wrong on the throne. Do 
 you know what? It makes me sick! You needn t laugh at 
 me; I know what I am talking about! Rossiter Rembrandt 
 Dickinson doesn t say things unless he is sure of them." 
 
 Elaine hastened to assure him that it was his awful seri 
 ousness and not his statements which invited her smile; and 
 that explanation seemed to rile him still more, for his brows 
 puckered until they shriveled like a dried peeling. 
 
 They were seated in a Pennsylvania Avenue car, rolling 
 homeward toward their studio building, when Elaine re 
 marked in the mere desire to make conversation and end a 
 disagreeable silence: " Don t you admire my brother? 
 Hasn t he a fine sense of humor ? " 
 
 It was more than the excited and excitable R. R. could 
 stand. The living, boiling volcano burst forth. Our pas 
 sions are much like Swedish safety matches, harmless enough 
 until rubbed against the surface that supplies the missing 
 element for combustion, then they ignite. "Admire him? 
 Admire him!" he groaned. "Girl, I d like to know for 
 what? Didn t he refuse to lift a finger to help a starving 
 and worthy man to support himself honestly? He s a dema 
 gogue ! He s a politician ! He and that man Shaw are two 
 of a kind ! " R. R. paused ; there was a terrorized expres 
 sion on Elaine s pale face that stopped his unreckoning, fool- 
 18 265 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 ish anger with a jerk. She touched the bell, arose from her 
 seat and was out of the car before her eccentric escort could 
 realize what had happened. He had wounded her where she 
 was the most sensitive, and she was too hurt to trust herself 
 to speak, lest the tears that were starting to her eyes should 
 roll down her cheeks. 
 
 " Well, it s the truth anyway," he said to himself grimly; 
 " but I was a big fool to shock her with it. Why did I tell 
 her that? I ought to have known better. I m sorry I hurt 
 her feelings. The truth isn t for women, it s for men; they 
 aren t strong enough to hear it." 
 
 He bounded to his feet, tore down the aisle and jumped 
 off the whirling car, without giving the conductor the signal 
 to stop ; his fat body rolled in an awkward bundle, head over 
 heels, and he landed on the asphalt pavement, slippery with 
 February ice, in a wriggling heap. The conductor shouted, 
 the motorman yelled ; the pedestrians stopped to laugh at his 
 clumsiness ; a heavy truck came to a sharp halt amid the vol 
 uble curses of its driver, and R. R. scrambled to his feet, 
 severely jolted and bruised, his upper lip cut, but saved from 
 any serious damage by one of those miracles which usually 
 attend accidents. " I always knew, I always predicted that 
 a woman would be the death of me. Haven t I said so a 
 thousand times? " he muttered, taking a quick survey of the 
 rent in his overcoat. " There s no use in trying to avoid 
 it. Kismet!" 
 
 " Did you hurt yourself? " asked an old man in the crowd 
 of bystanders as the artist was brushing his clothes with his 
 hands and looking around for Elaine. 
 
 " What s it your business? " he replied savagely. " I ve 
 been in every big city on earth and I never saw a place to 
 equal Washington yet; no one has anything to do but stand 
 around and gape and watch everybody else! It s the laziest 
 
 266 
 
A FALLING OUT 
 
 town on earth; politics has ruined it. Why don t you go 
 to work?" 
 
 The sympathetic old man moved away, wondering from 
 what asylum this lunatic had escaped, and R. R. elbowed his 
 way through the crowd and limped hastily after Elaine, 
 whom he saw hurrying toward the corner to catch the next 
 car. Her tears had dried, but a sorrowful expression still 
 lingered on her face, tightening the refined lines of it. 
 
 " I m sorry," he consoled, planting his burly body beside 
 her, " I m awfully sorry, I m just as sorry as a man can be. 
 I didn t mean anything. You know me; you know how 
 gruff and crossgrained I am. I meant politicians, I didn t 
 mean your brother." 
 
 Her gaze was fastened straight ahead, as if she pretended 
 not to hear, as if his remarks were addressed to another. 
 The passers-by stared and wondered, their attention attracted 
 by R. R. s bawling voice, surprised less at this lovers quarrel 
 than that such a refined and gentle woman should take up 
 with such a brute of a man. 
 
 Without heeding where she was going Elaine let R. R. 
 lead her to the market corner, w r here a crowd was waiting 
 for cross-town cars. " Let s turn into the Mall," he sug 
 gested ; " I can t talk to you here." 
 
 " I don t care to talk, if you will be kind enough to ex 
 cuse me." 
 
 " But I apologized, didn t I ? You know how hard it is 
 for me to apologize, and I apologized." 
 
 " The apology was gratuitous; I didn t request it." One 
 is never so conscious of one s injury as when the wound is 
 being salved ; and the tears started to form in her eyes again. 
 
 " Don t cry," he pleaded softly. " I can t bear to see a 
 woman cry. It kills me." 
 
 He turned his steps toward the Mall and while deciding 
 
 267 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 whether to accompany him or not she was borne along with 
 him, past the dingy restaurants and the squalid stores that 
 fronted the market. After the turmoil and the excitement 
 through which they had passed, the quiet and the serenity 
 of the park came as the odors of balm and pine. The sun 
 shone clearly, it was almost noon, and one could all but hear 
 the snow that had fallen the night before melt at the touch 
 of the warm green grass, pushing up in a premature and mis 
 taken effort to carpet a pathway for spring. The sturdy 
 evergreen trees welcomed the sun and the snow impartially, 
 exhilarated by plunging in extremes, and their dancing shad 
 ows played squirrel-like on the paths and the lawns. He 
 wondered as they strolled along what he should say, and she 
 wondered why she had come there to let him say it; deter 
 mined, whatever his apology, not to accept it. 
 
 " Let s sit down here," he said, pointing to a secluded 
 bench and suiting his action to his words. There was noth 
 ing for her to do but to follow. " The morning s gone any 
 way," he added. 
 
 " But it s your fault; you came for me." 
 
 " That s so ; I did ; didn t I ? " There are many men like 
 R. R. whose serious purpose and high ambitions in life place 
 such an exorbitant value on their time that their hearts are 
 turned into veritable clocks to sob out the flight of seconds 
 and minutes. 
 
 Elaine, glancing up, saw the blood trickling from the long 
 cut on his lip. 
 
 " What s the matter? " she asked, frightened. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, nothing at all." He applied his hand 
 kerchief to it. 
 
 " But it s bleeding. How did that happen? " 
 
 " I jumped off the car to catch you. The fool of a con 
 ductor didn t stop and I tumbled." 
 
 268 
 
A FALLING OUT 
 
 " You might have killed yourself. You re reckless." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, blessing the wound. " What s 
 the difference? No one would care very much, except me, 
 and I shouldn t be left to mourn." 
 
 She smiled at his ludicrous logic, poking into the gravel 
 of the walk with the end of her umbrella stick. " Why 
 didn t she say she would be sorry," he thought. " That s 
 it ; no one cares for me." He eyed her squarely ; she averted 
 her face, still prodding in the gravel as if her words were 
 buried there and she would unearth them. 
 
 " Come now, would you care? " he asked. 
 
 " Don t be sentimental ! " 
 
 " Sentimental to ask if you would care if I were killed ? " 
 
 "Of course it is, when you know I would anybody 
 would." 
 
 " Humph," he growled. His arm had strayed in a trifling 
 proximity to her shoulder, his protective instinct stirred by 
 the very sorrow he himself had caused her. She moved away. 
 
 " You don t expect me to cry my eyes out, do you, after 
 you insulted Bruce that way? He s the most unselfish of 
 men. I could " 
 
 " Yes," he interrupted, hoping to appease her, " it seems 
 to me that I read something to that effect in one of the papers. 
 I guess, though, that all brothers are unselfish and noble and 
 all that. I often wish I had a sister." 
 
 " You don t deserve one." 
 
 " That s perfectly true. I don t suppose she would know 
 what to make out of me any more than anybody else does." 
 
 "You are hard to make out; and that s the reason, 
 maybe, why it s hard for you to make others out. You don t 
 understand Bruce." 
 
 " I don t know that I want to understand him; I don t 
 care for characters that are too transparent. It s like well, 
 
 269 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 I tried to paint up in Duluth once, and I had to give it up ; 
 the atmosphere was too clear, too translucent; everything 
 stands out too rigidly; there s no shadow, no shade to the 
 objects; and that s the way it is with people to my notion; 
 if they haven t streaks of contradiction and shadows they re 
 not interesting." 
 
 But Elaine would not be shunted aside from her purpose ; 
 and she put Bruce s character before R. R. lovingly, albeit 
 with vigor and enthusiasm. 
 
 " Well, I apologize," he said meekly; " I apologize hon 
 estly and sincerely." 
 
 " And I accept it in the same spirit," she replied. 
 
 He heaved an inward sigh of relief all quarreling on 
 that score was over; so much talk; so little done and the 
 whole morning and its fine light for work gone to the dogs ; 
 still it was well wasted, he tried to console himself; it had 
 been spent with her and she appealed to him ; she sympathized 
 with his aims had she not told him so that morning? and 
 she admired the sincerity and constancy with which he clung 
 to his ideals. 
 
 270 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE HOMAGE OF HYPOCRISY 
 
 HONESTY, seeking converts to its cause, lent to Frank 
 lin De Wolfe Fiske a bundle of manuscript devoted 
 to certain phases of the Shaw Coal and Oil bill, over 
 which it had moiled with the zeal that only the missionary 
 spirit knows. Fiske, his own mind now made up beyond the 
 peradventure of a doubt as to the enormity of the swindle, 
 gave back the tracts without a word of comment. 
 
 When the proselyting documents were returned, Bruce 
 searched the papers in ardent quest for the one sheet cap 
 tain over the manuscript that summed up in brief form the 
 net results of the entire investigation. Repeated search 
 failed to reveal its place in the ranks or at the head of the 
 imposing array of documents. It was his own carelessness 
 rather than the desertion of the trusted one, he charged, that 
 failed to discover it. But it often happens that those who 
 seek for one thing find another; so, as Bruce anxiously fin 
 gered leaf after leaf of this much-studied manuscript, he 
 became conscious of the delicate scent, unfolding like a flower, 
 of rose leaves crushed. 
 
 Bruce s thoughts, despite himself, wandered away from 
 the dull statistical tables and surveyors reports to this fra 
 grance that sent a challenge to his memory by way of his 
 nostrils. Finally, as if the challenger had given a fillip to his 
 memory by tweaking his nose, it dawned upon him that this 
 
 271 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 was the attar of roses, which had been culled from the fields 
 of Omar s land and been delivered in person by the direct 
 representative of the Shah of all the Persias to Georgia Fiske 
 Ten Eyck. 
 
 On the wings of the fragrance his thoughts were wafted 
 backward to that dinner at the Hammersmiths , and he re 
 called how his recollection of the events of that night came 
 to a close with Georgia in the arms of Sydney P. Shaw. So 
 with a full orchestra of all instruments may a quiet music 
 be brought to a clangorous silence! 
 
 The conclusion was easy enough, even for duller wits. 
 Georgia s nimble fingers had handled those documents meant 
 only for her father s ruder clasp. But why had she done 
 this? He gave himself over to reflection, consideration of 
 all else dying out of his mind as the gray died out of his 
 glittering eyes, but at the end of an hour he was only lost 
 the deeper in the labyrinth of his own construction. 
 
 The puzzle absorbed him, and his life for that week 
 would have been lived within the walls of self, dead to action 
 and the outer world, were not a play spectacular in effects, 
 inimical to dreams, going on in the Senate. For it was dur 
 ing one of those days, crowded with incident, that the Mc 
 Allister Anti-Child Labor bill came up and passed by a 
 large majority. Popular clamor, the fires of which were 
 fanned to flames by the excitement of a whole people, had 
 aroused the Olympian senators, careless of mankind, to 
 action at last. 
 
 As guile and craft, which had opposed Bruce with every 
 known parliamentary shift, burned incense before the altars 
 of guilelessness, our hero was naturally more dumfounded 
 than elated. The gods, reading the hearts of the Pharisees, 
 frowned none the less when the hypocritical incense arose 
 skyward. And Bruce, far less divine than human, looked 
 
 272 
 
THE HOMAGE OF HYPOCRISY 
 
 to the left hands of his enemies now that they proffered the 
 right. He gazed inquiringly around the Senate. Scarcely 
 a face in it was radiant with the joy of victory, not a one 
 wore a visage gloomy with the lines carved by defeat. The 
 great battle had been fought ; the great battle had been won ; 
 and its soldiery sat there indifferent, as if a signal to advance 
 had not been given, and would never be blown through the 
 mouth of a challenging trumpet. The mills of legislation, 
 grinding its endless grist automatically as silently, absorbed 
 them all. 
 
 What signified it? What meant this scene, exposed 
 voluntarily, designedly, to the view of an applauding public 
 too easily diverted. Our hero, finding short surcease from a 
 compelling puzzle, is brought face to face with the sphinx 
 of sealed lips. But the seal on the lips is broken and the 
 sphinx speaks. 
 
 " Ah," he murmured to himself softly, " so that s it! " 
 
 His swarthy face lighted as if struck by a shaft of sun 
 beams; in their full grayness his eyes glittered. His legs un 
 locked, ready to carry him with a lunge to his feet. Retro 
 spection seized him and lifted him, scornful of places, to that 
 old-fashioned garden of the Polish embassy, and that perfect 
 night, dropped like a jewel out of the hand of spring, and 
 in his ears again came Inez s voice saying the truth un 
 willingly: 
 
 "I heard Justice Addams say: I don t think the Su 
 preme Court will countenance it. We are trespassing too 
 violently on individual rights in this country. The parents 
 ought to decide whether their children are to work 
 or not. " 
 
 So that was it! The Supreme Court would declare his 
 bill unconstitutional. It was to be battledored and shuttle- 
 cocked for the amusement of a dissatisfied people, until other 
 
 273 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 interests claimed their flagging attention and its very exist 
 ence had been forgotten. 
 
 Bruce sat in quiet, the minister of his mood, deaf to the 
 roar of the mills of legislation grinding out the endless grist 
 of measures that zealous senators had poured into the hop 
 pers, fearful lest the speeding moment take opportunity away. 
 
 274 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 BEHIND CLOSED DOORS 
 
 THE long dinner was over finally in this spirit some 
 day perhaps the last bored mortal shall greet the end 
 of the world and Bruce McAllister drew what is 
 physiologically known as a sigh of relief. He was freed now 
 from the prolonged conversation of that soporific lady, Mrs. 
 Van Twyne, the author. Of her it has been said that she 
 went to bed unknown and awoke famous; and many in the 
 world regretted that she had not been allowed to sleep on. 
 She herself wore a sad look as if lamenting the fact that they 
 had called her too soon. 
 
 In the drawing-room Inez came to Bruce s rescue while 
 the authoress tried to engage Secretary Scarborough in a con 
 versation on Egyptian inscriptions, a subject in which that 
 great man was as interested and about which he knew as 
 much as of modern sociology. The moment opportunity 
 cleared the way Inez said to Bruce hurriedly : 
 
 " Georgia is deeply interested in the Shaw Coal and Oil 
 Lands bill." 
 
 " I know," he nodded. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 He told her of the trail left behind by the perfumed 
 papers. 
 
 " But my evidence is more direct. She has been question 
 ing me adroitly several times during this last week to pump 
 me to find out what you thought and knew about the bill." 
 
 275 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 "And you told her?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " We are no nearer ; she merely acts in Sydney s interest 
 and he in Anthony s." 
 
 Inez dropped her voice still lower. " But she fears you. 
 She knows you suspect that something is not as it should 
 be. She begged me as indirectly as she could to use my in 
 fluence with you. She is nervous and high-wrought, and you 
 know how calm she usually is." 
 
 " What aroused her suspicion? " 
 
 " A hint her father dropped. Don t ask me any more, 
 will you? I m not particularly proud of how I came by that 
 last bit of knowledge." 
 
 He was about to persist when Georgia and Fiske drew 
 near. Bruce and Inez, detecting that odor, faint, flowerlike. 
 as of rose leaves crushed, glanced involuntarily at each other. 
 The golden Georgia wondered what that look betokened. 
 Fiske drawled out suddenly : 
 
 " I don t know, McAllister, but that it would be the right 
 thing for you to honestly earn a dollar s worth of your salary 
 before the day ends by coming into my library with me to 
 explain several of the facts you jotted down in the last bunch 
 of papers you lent me about this confounded Shaw Coal and 
 Oil Lands bill. You re here now and you re not apt to be 
 in so good a place to-morrow at this time." 
 
 Bruce assented. Fiske mumbled incoherent words to the 
 effect that he was rapidly getting at an age where each of 
 his steps was worth as much to him as each of his words 
 would be to posterity, and they passed under the stairs 
 through the large closet that led into the library. The room 
 seemed as ironical and inscrutable as Fiske himself. Your li 
 brary is your man ! 
 
 " Well, McAllister," he drawled, stepping over a tiger 
 276 
 
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS 
 
 rug toward the long oak table on which a pile of papers and 
 magazines in all languages and from all countries towered 
 Babel-like toward the ceiling, " I searched all through my 
 desk for the summary that was lost from the last bundle of 
 coal and oil documents you lent me and I can t find it." 
 
 " I wouldn t bother about it, Fiske ; I can draw up 
 another." Bruce made no doubt but that summary was 
 now one of the valued possessions of Sydney P. Shaw. 
 
 " It will turn up, I m sure," he went on. " I might have 
 known without wading through the bundle of evidence that 
 anything in which Shaw plunges his hand was crooked ; still 
 it s a trifle more artistic to actually establish him a thief than 
 to merely guess at his complicity." 
 
 Talking thus, one lobe of his brain occupied in calling 
 up the pictures that his words suggested, another lobe of his 
 massive intellect suddenly hinted to Fiske that he had left a 
 compartment of his heavy desk unsearched, and marching 
 over to the corner of the room where it stood, he unlocked 
 and pulled down its broad leaf. Bruce, turning to watch 
 him, thought that the light-woven Senna Kelim rug, hanging 
 like a piece of drapery over the shut closet door, fluttered, 
 and he observed rather vaguely that the door itself, which 
 had been tightly closed when he entered the room, was open 
 just enough to be perceptible now. 
 
 It was at about this moment when Georgia Fiske Ten 
 Eyck stepped lightly inside of the closet; and it was only a 
 few seconds later when Inez Hammersmith, having seen the 
 movement executed with serpentine grace and circumspection, 
 and having guessed its purpose, tiptoed forward and turned 
 the outside lock of the door. 
 
 " The capacity for disappearance possessed by inanimate 
 objects," drawled Fiske, still rummaging within the depths 
 of the desk, " impresses one quite as much as the capacity 
 
 277 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 of women for slipping into places where their husbands might 
 least expect to find them." 
 
 " I probably lost the thing myself; don t worry. It s in 
 consequential. I can get another drawn up with half the 
 work that it will take you to find it." 
 
 They sat down beside the table on which Fiske recklessly 
 cleared a space by thrusting to one side a base of his Babel 
 tower and they fell to a discussion of mooted points. Bruce 
 explaining Fiske s questions with an emphatic thumb, re 
 mained silent for a second or two, reflecting, and then he said 
 with the suddenness of inspiration: 
 
 " There s a mistake, I think, in that last table of figures. 
 My stenographer must have made it. If that s wrong, of 
 course the whole chart is wrong. If you have the Secretary 
 of the Interior s report for this last year I should like to 
 verify the total. I must make certain of my foundation 
 before I build higher." 
 
 " I have the report in the annex to my library in the back 
 room upstairs. I ll send the man after it. No, I ll be my 
 own hero and valet in this instance and get it myself," and 
 conforming his movements to his words, Fiske lifted his mas 
 sive body out of the chair and strode up the stairs. 
 
 A noise, barely audible, like that of a vowel sound long 
 drawn out attracted Bruce s attention; turning he saw Inez 
 Hammersmith standing a few feet inside the room, just re 
 moved from the threshold, her finger laid ominously across 
 her sealed lips. She pointed to the closet door and vanished 
 to give herself time to think over what she had done, now 
 that it had been done. 
 
 Bruce arose stealthily. The closet door was shut, the 
 space between itself and the oak frame had disappeared. His 
 sensitive nostrils detected the faint delicate aroma, flowerlike, 
 as of rose leaves crushed. He laid a sudden hand on the 
 
 278 
 
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS 
 
 bronze knob, turning it adroitly. It was evident that a force 
 on the inside was resisting him. His long, lank frame pulled 
 with all the strength it possessed. 
 
 The golden Georgia, all ashamed, her face covered with 
 her hands, stood revealed. A glance and he fathomed the 
 situation. 
 
 " I m at your mercy," she gasped, her eyes seeking the 
 floor. 
 
 " And the merciful shall be blessed," he answered. 
 
 Her crushed, humbled form, raising itself erect and dom 
 inant, expressed her gratitude. " And the least of the mercy 
 that I ask is for myself." Music graced her voice again. 
 
 "And the other?" 
 
 " Ah, senator, you know." 
 
 He thought a second. " Yes, I know." 
 
 " And you will grant him mercy, too? " Her voice was 
 impassioned, eager, aglow with warmth. She pressed closer 
 to him; he caught the flesh thrill of her bare shoulders, her 
 deep breast. 
 
 " In so far as I can be. What does your idea of mercy 
 imply?" 
 
 The diplomacy acquired by a lifelong residence in Wash 
 ington hinted that to her the quality of mercy would not be 
 strained if he did no more than withdraw his objections to 
 the passage of the Shaw Coal and Oil bill. 
 
 His swarthy face hid like a mask the thought going on 
 behind it. " But why are you so troubled? The bill only 
 concerns Sir Anthony and his fortunes. My efforts are only 
 leveled against him." 
 
 "Ah, senator, why torture me? You know better. 
 Our secret and our fate are in your hands. You are only 
 waiting for the sensational moment to expose our part in the 
 Excelsior." 
 
 279 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 "Your part?" 
 
 " Again the thumbscrews, senator ! Would you have me 
 scream with pain ? Our part ! Yes, our part ! " 
 
 Intuition stalked to his aid. " Yes, I knew your fortunes 
 and WyckofFs were severed." 
 
 " Ever since we organized the Excelsior." 
 
 " But if you were merely concerned alone " 
 
 " It is idle to discuss that. What is, is. His fate and 
 mine are one. Listen ! " Rapidly, perfervidly, from a 
 throat whose pulse beat could be seen with every word, she 
 laid her future before him in the shape of an allegory that 
 hurry and fear wove together in the stress of the moment. 
 Stripped of superficial symbolism it meant that if the bill 
 passed she was to cease being Shaw s mistress and become 
 his wife. She stood at the crossways, fate lingering there 
 with her, undecided in which direction to point. He could 
 influence it. 
 
 " No," he answered inviolably. 
 
 Her white arms rocked toward him as if involuntarily; 
 her warm breath was on his cheek, and her lips close to his 
 poured forth her plea with all the ardor and the passion of 
 which she was capable. Beauty, wit, the attractiveness of 
 sex, pleaded with her. It was test for the iron in the soul of 
 the man. 
 
 " No," came his unchangeable answer; " no." 
 
 The voice that he believed had touched the very climax 
 of passion and of seductiveness, reaching the highest point 
 of appeal that a woman can make to a man, passed above it 
 with supreme ease. The step of Fiske was heard on the 
 stairs over the sloping closet wall, and Bruce was thankful 
 to the beneficence of his destiny for the sound. 
 
 " Your father comes," he whispered. 
 
 She shuddered. He pointed her into the closet. 
 280 
 
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS 
 
 When Fiske entered the room, Bruce in careless posture, 
 his hands in his pockets, was standing near the door. 
 
 A half hour later Bruce walked beside Inez on her way 
 to the carriage. Her mother and father lingered in the 
 warm night on the stoop above to chat with Fiske. 
 
 " Thanks to you," he said, " I found out everything 
 all." He shared with her the secret, holding back nothing. 
 
 " I feel contrite, half ashamed of my own share in it. 
 Under the excitement of the moment one does these things, 
 to regret them afterwards." 
 
 " She was eavesdropping." 
 
 " I took that into consideration even in my haste." 
 
 " You must have loved me to have done it ? " 
 
 " No, the love of intrigue, the excitement of the 
 game " 
 
 " But you knew what it meant to me. You would never 
 have gone so far if love had not led you on." He peered 
 deeply into the limpid brown eyes of her beautiful face. 
 
 " Hush, Bruce McAllister, hush ! My father and mother 
 are but a step behind you." 
 
 19 281 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 RR. DICKINSON, with the illogical impetuousness 
 % that characterized all his conduct, gave to Elaine 
 McAllister one day the condemnatory documents 
 that he had received from Doc Scollard, and quite naturally- 
 Elaine put them into Bruce s hands no sooner than they 
 came into her own, which happened to be an hour or so 
 after his return from the eventful dinner at Fiske s. A 
 glance proved their importance to Bruce. One of the papers 
 that Scollard had abstracted from Shaw s desk, and which 
 he had intrusted to the artist, was Shaw s own prospectus 
 of the Excelsior Developing Company, with the original 
 notes of the astute author ; all of which served to strengthen 
 the conclusion Bruce had drawn from Georgia s enforced 
 confession to him. Guilt, like a detective, tapped Shaw on 
 the shoulder, complacently mocking at his protestations of 
 innocence. 
 
 In the morning he telephoned to Inez, hinting at the im 
 portant discovery. 
 
 " I have something to say, too, that is important for 
 me," she returned. " Can t you come over this afternoon 
 for a while? " 
 
 That afternoon found him in the Hammersmith library, 
 love always going before business in this world when the 
 business happens to be the nation s. In that room, nestled 
 
 282 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 in the soothing quietude of its deep rich colors, a curiosity, 
 restless and out of harmony with its surroundings, sat there 
 with him. There had been in the very inflection of her voice 
 that morning, rather than in the words she spoke, a promise 
 of the unusual. 
 
 Her presence, superb and vital as a nymph rising from 
 invigorating waters, beamed upon him. He had expected 
 that she would meet him as it were with open arms, reck 
 oning without a nature that was chary of concessions and 
 which was prone to make a recipient of one of them humbly 
 appreciative before he received another. 
 
 Moreover, there was something in the wind that even 
 his keen intuition could not detect. The sprite, implacable 
 enemy of mankind, whose peculiar business it is to litter 
 love s path with obstacles and make it difficult, had been 
 busy during the interval of their last meeting of the night 
 before and the present moment. For Inez had learned from 
 her mother s unguarded confession that her father s invest 
 ment in the Excelsior Developing Company had not only 
 been serious but excessive. She knew enough of business 
 to conclude that defeat for the Shaw bill might bring ruin 
 to her father, and she was appalled at the part her fascination 
 for the mere game itself, and her love for Bruce, had be 
 trayed her into playing. 
 
 She expected that Bruce would come to her rescue now 
 in quite the same spirit that she had come to his, and the 
 mere thought that he might refuse his assistance made her 
 tremble inwardly. She could put herself in perfect accord 
 with his position on the importance of those acres remain 
 ing in possession of the Government; she knew what it 
 meant to him and what it might mean to those theories 
 he held so dear. But none the less friendship was friend 
 ship, and one sacrifice ought to be free to call upon another. 
 
 283 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 In the future, to which she had been accustomed to confide 
 all her petty troubles, another opportunity quite as great 
 would arise for him, and for her sake he ought to hold his 
 fervor in temporary abeyance. 
 
 He started to preface his discovery with an amatory 
 by-play; she checked it with a light phrase or two, as out 
 of keeping with the occasion and with honesty itself, since 
 she approached him to-day on a different footing. So, 
 at any rate, had the sprite inspired her to think and speak 
 from its invisible prompter s box. 
 
 He confided the nature of his secret, laying stress on 
 its value as indisputable evidence to impeach Shaw and his 
 bill when the one brought forward the other in the Senate. 
 The shadow on his swarthy face deepened, he shook a long 
 and nervous leg, and even enthusiasm itself waned and died 
 before her indifference. She noticed it and her sympathy 
 went out to him, but she said, forcing herself to speak com 
 posedly as the imp dictated: 
 
 " I know you find me indifferent ; I am sorry that I must 
 be so; but I am sorrier still that the telling evidence has 
 fallen into your hands." 
 
 Speechless a second he looked at her, his blue-gray eyes 
 aglitter. " Why? " he brought forth at last, the only word 
 he could find to express the jumble of queries that welled 
 to his lips. 
 
 " I may need your help for the other side." 
 
 Rigidly he confronted her, the blood coursing cold 
 through his veins. " I don t understand ! Which side ? " 
 
 " My father s side, which happens to be Shaw s now. 
 Listen ! " She stood upright before him, her eyes fixed be 
 seechingly on his. " I told you some time ago in this very 
 house, that in return for my assistance, I might call upon 
 you for yours." 
 
 284 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 " I remember perfectly. You were indefinite and I tried 
 to make you more definite." 
 
 " The nature of the case forced me to be indefinite," 
 she said. " I was not sure then whether or not my father 
 had made the investment. But you promised." 
 
 " Yes," his long thin lips drew together, tightening into 
 a knot. His thoughts leaped far out beyond his words, seek 
 ing strength in the resolution built up by the ideals of a 
 lifetime. 
 
 "You will keep it, then?" 
 
 He stooped, bringing his shoulders down to a level with 
 hers. " What did I promise exactly ? " 
 
 " Your assistance, even as I gave mine." 
 
 He nodded. " But what do you want it for? " 
 
 " I want," she said, faltering over her words despite 
 herself, " to save my father from ruin a ruin which I 
 helped plunge him into in order to help you I want 
 you to vote for the Shaw bill and use your influence in its 
 favor." 
 
 "Oh, I can t do that! I won t do that! Much as I 
 love you, I can t do that!" His tortured spirit groaned. 
 " It s not fair ! It s not just ! I made the promise on the 
 spur of the moment, not caring or knowing to what I bound 
 myself. Now I find that unwittingly I bound myself to 
 something that involves my honor. Under the circumstances 
 a promise of that kind is absolved by the very terms upon 
 which it was made. I was willing to promise anything in 
 the world to you; to do anything in the world for you; 
 and I still am anything in the world you ask but my 
 honor remains my own." 
 
 " It s a conventional way of breaking a promise. As 
 far back as my reading goes, men have sought to save their 
 honor at the expense of their word." 
 
 285 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " So be it! I cannot! I cannot." 
 
 " But it s a mere sentiment with you as against my 
 father s life work. A mere sentiment ! " 
 
 " I m sorry; I m sorry as I can be that your father was 
 drawn into that unfortunate scheme; and all I have, any 
 thing else " 
 
 "Phrases! Empty phrases !" 
 
 It was her power over him, and not the justice of her 
 cause, that she felt challenged now, and the unsuccessful 
 pleader made way for the woman spurned. 
 
 " If you think them phrases, put me to the test. I ask 
 nothing better." 
 
 " I have put you to the test and you have failed. I 
 risked much for you; I did things for you that I should 
 not have done, and now I ask a small sacrifice from 
 you " 
 
 " But I am not my own master." 
 
 " Nonsense ! A man of your strength of character not 
 his own master! " 
 
 " There are some things in this world stronger than we 
 are. Honor is one of them." 
 
 " Friendship is another, and I cannot remain friends with 
 one on whom I cannot rely always and ever." 
 
 "You are cruel, Inez; you are unjust." 
 
 Her pink cheeks flushed to red. Life, denying her noth 
 ing so far, had spoiled her. Her pride was bruised to the 
 core by the refusal to yield her anything on the part of 
 this one man to whom she had granted so much. Inwardly 
 she felt a rush of uncontrollable anger sweep over her, as 
 when a petulant child she had stamped her foot. 
 
 " You shall not call me Inez," she said. " I will not 
 permit it. It is an assumption." 
 
 He turned to leave the room ; she wanted to call out to 
 286 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 him but she could not something in her stronger than her 
 self had her by the throat. 
 
 A moment afterwards the sprite, bounding head over 
 heels in the sheer exuberance of delight, made mows at a 
 beautiful woman, kneeling on the floor, her face on the divan, 
 crying. 
 
 287 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 JUST A WORD 
 
 ON the morning of the last day of the short session 
 Sydney P. Shaw arose as jubilant from his bed as 
 the sun out of the clouds. He had been promised 
 more than enough votes to pass his bill and all was in readi 
 ness in Wall Street to assure success for the Excelsior Devel 
 oping Company. A careful inspection of the scheme in its 
 entirety showed not a single detail that refused to dovetail 
 with the other details to which it had been fitted. 
 
 The danger, had Sydney and his captains of finance 
 but known it, threatened no one particular, but the 
 whole gigantic scheme. Sir Anthony satisfied long ago of 
 Shaw s duplicity and treachery, angry beyond words, lay in 
 waiting with his powerful craft to wreck the whole em 
 prise. Anthony had learned long ago that leisure is the 
 better part of vengeance, and he resolved to sink the Excel 
 sior first and to make its treacherous admiral walk the plank 
 afterwards. Once sunk it would be easy to hoist the Ex 
 celsior out of the water, give it a different name and add 
 it as another first-class craft to the huge flotilla of the 
 Universal. 
 
 To put the same idea in Anthony s more direct way, he 
 purposed to have the Senate veto Shaw s Coal and Oil bill 
 in order that Shaw and his abettors might have their ex 
 quisite pains for their trouble. Later on, biding a favorable 
 
 288 
 
JUST A WORD 
 
 hour, he would have a new bill introduced to give him the 
 exclusive right of annexing this land to his own properties. 
 
 To defeat Shaw, to whom many votes had been promised, 
 Sir Anthony stood in need of Bruce McAllister and the in 
 fluence and sentiment that Bruce might yield. Therefore, 
 word reached Bruce indirectly that if he wished to form a 
 treaty of alliance with the forces opposed to the Shaw Coal 
 and Oil Lands bill he might meet them on this last morn 
 ing of the short session at the hotel Rhodomontade. Bruce, 
 of course, surmised that the invitation emanated from Sir 
 Anthony, and a little fearful that he never might leave Troy 
 with character unstained if he entered it by way of the 
 wooden horse of Anthony s contrivance, he held long parley 
 with the far-sighted Butler. It was in accord with Butler s 
 theory of political warfare that a small battalion, when em 
 ployed against one of first-rate dimensions, must venture tre 
 mendous odds if it would have a victory. He advised a 
 signing of the treaty. 
 
 Bruce, meanwhile, preparing to enter Sir Anthony s web, 
 was evolving a plan whereby he might break its entangling 
 threads and weave them into a pattern that was more to 
 his own liking. 
 
 The morning found him pat with the appointed hour in 
 the pillared and palmed lobby of the Rhodomontade. The 
 hotel, as anyone may see in its advertisements, was constructed 
 regardless of cost and, which is not therein stated, regard 
 less of taste. It had been the purpose of the management 
 to pave the floor with bright patines of silver dollars, but 
 at the last minute it changed its lavish mind and distributed 
 its gold with such impartial largess that one might see the 
 cost of things not only written on the floor in plain figures 
 but everywhere else. Here the dollar shrieked far louder 
 through a gilt trumpet than the name of Bruce McAllis- 
 
 289 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 ter, whispered by the clerk, traveled upstairs through the 
 telephone. 
 
 A moment afterwards the elevator carried him to the 
 room where the name had won acceptance for the man, 
 and our hero found himself in an apartment that was fur 
 nished in a manner exquisite enough to have won the com 
 mendation of the minister sent to Washington by his maj 
 esty, Mumbo III, of Senegambia. The senators in waiting, 
 so famous have become their dignified, grave, white-bearded 
 countenances, need no introduction now. We need but say 
 that at Anthony s behest here had assembled themselves, with 
 out even knowing what he wanted, the woolen senator, the 
 senator who carried in the pockets of his mines sufficient 
 coal to set the world on fire, the cotton senator, and well, 
 in short, here was convened, one might say, the United States 
 Senate and its president ex-officio, Sir Anthony Wyckoff. 
 
 Salutations befitting the solemnity of the occasion were 
 exchanged and then Sir Anthony called the Senate to order. 
 The Shaw Coal and Oil Lands bill was discussed by Anthony 
 and flagellated for the iniquity of each of its separate clauses. 
 His point of view was altruistic, for he confined his argu 
 ments to the injury the measure would work to America. 
 Nobody understood the value of time better than Anthony; 
 he had done before the second hand on his watch had cir 
 cled around five times. 
 
 The distinguished woolen senator, arranging his white 
 silken whiskers, took longer to agree with Anthony than 
 Anthony did to tell him to what he should agree. In the 
 senator s opinion it would augur ill for the future of America 
 to allow these forty millions of acres to slip beyond the 
 country s control. It was a powerful weapon, did Govern 
 ment but hold on to it, wherewith monopoly might be forced 
 to its knees. With logic so square-based none could disagree, 
 
 290 
 
JUST A WORD 
 
 and there was a shaking of distinguished white beards breast- 
 ward. There followed a few speeches, short as Sir An 
 thony s, that left no loophole through which dissension could 
 stick its ugly head. The pompous senator, whose fetich was 
 corporation and who had made some of its laws and who 
 upheld all of them, succinctly outlined a course of action 
 to be followed in the Senate that afternoon, for like a wise 
 general skilled in the cunning of parliamentary procedure 
 he was willing to leave nothing to accident. And so even 
 before a gun had been fired was Sydney s battle lost for him. 
 
 Sir Anthony, his business being done, arose nervously and 
 eyed his watch it brought him in an income of an incred 
 ible number of thousands with every movement of its minute 
 hand. A few blocks removed, in the shed of the Pennsyl 
 vania depot, his special train, puffing steam laboriously, was 
 waiting to carry him westward to close a gigantic deal for 
 the Universal. The magnate put his arm through Bruce s 
 with a compelling affection, his bass voice rolling forth 
 organlike : 
 
 " Senator, I rejoice that you can conscientiously be with 
 us; certainly we feel honored to have you ranged on our 
 side." 
 
 In his masterful way Sir Anthony moved Bruce, not 
 heeding where he went, into a corner and out of earshot 
 of the mass of senatorial dignity, and he said to him with 
 lowered voice: 
 
 " I have something here, senator, that might prove of 
 service to you when the right time comes ; " and his small 
 crosseyes twinkling humorously, Sir Anthony drew from 
 his pocket a long white envelope, which he laid in Bruce s 
 hand confidingly and then, glancing again at his watch, 
 bade his adieu and hastened to catch his train. 
 
 Bruce, in the full sight of all, moved under the heavy 
 291 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 electrolier in the center of the apartment and drew forth 
 the missive from its white envelope as one who has naught 
 to conceal. It was the synopsis that Georgia had purloined 
 from his bundle of papers and given to Shaw. Around the 
 border of the square sheet, arabesquelike, were annotations 
 in her fine handwriting and marginalia in Shaw s masculine 
 script. 
 
 Like a wise archer Sir Anthony carried two strings to 
 his bow. Bruce, thinking quickly as the senators about to 
 depart lifted their silk hats from the table, guessed the pur 
 pose of the second string. Shaw s term would expire at the 
 end of the present session, and Sir Anthony intended to chas 
 tise him by drawing his Senate seat from under him and 
 letting him fall headlong into oblivion. 
 
 To revert to the original figure, Anthony had come to 
 the conclusion that Bruce, having the advantage of posi 
 tion, could use the second string to better advantage than 
 himself in shooting the arrow that would slay Shaw politically. 
 What legislature, defying the entire people of a State, would 
 dare to return Shaw to the Senate after such damning proofs 
 of his guilt were made public? The stately woolen senator 
 had his hand on the bronze knob, ready to step into the 
 hallway that would take him into a different world, when 
 Bruce McAllister, thrusting into his pocket the recovered 
 synopsis, said suddenly: 
 
 " Gentlemen, before you go I have just a word to say 
 that will interest all of you." 
 
 The tall lank form straightened, a certain gravity aure- 
 oled the swarthy face and the black hair, and a certain de 
 termination and sternness lent the aspect of importance to 
 his coarse, heavy features. The silk hats renewed acquaint 
 ance with the table. Around him the senators formed an 
 expectant circle. 
 
 292 
 
JUST A WORD 
 
 " The point," said Bruce, lifting them from the sharp 
 edge of suspense, " is here. The senator from Massachusetts 
 remarked that if the Government retained possession of these 
 forty million acres that it would have an excellent weapon 
 wherewith to fight monopoly. The Government, it is clear, 
 will thus be enabled to go into the coal and oil business on 
 its own account, and by competition force a greedy monopoly 
 to sell at cheaper prices." 
 
 The senators were disappointed and they looked it. 
 Bruce had promised a surprise and he scarcely had kept 
 his word by this phonographic recording of what already 
 had been said. He spoke on, interpreting their emotion from 
 their glances. 
 
 " Now, then, all of you agreed with the senator, and 
 knowing that you are sincere men, loyal to your convictions, 
 I am sure that you will help me to put the Government in 
 eternal possession of these lands. I propose this afternoon, 
 therefore, not to vote against the Shaw bill, but to offer 
 up an amendment to it that will bring about the end we 
 wish and bind the Government for all time to come never 
 to lease or sell those lands." 
 
 They were off the edge of one suspense merely to be 
 hooked by another. The woolen senator spoke first, moving 
 round his theme with the skill of a graceful skater on thin 
 ice. Rarely as he and the senator from Illinois agreed, he 
 yielded to no man in his admiration for the brilliancy and 
 profundity of Bruce s intellect ; but he could not see how any 
 sane mind could reach so rash a conclusion. To his own 
 way of thinking, to vote against the Shaw bill was one thing, 
 to vote for McAllister s proposed amendment to it was 
 quite another. Neither his conscience nor his duty to his 
 country would permit him to make light of so serious a 
 distinction. 
 
 293 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 So spake the oracle, and the chorus gathered around him 
 chanted with meet and solemn variants his fate-Interpreting 
 dithryambs. 
 
 But when > the voices died away Bruce McAllister, a 
 Siegfried born to overthrow the gods, defying their man 
 dates in the name of the people, said quietly: 
 
 " Very well, let each of us stand on his record and none 
 of us be ashamed of where he has been seen, of what he said, 
 or by whose summons he came hither. I am not and I 
 know you will not be." 
 
 " Do you mean to say, Senator McAllister do I in 
 terpret your threat correctly that if we don t promise to 
 vote for your proposed amendment that you are going to 
 publish to the world an account of the morning s transac 
 tions ? " so spake the senator learned in the law. 
 
 " Exactly," answered the friend of democracy. 
 
 Visible as the dark lines of the storm on the face of the 
 sky and the waters were the astonishment and fear written 
 on the countenances of Bruce s auditors. They foresaw the 
 letters, high as a house, black as death, in which a sensa 
 tional press would scarehead the world: " Anthony Wyckoff 
 Calls a Special Meeting of the Senate. McAllister Saves 
 the Common People Again." The picture so conjured up 
 was not entrancing. 
 
 " This is dishonorable," stated the cotton senator, his 
 silver-white imperial wagging contemptuously. 
 
 " Maybe," returned Bruce. " I am not holding out for 
 punctilios. I wish the amendment passed." 
 
 " Regardless of means, of methods, or the honor " 
 
 " That is out of the consideration. I have a big work 
 to do and I will not stop to argue what constitutes honor 
 and what doesn t. I wish the amendment passed," returned 
 Bruce, interrupting the cotton and politics of the South. 
 
 294 
 
JUST A WORD 
 
 " Vague statements are all very well," declared the sen 
 ator, who was millions of miles remote from his coal, " but 
 the American public is too intelligent to be so credulous. 
 It is your word against ours. The people will demand 
 proof." 
 
 " And they shall have it," said Bruce, " in the shape of 
 a full stenographic report of this meeting from the begin 
 ning of it until now. Oh, Butler ! " 
 
 A door opened and the blithe correspondent entered with 
 a Holy-High-Jinks expression on his sloping face to take 
 his place in that entrancing charade : " The Press, Democ 
 racy, and the United States Senate." 
 
 Over the pretty tableau we let fall the curtain while 
 we remark, as its silken folds descend, that those who have 
 secrets must henceforth be careful not to whisper them in 
 a hotel like the Rhodomontade, as full of men, maids, and 
 boys as of sounding marble and tinkling gilt, mercenary 
 and sordid as their surroundings. The walls have ears, 
 O Anthony, and though they were stopped with all thy 
 gold yet would there be chinks and crevices! 
 
 295 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A BATTLE IN THE SENATE 
 
 ON the way from the Hotel Rhodomontade to the Cap 
 itol the senators, who disappeared by twos on foot 
 and in vehicles, naturally talked less about liter 
 ature and the fine arts a subject that usually engrosses their 
 conversation than about the audacity of Bruce McAllister. 
 They nominated it, with expletives generally expressed in 
 dashes, despicable. 
 
 Here was the object of their excited debate: Was the 
 man only bluffing or had he bluffed with the intention of 
 fulfilling his threat ? The woolen senator, argued that at the 
 critical moment audacity would fail him, and he would not 
 dare to make his assertion public. Whereto answers King 
 Coal : Having naught to lose and all to win wherefore shall 
 he not dare all? Trust the vulgar upstart and demagogue, 
 my sincere possessor of conservative millions, to pull even 
 truth by the beard! Reverence for the Senate and its fine 
 traditions? Bah! he would defile them with pitch, would his 
 beloved common people but reward his labors with laughter 
 now and votes anon ! 
 
 And when our hero, to the invisible flag unfurled by his 
 conscience, to the drum beat of his eager heart, stepped into 
 the Senate chamber he asked himself yet again before the 
 fray: How is it with mine adversaries? Do they stand in 
 such great fear of my vaunt that they will do as I com- 
 
 296 
 
A BATTLE IN THE SENATE 
 
 manded and vote for my amendment lest I expose them to 
 the world, or will they think me incapable of carrying out 
 my threat and put me to a defy? 
 
 Noon came ; the senators took their places ; the body was 
 called to order, and the morning hour began. The clacking 
 of the wheels of legislation fretted our hero s nerves as 
 familiar noises and sights do when one waits for a big event 
 to thrust them into the background. He sat there, as democ 
 racy never should, unreadable ; a curious study for his enemies 
 who wondered what might be going on in his mind while he 
 wondered what plot their angry wits might be concocting. 
 
 Fame, voicing it abroad that democracy shall speak to-day 
 through its chosen mouthpiece, filled the galleries! Inez, con 
 trite in fleeting moments, more determined in her pride, hour 
 in and out, looked down on the scene, careful to avoid young 
 democracy s appealing eye and show her glances were not 
 meant for him. The golden Georgia, watching Sydney jubi 
 lant and sure of success as he sat there toying with his Hy 
 perion locks, and building his castles on and out of Sir An 
 thony s acres the golden Georgia, still in dread of the man 
 McAllister, burned in the hot fire of suspense. Anthony 
 would take these lands from the Government ; Sydney would 
 take them away from Anthony; Anthony, chuckling as his 
 trains speeds him afar, would take them away from Sydney; 
 and Bruce, these gracious senators unwillingly assisting him, 
 would give them back to Caesar again. So would justice, 
 ideally considered, complete its circle! 
 
 But, hush! on the green carpeted floor the long, lank 
 form of Bruce McAllister lifted itself. His long arms shot 
 outward awkwardly while he raised his voice in hot denun 
 ciation of the Shaw bill, praising the virtues of the amend 
 ment he had offered up. Progress was beseeching the Gov 
 ernment to take control and develop these lands in the name 
 20 297 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 kmooacy, calling its 
 
 .1-. jiT,.-, .* . r I. - -_n_T.ll -M-H-llK -l.~ 
 
 7 - 
 
 ::;~ ::> ::;~. 
 
 out what time was 
 
 Tie bill became as a watchtower, which he mounted to 
 a broader outlook on the big problems of the generation. 
 He spoke of the two classes that had endured while whole 
 chrflizations had shifted under fhrir feet. r *k** 1 g"*g their 
 manes only, their positions never the rich and die poor, those 
 who hired and those who toiled! Their Hashing interests 
 had precipitated the eternal * dot hurled world after 
 
 Piald into the dast, eat of which other worlds arose and gave 
 txrtB to new masters and diiferent slaves . 
 
 ~ The centuries/* he said, "could no more preserve a na 
 tion ?ht was half * ij f" tj l and half labor than one that was 
 half slave and half free. He raised his hand aloft, swinging 
 to castigate society with its lashes, called by him the 
 
 "* JL r~ "T~.2.r^. .L.T 
 
 Charity k the dust that the automobiles of the rich 
 the eyes of the poor to keep them from hurling 
 the reckless chauffeur." 
 
 D9CKS OX tnf POOf MDO5( flTlrfr S4 PTi^fl Of iDrCSLJL I IP 
 
 is a disgrace ; it l|ijl. die ignorance of die 
 who have the remedy in their own hands and know it 
 
 Life is a ganr of blindman s butt through which the 
 blindfolded, ^^d bv wealth, FT^X^*^ at bv 
 
 by justice." 
 
 He stood aloof from bitterness; just die facts were his 
 allies, fancy die general under which he marshalled them into 
 line. He paused before winging Us way still higher. The 
 
A BATTLE IN THE SENATE 
 
 steel-gray died out of his efs; they ceased to 
 
 into the calm of a dreamy blue. He pictured 
 
 when poverty should join the limbo icsei ved by ax 
 
 humanity for the horrors of a barbarian era. He 
 
 the return of the golden age. And Inez? She 
 
 with him, despite herself. He had carried her too far, step 
 
 by step, even without her knowledge and consent, that she 
 
 should turn back now when his organlike yoke swayed and 
 
 compelled her whole emotional being. 
 
 She stood with him on the mountain peaks, led thither 
 by the love she would not now deny, the cold dear air, 
 breathed by no lungs, blowing uuuud her. She commoncd 
 with the stars ! By sheer force of soul and voice he carried 
 her into his Utopia ! The lines on his face furrowed dcgpei 
 and deeper through that swarthy skin as if his were the sor 
 row of a Moses fated to stand forgotten on Pisgah whfle his 
 people stormed the fabled land. Her fancy was ^ F by 
 the warm blood of her heart, which rose in her bosom and 
 fluttered toward him in the full majesty of 
 sorrow. 
 
 He ceased, ana sitting down crossed ms long legs 
 
 .T -"- ~ ^ . ~- ~ _T ~ * J~. *r . -TI- . "_ T~r 5 S - _ ^ T- 1 ^f 
 
 over the Senate. 
 
 In one way his radical speech had endangered his 
 for success, since to vote for his li " now would be, 
 as it were, to charge the very voters with having built lie 
 fires from which McAllister had seized the 
 On the other hand his radicalism the 
 the brand seized from the burning came like 
 hurled on top of the other, as if the man were 
 fearless, and would have his own way though he 
 by the pillars of the house he had ilmj lor destruction. 
 
 The moment for balloting came. Bruce believed that the 
 299 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 first vote cast by any of Anthony s senators would be decisive 
 since if one set the danger he had threatened at naught the 
 others, plucking up courage from desperation, would defeat 
 his amendment Bruce, arguing thus, felt his nerves palpi 
 tate like pulses when that first vote was cast. 
 
 The first senator declared for the McAllister amendment ; 
 the second, following out the lines of Bruce s argument, did 
 likewise, then the third. Bruce was victor! And yet to 
 him, contrite as the great ones are in the hour of triumph, 
 the victory brought small elation. The little man, blown 
 into power by circumstance, would deny that indispensable 
 ally the credit deserved for his success, and the next time, cir 
 cumstance deserting, he falls flat, blames a thankless world 
 for its ingratitude to superiority. But the mind of girth 
 is inclined to praise circumstance overmuch, to take its own 
 shortcomings severely to task and prepare itself for that next 
 still greater ordeal when it must look to itself alone to fight 
 its battle royal. 
 
 And Bruce, by nature introspective, gifted with a keen 
 insight into the vanity of things that inclines toward melan 
 choly, questioned the value of his singular triumph. After 
 all it was merely the intervention of Anthony Wyckoff, step 
 ping down like a god from the machine of commerce, that 
 had saved the day. Had the god turned the other way how 
 would it have fared with him ? And to what subterfuge and 
 trickery had he not been obliged to stoop in order to force 
 the enemy into submission? He had borrowed their own 
 methods, fought them with their own weapons, stolen from 
 their own detestable arsenal. He was sick, sick to the soul 
 of it all! 
 
 Shaw, plucking Hyperion whiskers, arising to address the 
 Senate, shook him out of his despondent mood. Striding 
 the Senate with the confident impudence of a Colossus, who 
 
 300 
 
A BATTLE IN THE SENATE 
 
 save Sydney himself would have known that he was a ruined 
 man and was surveying from that dizzy height of compla 
 cency his own desolated monarchy? And besides financial 
 bankruptcy the lost bill meant political ruin ; for a hint, com 
 ing from one of Sir Anthony s senators, had told him that 
 the magnate intended to plunge him into immeasurable 
 obscurity. 
 
 He blamed McAllister for every single bit of it, and he 
 meant before he was hurled into that abyss from which there 
 was small hope of arising ever, while all the blue devils of 
 defeat stood there grinning and grimacing at him, to square 
 the accounts that had been accumulating for so long, and to 
 rend his archenemy hip and thigh. 
 
 Ridicule was to be his knife deadliest of all possible 
 weapons if the woman one loves be present when skillful 
 hands wield it. He paid mock homage to Bruce s achieve 
 ment, it being his wish, he said, to lay his wreath of admir 
 ation at the foot of this Apollo of democracy. The facetious 
 comparison of Bruce to the Greek god was laid out on fat 
 Rabelaisian lines. Its inimitability deserved a worthier pur 
 pose for the effort. 
 
 The crafty Shaw smote Bruce in the weakest point. 
 Childishly sensitive in the matter of appearance, his victim 
 writhed. The mercilessness, the brutality of the attack 
 appalled Bruce, and his wits, panic-stricken for the first time 
 in their existence, rushing hither and thither in his bewildered 
 brain, added to his confusion and refused to come to his res 
 cue. Inez s presence had just the effect that Shaw, fortunate 
 comedian, chastising through ridicule, desired. 
 
 The Senate found amusement, doubly welcome in this 
 compensatory guise, in the unsparing caricature of its enemy, 
 and a round of hearty laughter rewarded the effort of the 
 nimble-witted artist. The gallery was more boisterous in 
 
 301 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 its recognition. Even Georgia was made wretched by this 
 unexpected and sorry spectacle. Inez s emotions were rent, 
 so to say, by hands in conflict; she had been terrified at first 
 by the financial ruin which she believed to await her father, 
 then Bruce s eloquence had carried her beyond herself, then a 
 calmer mood had succeeded in which she reverted to her 
 original fears, and now these were engulfed in so deep a 
 sympathy for him that it was maternal. 
 
 The President s gavel made a dignified protest against 
 the outburst of hilarity, smothering it. Craving the silence 
 for forensic purposes Shaw filled it to the last dimension with 
 his pungent wit. The biography of Bruce McAllister occu 
 pied him. He lifted him out of the cradle with the hand of 
 ridicule, lampooning his struggle upward, and he crowned 
 the masterpiece with a Juvenalian description of Bruce Mc 
 Allister, the butcher boy, delivering meat. So did ridicule, 
 dragging Bruce out of his conqueror s chariot by the hair, 
 tie him to its wheels whilst the triumphant Shaw directed 
 its steeds. 
 
 The phlegmatic Fiske, sorry for Bruce as a father might 
 be sorry for his son, watching him narrowly, saw his swarthy 
 face flush with wrath as he lifted the cover from his desk 
 and drew something or other from its cluttered interior. 
 He feared that Bruce might lose his self-control, commit a 
 severe breach of the rules, to which Sydney had paid at least 
 a technical obeisance, and subject himself to severe discipline 
 from the Senate. 
 
 When Bruce arose and strode down the aisles toward 
 Shaw s desk, Fiske s face lost its bronze color. He lifted 
 himself to his feet and followed Bruce, dismayed by the 
 thought that he intended to inflict bodily chastisement on 
 his tormentor. 
 
 Shaw was chatting gayly with his colleagues when Bruce 
 302 
 
A BATTLE IN THE SENATE 
 
 approaching caught his eye. The magnetic Sydney changed 
 color and crouched down in his chair involuntarily. The 
 grim look on McAllister s face, the hand concealed behind 
 his back, put him in fear of physical violence. 
 
 " This is your property by right, senator," spoke Bruce 
 curtly, laying a long white envelope on Shaw s desk. Wheel 
 ing around, he walked back to his seat, averting narrowly a 
 collision with the massive bulk of Franklin De Wolfe Fiske. 
 
 Shaw rent the envelope. The papers and the prospectus 
 that Doc Scollard had abstracted from his desk, the summary, 
 covered with his own and Georgia s compromising annota 
 tions, shocked his curious gaze. His white hand ceased to 
 stroke his blond beard and his head fell toward his chest. 
 
 " McAllister is a man, anyway. My God, what a man 
 McAllister is ! " he murmured to himself again and again, 
 trancelike. 
 
 After the heaping of the coals of fire on Shaw s head 
 Bruce, spurred by restlessness, passed into the corridor. He 
 was crossing its tesselated floor when, espying Fiske at the 
 end of it, he beckoned to him. 
 
 To the ironical one, cold now that the need for all sym 
 pathy had passed, he unburdened himself. " In the Senate," 
 he said, " I feel like a good Christian in the arena of Nero s 
 day." 
 
 " Turn Roman, McAllister," came the rejoinder and 
 then right afterwards: " Let s go in and watch the President 
 of these United States signing bills. Temporary aberration 
 may bring the poor man to such a pass that he will counter 
 sign that Child-Labor bill of yours." 
 
 The bronze handle of the arched door before which Bruce 
 and Fiske stood was turned and they stepped into the room 
 
 303 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 reserved for the chief executive on his visits to the Capitol 
 during those last few hours before adjournment. Lavishness, 
 bickering with good taste, was responsible for the decorations 
 of the apartment. Brumidi s portraits of Washington and his 
 first cabinet honored the walls ; and the friends of art s youth, 
 allegories of Liberty, Religion and Executive Authority, 
 looked at the archtypes of Exploration, History and Discov 
 ery, bearing the symbols of their several domains. Pier 
 glasses stretching from floor to ceiling compensated for the 
 space they took up by adding an illusory length. Before 
 the oblong mahogany table, with rounded edges, the white- 
 haired President sat, looking askance at the piles of engrossed 
 bills his signature was to launch into law. 
 
 The room was filled to the point where more would have 
 crowded it. Correspondents appeared and disappeared, 
 among others little Butler, who was at a loss to interpret 
 Bruce s sober visage, his important victory duly considered. 
 Pages tripped in and out, hurried sharply by the fat sergeant- 
 at-arms toward the engrossing clerks, anathematized for 
 their slowness. Messages came in from the House and the 
 Senate. Secretary of the Navy Kinkaid, Secretary of the 
 Treasury Scarborough, all the members of the Cabinet, with 
 any of their clerks that had precise knowledge of their de 
 partment s legislation, were there to give the conscientious 
 President their advice concerning this avalanche of bills that 
 threatened to roll over and bury honesty itself. Let the curi 
 ous consider the proportion of honesty to the bills! 
 
 Senators and congressmen, whose battered bills were 
 drawing up to face the last ordeal, chatted gayly with one 
 another, occupying the hospitable leather chairs and the 
 lounges inviting to indolence. The President laid down his 
 hard-driven pen at intervals and talked freely with all those 
 who had any claim on his distinguished consideration. He 
 
 304 
 
A BATTLE IN THE SENATE 
 
 joked now and then lightheartedly with the sponsors of the 
 various decrees, the fate of which he controlled. 
 
 There was a continual hurried going and soft coming, the 
 quiet opening and the careful shutting of doors, a gliding 
 about of the pages, the sharp-voiced scolding of the bewil 
 dered sergeant-at-arms, an ingress and egress of the great 
 ones, a steady hum of confused words ; and amid this the tick 
 ing of the pendulum in the tall clock, proportioned like Bruce, 
 was quite as lost as the hum of an insect in the rustling of 
 a forest of leaves. 
 
 Fiske and Bruce approached the table, and the President 
 extended a cordial hand, engaging with them in a conversa 
 tion that the muse of history, overworked that day, was too 
 busy to record, when another handful of engrossed bills was 
 laid on the table. The President, turning his eyes on these, 
 remarked to Bruce jovially: 
 
 " Well, here s your child, McAllister. I don t know 
 but we might say it s your family, since it s framed for the 
 benefit of all children. I congratulate you on the passage 
 of the bill, and I don t think I ve ever signed anything in 
 either of my administrations that gives me so much genuine 
 pleasure." 
 
 " Let McAllister have the pen, Mr. President," drawled 
 out Fiske as he was affixing his coarse-lettered signature, 
 " that with one stroke is going to throw two million little 
 children out of a job." 
 
 " And who may not stay out of a job very long," rejoined 
 Bruce. 
 
 305 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE TRIBUTE 
 
 I DON T like it! You oughtn t to have come! Aren t 
 things bad enough without taking this extra precaution 
 of making them worse? " 
 
 Georgia turned as if struck full in the face. So anxious 
 had been her sympathy to extend her regrets over his defeat 
 that immediately after Shaw s onslaught of Bruce she had 
 sent him word to meet her in the marble room. She had 
 risked all in the coming and Shaw s rebuke crushed what was 
 left of her bruised spirit and her wounded ambition. 
 
 " My father had left the Senate ; I didn t suppose the 
 risk was inordinate. I didn t know you considered it a dis 
 grace to be seen with me," she stammered, white as the fluted 
 columns of Carrara that surrounded them. 
 
 Shaw colored; anger shook him. He hated, after the 
 fashion of men, this beautiful w T oman by whom he thought 
 his career to have been ruined. He was glad, being funda 
 mentally weak and craven at heart, to shift the responsibility 
 for his fall on feminine shoulders. The cry of the primal 
 Adam welled in his coward heart, eager to appear blameless 
 before his pinchbeck gods : " The woman tempted me ! " 
 
 " It s all on a par with your usual carelessness," he repri 
 manded her bitterly. " You would have involved both of us 
 in a pretty scandal if this thing had fallen into anybody 
 else s hands but McAllister s." He gave her the summary, 
 
 306 
 
THE TRIBUTE 
 
 with the marginal notes in her handwriting, that Bruce had 
 handed him a while ago. 
 
 " He s the most magnanimous of men, anyway." 
 
 " The cur! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Sydney ! " she objected. 
 
 He was willing to praise Bruce to himself, but his mean 
 spirit acting unconsciously, objected to having him praised 
 by this woman, loved ardently by him once, whom he wished 
 now to discard. It was as if the smouldering embers of his 
 passion for her were breaking into a faint flame of jealousy, 
 to be extinguished no sooner than kindled. 
 
 " Your attack on him in the Senate was brutal. I depre 
 cate it. I think, no matter how it may hurt to have me say 
 so, it was unwarranted. He is the most magnanimous 
 among men." 
 
 " He may be I have no desire to bandy words if he is, 
 go to him." 
 
 "What do you mean, Sydney?" Her large face was 
 crimson with shame and just rage. 
 
 " My meaning ought to be plain enough." 
 
 " It is brutally plain. It is unworthy of you ! I did not 
 come to hold you to your promise of marriage. If you would 
 part from me, do so in a way that may not humiliate either 
 of us to look back upon." 
 
 " I made no promise," he replied curtly. 
 
 " The insult is double." The mirrors repeating the 
 marble columns in endless vistas showed her scarlet. " Only 
 a coward would say so ! " 
 
 "I have had enough of this!" He arose as a thing 
 hissing. 
 
 11 And I ! It turns my heart sick." She lifted herself 
 from the leather lounge, regal in a certain queenliness of de 
 spair. The man in the w r oman was never more uppermost. 
 
 307 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " I can stand everything, I can forgive everything but cow 
 ardice. It is not for me to boast; but I risked my honor, 
 my future, my very life for you, and now that we failed to 
 gether you are neither brave nor noble enough to stand with 
 me." 
 
 " I am in no mood to bandy words." 
 
 " To defend your honor rather, Sydney." 
 
 " Care would become you, Georgia." 
 
 " I don t see why. I have lost all; I have nothing fur 
 ther to lose. Everything that made my life worth the living 
 is gone from me." She stood as one gazing far out at a sea 
 receding with the wreckage of the ship that has carried one 
 to shores thronged with blissful memories. There passed 
 over her large intellectual face a look so determined, so som 
 ber, that his craven soul proved too weak to fulfil at once 
 its own cruel resolution, and he said : 
 
 " Let us part as friends, anyway." 
 
 " You are satirical," she laughed, and in her laugh there 
 was the bitterness of death. She turned to go, feeling that 
 she had left all her life behind her in that cold bemarbled 
 room, hoping that he would recall her with a word of endear 
 ment; but he was fearful of exposing himself longer to the 
 eyes of ever-watchful gossip and he reentered the Senate. 
 
 A second afterwards she caught the reflection of Inez in 
 the mirror, and mistaking the reflection for the real Inez she 
 gave a start of surprise. 
 
 "Ah, Georgia!" Inez stood beside her. She noticed 
 the pallor of Georgia s face, the drawn expression, the un 
 wonted lines furrowed as by the sudden rolling down of tears. 
 She checked herself midway in startled expression. 
 
 " You await Senator McAllister, I know," and without 
 staying for an answer Georgia used Bruce s name as the open 
 sesame to throw wide open to Inez s view her admiration 
 
 308 
 
THE TRIBUTE 
 
 for him. She pronounced him the most magnanimous of 
 men, a hero in a workaday unromantic world ungraced by 
 them. Twice he had held her honor in his hands and twice 
 he had restored it untarnished. 
 
 Before Inez had recovered from the suddenness of that 
 strange outburst of confidence, the golden Georgia went on : 
 " I ridiculed him to you, Inez. I tried to belittle him in 
 your eyes. I can only now ask pardon in my name and his. 
 He is a man among men." There was a nervous tremor in 
 her voice, a slight trembling of the sensitive lips, and then, 
 like one afraid to trust more to speech, she stooped to kiss 
 Inez and, stammering out an excuse, was gone. 
 
 In the outer corridor she encountered Bruce about to 
 make his way into the marble room to meet Inez. She hailed 
 him and he advanced to speak to her. " Inez awaits you," 
 she said. 
 
 " Yes, I know. I got her card, but I was delayed a 
 second." 
 
 " Again I have to thank you for your generosity. A 
 second time you have put me everlastingly in your debt." 
 
 " The debt is so small that I can cancel it now and lose 
 nothing." 
 
 " It makes my own debt all the greater." 
 
 He shifted the subject; she held him to it, pouring forth 
 her gratitude with a warmth and a spontaneity that embar 
 rassed him. Reaction from the base ingratitude of Shaw, 
 gnawing like a serpent s tooth, may have prompted it. 
 
 " I said harsh things of you." 
 
 " I may have deserved them." 
 
 She shook her head sadly and she seemed so steeped in 
 wretchedness that he pitied her profoundly with all his in 
 finite sympathy for those who suffered. He doubted not 
 that she had forsaken now all hope of becoming Shaw s wife 
 
 309 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 and his quick intuition told him that their affair had been 
 ruptured by a lovers quarrel. On his part, none the less, 
 delicacy commanded silence. 
 
 " I must go now ; I have been delayed too long," said 
 Georgia, and somehow even these commonplace words 
 seemed to Bruce to be drenched in tears; and she went on 
 hastily, excitedly, as if it were something she had been long 
 meaning to say and must say it now: " Inez awaits you; go 
 to her. She is in love with you. You are blind, not to 
 have seen it long ago." 
 
 She turned precipitately and swept on her way, leaving 
 him with a confused sense of his pity for her and astonish 
 ment at this whirl of words that she had so impulsively 
 scattered behind her. Hastening into the marble room he 
 found Inez gone ; there was a heavier feeling around his heart 
 and the shadows deepened on his face. 
 
 Why Inez left, ceding to the masterful mood of the mo 
 ment, it would have been impossible for even Inez herself 
 to have told. It might have been the protest of her femi 
 ninity against the intrusion of Georgia; it might have been 
 the reawakening of harsher sentiments, but whatever the rea 
 son a long time elapsed before Bruce McAllister was destined 
 to hear from her lips how bitterly she resented Shaw s dia 
 tribe against him. 
 
 310 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 GEORGIA S DEPARTURE 
 
 WHEN Georgia Fiske Ten Eyck reached home she 
 hastened to her room, locked the doors, and threw 
 herself at full length on the couch. Her breast 
 heaved ; her large intellectual face was white with pain. Her 
 complete overthrow had come that day! Shaw had broken 
 with her finally and irrevocably! He had become all in all 
 to her while she to him had become a trifle outworn. The 
 moral sacrifice she had made voluntarily in his behalf, her un 
 willing treachery to her father, bound her to Shaw the closer, 
 since remorse for her sins was sure to be severer when she 
 was abandoned by him for whom they had been committed. 
 
 Conscience is sometimes an obliging creditor, but it will 
 demand its last penny of dues in the end. Her strong, mas 
 culine intellect, born to think independently, had put her 
 in rebellion against the conventions set for her sex, while 
 her feminine nature, loving to be foremost in the very so 
 ciety that laid down these so arbitrary and rigorous laws, 
 forced her to bow a submissive knee in public to what 
 her private life spurned. Her divided nature, her double 
 life were constantly in clash, and the tragedy of her ex 
 istence was outlined in advance for her with a Grecian 
 fatality. 
 
 She took all her suffering with a certain masculine sto 
 icism, suppressing her groans with clenched fists, her white 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 teeth biting into the soft flesh of her underlip, her eyes glassy 
 but tearless. 
 
 At seven the call came for dinner, and not long there 
 after the man rapped at the door. She answered in a low 
 voice that she was suffering from a nervous headache and 
 wished to be excused. No, she cared for nothing; not even 
 tea. She begged not to be disturbed. 
 
 She arose and, walking over to the window, rested her 
 arms on the sill and looked out. Her long hair, uncoiled 
 and disheveled, falling in a shower of gold to her waist, 
 blew disregarded in her face and her eyes. The dusk sank 
 aweary, as if to find rest in the lap of the earth. Slowly 
 the roof tops of the government buildings in the Mall dwin 
 dled from view, as if they, too, were seeking solace under 
 the sheltering tent of the night. The darkness fell softly 
 as sleep itself over tired Washington. Rest was for all 
 things save her. 
 
 The night marched forth in all its majestic somberness. 
 At the end of the street, sloping upward, the electric lights 
 twinkled watchfully from the White House porticoes. Over 
 the serene abode the high stark Ionic columns stood at vig 
 ilance, like grim, impassable guards. Her ambition had sought 
 to enter these auspicious portals and been repulsed repeat 
 edly killed finally. Her life, broken hearted, choked with 
 tears, gazed on the slain one, bleeding there. Somber and 
 more somber with the deepening blackness grew her mood. 
 The warm winds, fluttering like the silks of a fairy 
 presence, seemed to her to sob out the infinite sadness of 
 the world. 
 
 The stars came forth, beaming and dancing with pristine 
 vigor and joy, careless of life s manifold misery that called 
 up to them from the earth below. The city was lapped in 
 silence, broken only by the steady, monotonous click-clack 
 
 312 
 
GEORGIA S DEPARTURE 
 
 of the horses hoofs on the asphalt pavement. From the 
 circle across the way the odor of hyacinths stole into her 
 room like faint music. She was alone in the world she 
 and her sorrow! 
 
 The peculiar mysterious happiness that sometimes springs 
 from grief, the luxury of pitying oneself when the soul is 
 wrenched in twain and one half of it weeps for the other, 
 was no longer for her. She had passed that stage ; her whole 
 being was steeped in misery. She moaned aloud, her face 
 white as if her sobs were drawing the very blood from her 
 lips. Her forehead sank on her arms; then she lifted her 
 eyes and they traveled in the direction of the obelisk the 
 huge, stern sentinel of the night on which she had looked 
 so often in such varying moods. She could discern its white, 
 gaunt outlines standing there like some ghostly figure arisen 
 out of the past. Her mind centered on it, her whirling 
 thoughts concentrated, and her whole life moved before her 
 in review. 
 
 She fell to wondering what her mother was like, this 
 strange, enigmatical woman who died while her daughter 
 was still an infant, of whom Georgia had heard but little a 
 bit here when her uncommunicative father was in one mood, 
 a bit there when he was in quite another. This brooding 
 over her mother, this fanciful construction of her character 
 and personality had its peculiar charms for her at moments 
 when remorse or distress was uppermost. Flashes as of 
 another life, of soul transmigration, would quiver through 
 her, and this being created by her imagination would stand 
 before her clothed in flesh, vitalized by blood; and elusive 
 phrases, indistinct and hazy, that she had heard spoken 
 sometime, somewhere, by her mother s lips, would flit through 
 her mind. 
 
 What was the mystery that surrounded her mother s 
 21 313 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 end? How had she quit the world? Death? Suicide? 
 Georgia s whole body shuddered, her muscles contracting 
 tensely. By some process of reasoning, illogical and without 
 basis, resting on a stray hint, caught from she remembered 
 not where, she reached the conclusion that her mother s 
 death had come by her own hand. The gloomy, morbid 
 thought thrilled responsive chords. " She must have suf 
 fered like me, we must have been alike," she sobbed, as if 
 pitying her mother rather than herself. 
 
 In the church on the opposite corner the choir was re 
 hearsing, and through the open door the solemn roll of the 
 organ and the chant of voices traveled like the perfume of 
 the hyacinth through the May night to her. The music 
 startled her at first; she had been lost so inextricably in 
 the dark, drear cavern of her own thoughts that she had 
 not heard a note of it until the moment when the swelling 
 sounds of the chorus had burst in a wave on her conscious 
 ness; perhaps the door had been shut; maybe the singing 
 had been softer, the playing lower. She resented it as an 
 intrusion; it grated on her like harsh and fretting noises, 
 and she arose to close her window, when the music ceased 
 and only the steady click-clack of the horses hoofs on the 
 asphalt disturbed the silence. She arose and walked rest 
 lessly up and down the dark room, moaning to herself dis 
 consolately. What was her life to be now? What had it 
 ever been? Her insatiable ambition had succeeded only in 
 embittering her father s existence, in making him the plaything 
 for discontent until the end of his days. She loved him with 
 all her deep masculine-feminine capabilities for love, and 
 his devotion to her had been the undoing of his happiness. 
 Her divorce had sullied his good name with the mud of scan 
 dal ! She had made an unholy compact with his arch enemy ! 
 She had been false to him who was ready to sacrifice all for 
 
GEORGIA S DEPARTURE 
 
 her ! She had put herself and his pride into the hands of the 
 man whom he hated most of all men on earth ! If the sorry 
 tale ever leaked out and her despondency whispered that 
 become public property it would and must it would crack 
 that stoic heart. It was hard even now to look into those 
 severe, glowering eyes of his, but supposing all should become 
 known and he should call her to face him? She preferred 
 the unanswerability of death! 
 
 She dragged herself to the window and sank down on 
 her knees. Evening after evening she had sat in this same 
 alcove to watch the sun set over Georgetown, when through 
 the gold-shot mists her imagination made the hills take on the 
 loftiness of mountains and scale tier on tier to the clouds. 
 Often and often she had seen the skies flush in a glory of 
 color, and one by one she had beheld the brilliant shades grow 
 faint and die out, engulfed at last in the swarthiness of the 
 night, and it occurred to her that all the joy and brightness 
 and color that youth lent her life had been fading with a like 
 swiftness, swallowed finally in the blackness of this one su 
 preme sorrow. 
 
 But on the morrow did not the sun arise again, the dark 
 ness go down before it? She smiled forlornly, refusing to 
 delude herself with false comparisons, pushed to an absurdity. 
 Her youth was dead, murdered by him who could have saved, 
 and it never would rise again. 
 
 She looked down on the area below, faintly lit by the re 
 flection from the lamp that was held by the bronze figure 
 of the flying Mercury that stood on the steps outside. She 
 leaned far out, gazing down, down as if into an abyss. She 
 shut her eyes. The warm winds were chill to her hot cheeks. 
 She was giddy. Her brain reeled. The odor of the hya 
 cinths was as intoxicating as the bouquet of strong wines. 
 She felt her hold on the window frame relax, as if her will, 
 
 315 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 acting in response to another will stronger than its own, were 
 loosening her clasp. Her feet lifted themselves from the 
 floor, her gaze fascinated by something far, far below that 
 her reeling mind failed to comprehend. She suppressed a 
 cry, rather her dizzy heart tore it from her lips. Horrified 
 by what she did, yet did not wish to do, she let go. 
 
 316 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 R. R. DISAPPEARS 
 
 ROSSITER REMBRANDT DICKINSON deserted 
 his friends and acquaintances as entirely and suddenly 
 as he has these chronicles for a long time. He locked 
 his studio doors one night, shortly after his last conversation 
 with Elaine, slipped the keys in his pocket, and many a long 
 day passed before his squat body and fierce face were seen 
 in the Cavern of Despair again. Not a soul had been taken 
 into his confidence, and consequently those who wished to find 
 out where he was had no means at all of learning. On his 
 door he pasted the notice : " R. R. Dickinson begs to inform 
 his patrons and the public that he will be gone from here on 
 business for some time. Date of return uncertain." It was 
 as if the grotesques he had sketched in the corners of the sign 
 were four R. R. s, in various moods of merriment, grinning 
 at himself as he wrote. 
 
 The numerous patrons and the great public to which he 
 appealed in his fantastic declaration of absence were in reality 
 no other than that one individual Miss Elaine McAllister. 
 It was nobody else s business, he told himself, whether he 
 went away or stayed at home, and in so far as Elaine was 
 concerned it mattered not where he went, since go he must 
 and miss him she would, he might as well be in one place as 
 another ; besides, he was by no means certain as to his destina 
 tion or the length of his departure. 
 
 R. R. decided only, with great reluctance, that he was 
 317 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 deeply in love, that he was unhappy beyond his power of 
 expression; that if he confessed his passion to its object he 
 might either be laughed at or accepted, and he was as much 
 panic-stricken by one alternative as the other. " An artist," 
 he reasoned out in his calmer moments, " has no business to 
 be married ; he wants to be as unfettered as the winds ; if he s 
 loaded down with petty worries and small household cares, 
 it s good-by to art. Make up your mind one way or the 
 other: divorce yourself from your painting and take a wife 
 unto yourself or remain a bachelor and wedded to your art." 
 Then came a moment of temptation and he was for flinging 
 down his brushes, rushing upstairs to Elaine and declaring 
 his eternal devotion. He saw but one way out of the dread 
 predicament flight; and to strengthen this conclusion there 
 was the fact that he had funds in hand and that he was run 
 ning short of material to finish his great American series of 
 ten, and a glimpse of the new life of the West might furnish 
 him with needed suggestions and inspiration. He would go, 
 return and conquer himself. He wanted to say good-by to 
 Elaine, that being only just and right; but he feared lest a 
 formal farewell might plunge him into the very danger he 
 was struggling to avoid, and so with his usual tact and dex 
 terity he hit upon the aforesaid sign as a way out of the diffi 
 culty. How in the world Elaine was to know that the notice 
 was written for her benefit, unless by intuition or witchcraft, 
 is something that probably escaped his consideration he was 
 too excited at the time to think. 
 
 R. R. left his environment behind and started toward 
 Denver, but his trouble accompanied him every foot of the 
 way, with just as comfortable and easy an air as if it had 
 been invited and were heartily welcome; Elaine filled his 
 thoughts as much a thousand miles away from her as that 
 pale and frail young lady did when she was just over his 
 
 318 
 
R. R. DISAPPEARS 
 
 head ; and the result of this of course was, either fortunately 
 or unfortunately, that his journey was a rank failure, that he 
 was wretched and ill at ease, in no mood to heed or see the 
 hundred and one subjects for paintings that stretched out 
 their hands to him from everywhere; and in turn the result 
 of this was, of course, that he started homeward long before 
 the number of days allotted for his journey was over. 
 
 On his return to Washington he played what may be 
 termed a game of hide-and-seek with Elaine ; he slipped into 
 his studio early of mornings and never left at night until 
 he had made sure that she was out of sight, groaning most 
 of the time at the torture and the penance he imposed on him 
 self. Elaine, meanwhile, was distressed at his strange con 
 duct, and she all but worried herself into sickness by imaging 
 the faults she might have committed to hurt him. 
 
 And so the case stood in Cupid s court until one fine morn 
 ing in May of the long session when R. R. threw his win 
 dows wide open to let the balmy air into his musty studio; 
 to R. R. s sensitive nostrils the atmosphere was as laden with 
 warm and strong odors as if Washington had been turned 
 into a vast garden of flowers ; and his quick ears fairly could 
 hear the bursting of pod and bud, the unfolding of leaf, the 
 roar of awakened life, the hum of beautiful industry that the 
 warm, virile, Southern spring inspired in nature s workshop. 
 In the small garden of the Navy building across the street 
 the pink flowers of the magnolia had opened suddenly, as if 
 by a magician s touch, into their full pink and white bloom. 
 His own blood flowed faster, his heart beats were more rapid ; 
 he, too, was under the spell of the season, his energies resur 
 rected to the new life of the year. He picked up his brushes 
 at length, and knitting his brows he set to work resolutely 
 an operation that for a long time had been attended with no 
 degree of success. " By God ! I can t stand this any 
 
 319 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 longer ! " he cried as suddenly as irrelevantly. " It s killing 
 me! I ain t agoing to stand it any longer! I m going up 
 stairs that settles it. And such a little woman, too! " 
 
 He waddled up the dingy staircase, muttering, scolding 
 himself, puffing, panting, like a curmudgeon on his way to 
 discharge a debt, looking once or twice as if he would like 
 to turn back, but prodding himself on again with his own 
 choice selection of harsh epithets. He pushed the door of 
 Elaine s studio open slightly, thrust in his shaggy head, the 
 ridge of eyebrow jutting fiercely, and he said in a voice so 
 low that it was ridiculous his whole attitude promised to 
 shout and one heard but a whisper " Woman alive, I m 
 back!" 
 
 " I ve known that for almost a month," remarked Elaine, 
 trying hard to hide the evidences of her shock of surprise. 
 
 "I ve been meaning to run up to see you, but the fact 
 is the fact is " He paused, wagged his head, interrupting 
 himself with : " That s a fine bit you are at work on there, 
 grand I admire it mightily. It s a neat idea your young 
 woman bent double in serious study, holding a light over 
 her book very neat indeed. You know me, I m not the 
 kind of a man to praise a thing I don t like." 
 
 " Yes, indeed I know you," said Elaine going on with 
 her work, as if quite indifferent to his presence. " But you 
 didn t finish explaining what the facts were that you wanted 
 to use to excuse your negligence." 
 
 " That s true, I didn t, did I ? I ve been busy, awful 
 busy on something secret no one s to know what it s about 
 until it s done and settled one way or the other." 
 
 " Poor boy ! " she said in mock pity, " what was that 
 dreadful incubus? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing," he answered vaguely, as if he had been 
 suffering from some mystery, the burden of which he was 
 
 320 
 
R. R. DISAPPEARS 
 
 condemned to bear in silence and alone, and then he burst 
 out suddenly, in a manner more native to him ; " Elaine, 
 Miss Elaine Miss McAllister, I mean ; women are different 
 than men; they re entirely different; they don t realize it; 
 but they are. The point is just here, when a man s in trouble 
 he wants everybody to leave him alone ; when a woman s in 
 trouble she won t leave anybody alone. Don t you see?" 
 He stopped and stammered over some incoherent phrases, 
 feeling that the harder he tried to lift himself out of the quag 
 mire the deeper he sank into it. 
 
 Elaine laughed despite her resolution to remain cold, re 
 served and distant Rossiter Rembrandt was too absurd, too 
 impossible; one could not take the man seriously. Surely 
 he was a rare bird, not classified in any ornithology and one 
 to be considered in his own way or not at all. 
 
 " Come," he pleaded earnestly, " don t quarrel with me; 
 I m at fault, I ll acknowledge, but there s a good reason for 
 it, believe me. I ll explain it in due time and maybe you 
 will agree with me. Don t say that I assume too much in 
 supposing that it is so important to you; I know very well 
 it isn t." His voice sank lower; his rugged face softened, 
 and her resolves became gentler with his own compelling 
 gentleness. His moods affected her as the weather does the 
 thermometer. 
 
 " And it s such a beautiful morning," he chuckled. 
 "Have you looked out of your window? Haven t you 
 heard the call of the song of spring? It seems to me that if 
 I were locked in jail to-day, I d break the bars to get out or 
 go crazy. Did you notice the magnolias across the way 
 even they couldn t stay in this morning. Nothing can. The 
 whole world is swimming in sunshine. It is sacrilege not to 
 get out a bit and worship nature. I think too much of you 
 to let you put yourself in danger of being excommunicated 
 
 321 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 from the mother church, so I come to take you out of this 
 unholy cell and offer a jaunt. What do you say? Your 
 young lady in clay won t stir from her book until you get 
 back; maybe she ll behave better afterwards if you leave her 
 in peace now. Besides, it s miserly not to give one day out 
 of the three hundred and sixty-five to the year that gives 
 us all of them. Don t say no." 
 
 " How can I," she smiled, " in the face of such unusual 
 eloquence? Where shall it be?" 
 
 R. R. grinned, pleased as a schoolboy at the compliment. 
 " Where to? " he asked. " There s the river we can float 
 along to Mount Vernon or we can take the car to Cabin- 
 John s Bridge; or " 
 
 " Cabin-John s Bridge ; I haven t been there yet and I d 
 like to go." 
 
 " That suits me better, too. I was half afraid you 
 would say Mount Vernon. All this sentimental drolling 
 over dead men s graves makes me sick ; and besides the poets 
 and politicians " he cut himself short. " Yes, we ll make 
 it Cabin- John s." 
 
 In the trolley car that whirled them toward their desti 
 nation he sat in silence most of the while, tranquil and happy, 
 pleased with himself and satisfied with the world. Now 
 and then he gave a low chuckle at what it is to be doubted 
 if he knew himself. Elaine chattered on gayly, feeling as if 
 a heavy weight had fallen from her shoulders suddenly, re 
 joiced to have that mixture of the rough and the sterling 
 which was R. R. with her again. 
 
 " It must have snowed dogwood last night," she com 
 mented, drawing in long whiffs of the delicate fragrance 
 and pointing to the high white banks of the flower that 
 loomed like drifts of unsmutched snow out of the vivid green 
 woods and thickets. 
 
 322 
 
R. R. DISAPPEARS 
 
 " Clever girl! " he exclaimed to himself as if he had just 
 discovered that fact; "very clever! Clever about every 
 thing. Just the woman for me; she would make just the 
 wife for me. We could manage to pull through, I think. 
 I might have to paint more pot-boilers ; but we could manage 
 it, I guess. I don t see why we couldn t. We should have 
 to, that s all. I m going to ask her before we get back, as 
 sure as my name is Rossiter Rembrandt Dickinson. She may 
 say no; but what of it? It ll hurt, but it won t kill. She 
 may say yes; I m inclined to think that she will say yes. 
 Why shouldn t she say yes to a man like me? I was a fool 
 not to have asked her up in the studio before we started; I 
 can t reel off an eloquent speech like that every minute. If 
 it s going to be yes or no, it might as well be at one time 
 as another. So it might! What a fool I am anyway. 
 Why in heaven must a man make himself miserable over a 
 woman ? And over a pale little woman to boot. I used to 
 scoff at it ; I used to laugh at it ; and now my wrists are tied 
 by a pair of apron strings. I suppose it s punishment; no, 
 it s arranged that way. A woman turns the world topsy 
 turvy, a man sets things right again, and the struggle between 
 the sexes keeps the world moving. That s the way I figure 
 it out, anyway." 
 
 The scenic beauties, minor and subdued, the surpassing 
 glory of the morning came to him only as sounds in the street 
 to one seated in a theater and lost in the play. The lordly 
 Potomac, forced here and there to confine itself to narrow 
 channels, roared out again at its bars disdainfully, boiled 
 and seethed, and lashed its eddies into foam, and threw itself 
 headlong against the high rocks that dared to face its current 
 and challenge its way. Between the conduit road and the 
 river the yellowish waters of the lock canal dozed in the 
 warm weather as oblivious as R. R. himself to the upheaval 
 
 323 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 of life, the crackling of germination in the earth and the air. 
 On the farther shore the sheer gray bluffs scarred and seamed 
 by blasting, lifted on high one solid mass of green tree and 
 vine leaves, not unlike a battle-worn army carrying so many 
 new banners. 
 
 The long pleasant ride was over all too soon for Elaine, 
 who had fairly reveled in the variation that every twist and 
 turn in the road spread to view. They dismounted from the 
 car and sauntered toward the ornamental steel bridge that 
 crossed the deep glen and ran over to the grounds of the hotel. 
 He paused there a moment and swung his short arm out from 
 his dumpy figure. " That s what I call building, architec 
 ture, magnificence ! " he exclaimed, pointing, not a stone s 
 throw away, to the span of the graceful arch and the long 
 sweep of solid masonry of Cabin- John s Bridge. A swollen 
 creek bubbled lustily beneath it and the high slender syca 
 mores pushed above its top. 
 
 " Yes," agreed Elaine, " but you shake your arm at the 
 bridge as if you wished to hurl it over." 
 
 " Clever of you ; very clever of you," he chuckled. 
 
 " I don t see why," objected she. 
 
 " Not that remark in particular, perhaps; but then very 
 clever in general at least that s the way I reckon it out." 
 
 " I suppose that s a pretty fine compliment coming 
 from you, R. R. ; but why in the world must you reckon it 
 out?" 
 
 " Did I say anything about reckoning it out? " He 
 blushed. "Well, the truth is, I m confused this morning; 
 all turned around about something or other. I m used to 
 working, you see; working every day of my life. I never 
 stop for holidays I work all the time. That s what we re 
 put here for work! Holidays are just for lazy, shiftless, 
 good-for-nothing people, that s what I think. Well, as I 
 
 324 
 
R. R. DISAPPEARS 
 
 started to say, quitting work to-day and getting out of the 
 grooves of habit has kind of upset me." 
 
 Elaine laughed aloud at the logic, clumsy and crude as the 
 perpetrator of it, that made good-for-nothings out of him and 
 of her. 
 
 He was ashamed of something, and he did not know ex 
 actly what it was, and his shame, his indecision, and his anger 
 wrought havoc with him. He rolled over himself awk 
 wardly in argument this morning, much as his head went 
 over his heels on that fatal day when he tumbled off the car. 
 There were seconds when he dared to believe that she knew 
 the cause of all of it. 
 
 They loitered on through the grounds, passed the merry- 
 go-rounds and the scenic railway and the bandstand and sum 
 mer pavilions he snorted out something or other against 
 man s vilification of pleasant prospects and they strolled 
 on to the generous veranda of the hotel, whither they repaired 
 for luncheon. 
 
 " Let s have our fried chicken al fresco," he said, selecting 
 a table on the south side of the open porch that peered through 
 the cool green of the trees and out on the shimmering waters 
 of the Potomac. He ordered enough for four from the as 
 tonished waiter it would have been for six had not Elaine 
 stopped him in time and when the food came he scarcely 
 touched it, giving some far-fetched excuse. He sat in ab 
 solute silence, playing with his knife and fork, looking all 
 the time as if he were on the point of bursting out into a long 
 discourse. 
 
 After their repast he suggested with unwonted mildness, 
 as if she were actually entitled to a voice in it, that they walk 
 out toward Great Falls on the shaded conduit road, but 
 barely were they on their way before another idea laid hold 
 of him and he asked : " How would it be if we take this little 
 
 325 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 path and go down to the old canal? There s the lock 
 keeper s shanty just to one side of it, and it lends a human 
 note to the picturesque surroundings. Nature is all right 
 in its way, but I like it best when it serves as a background 
 for man. Millet made the right use of it according to my 
 ideas." 
 
 " You don t seem to like anything just for its own sake," 
 she answered, " just because it is beautiful or pleasing or 
 soothing; but with you everything must give an excuse for 
 its existence. It must serve a purpose." 
 
 " Well, maybe I do, and maybe I don t, what s the use of 
 arguing and arguing? I don t believe in arguing, do you? " 
 
 " No," she smiled, " not with you." 
 
 "Not with me! Why not with me? You must pardon 
 my saying so, but you make me out a bear, a wolf, a savage ; 
 as if I wanted to eat people when they dared to contradict 
 me, and I m not that way at all, and you know it. I m too 
 pliable; too meek! I don t assert myself enough, that s the 
 trouble with me lack of self assertion! I have tried to 
 overcome it, to conquer it; but what s the use? It s no use 
 at all; a man is made the way he s made; and if he s made 
 right, it s all right, and if he s made wrong, God help him; 
 he can t do a thing for himself." 
 
 " I don t agree with that, R. R." 
 
 " I know you don t. I expected that in advance. Who 
 does agree with me on anything ? No one does ! I suppose 
 I m all wrong and others are all right. It frightens me some 
 times. I wake up with a start and think: Here, here, Ros- 
 siter Rembrandt Dickinson, you re a lunatic ; it can t be pos 
 sible that you can disagree with the whole world and be 
 sane. It s awful to feel that way. I wish I could change 
 myself." 
 
 His evident nervousness passed into an agitation that was 
 326 
 
R. R. DISAPPEARS 
 
 quite as plain. He arose from where they were seated, bent 
 his fat body and picked up sticks and stones and turf, with 
 face as grim as if he were a Titan bent on pulling up the 
 earth to hurl it at the sky, and he sent them splashing into 
 the sleepy waters of the canal. 
 
 " Hi! " he shouted, suddenly dropping down at her side, 
 " there s old Charon coming out of his Hades to let the boats 
 pass. Quite a character, I ll wager. An odd, old figure! 
 I wonder if he grew here; I wonder if he ever left this spot. 
 It would make a picture." He shut his eyes and puckered 
 his brows as if he wished to impress the scene deeply on his 
 memory. " I touched the button," he said after a second, 
 " and I ve got the picture, details and all. Capital! " 
 
 A boat laden with grain for the mills of Georgetown 
 was being hauled down the stream by a mule that stepped 
 indolently along the narrow towpath, urged on with but 
 little effect by the stick of a white-haired, hatless negro 
 " the uncle " and his garments were apparently of the same 
 age. Elaine and R. R. lapsed into silence, watching Charon 
 open the lock-gates idly to let the yellow water drift into the 
 chamber. The whole scene seemed a revival of the easy 
 going ante-bellum days of the old South that has passed quite 
 away. 
 
 " If there were only locks to lift us over our difficulties," 
 he thought. " I haven t considered this thing seriously 
 enough. Not half. I tell you marriage is a big leap, like 
 jumping from one world into another. Exactly! And be 
 sides she hasn t given me any chance to approach the subject; 
 not a word of encouragement. A woman ought to do her 
 share. If she cares for a man she ought to show it; that s 
 all there is about it! It s as important for her as for me 
 every bit." 
 
 The flour boat, with its charger and guardian, was hid- 
 327 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 den from sight; the lock shut again, the keeper returned to 
 his house, and the two were left undisturbed, the master and 
 mistress of their own little world. 
 
 " Life is a strange thing," he commented. 
 
 " I ve heard that before," she smiled. 
 
 "I know! I know!" puffed R. R. waving his short 
 thick arm in front of him; then after a bit " marriage is 
 a strange thing, too very." He bent his gaze on the 
 ground, ostensibly considering the ways of an ant. 
 
 " Oh, very," she blushed. 
 
 " Eh ? Do you think it strange ? " 
 
 " Oh, very," she repeated. 
 
 He prodded into the soft soil with a twig, caught be- 
 tween the rollers of conflicting thoughts. " I ve broken 
 the ice; I ve gone far enough for a while. Better stop here 
 and think it over, R. R. ; you can t go back if you go forward 
 another inch. By the living rock, this is an awful piece of 
 business." 
 
 Elaine s heart beat quicker and quicker, and her nerves 
 twitched ; he had wrought her into a very fever of expectancy, 
 while he was now calmly engaged in an almost chemical anal 
 ysis of his sensations. 
 
 " I see that Charon rents boats and fishing tackle; it 
 might be pleasant to take a little junket on the river." Thus 
 he shoved the engrossing theme away by sheer force. 
 
 " I have no doubt that it would," she assented, feeling 
 that her emotions, like herself, had been dragged from one 
 place to another. 
 
 And so, almost before they were aware of it, what with 
 their rowing and fishing and walking and their fragmentary 
 conversation pushed between, the afternoon vanished, the 
 shadows lengthened, the sun sank and the daylight dwindled 
 into the dusk. 
 
 328 
 
R. R. DISAPPEARS 
 
 On the way homeward, when the electric car whirled 
 them through the darkness, he lifted himself out of the de 
 pression into which he had let himself sink to remark : " You ll 
 be returning to Chicago soon, almost any day now; and I 
 didn t get a chance to talk on the serious subject we started." 
 
 " On what was that? " Her pale face flushed and she 
 could hear the beat of her heart above the whirr of the flying 
 wheels. 
 
 The bars above R. R. s eyes ridged and deepened. 
 " Don t you know?" 
 
 " We talked about so many things," she pleaded. 
 
 " Yes, that s so," he assented gloomily, plunging back 
 into the depths of quiet, muttering to himself inwardly, 
 " That s the way of it; that s all the encouragement I get; " 
 and then, with what he considered a remarkable adroitness, 
 he changed the topic of conversation for the final time. 
 
 When he left Elaine at the door of her apartment house 
 in Iowa Circle and parted with her for the night, he waddled 
 along Thirteenth Street to Franklin Square and stumbled 
 over to a bench in the darkness. A half hour passed ; then 
 an hour; and he seemed as oblivious to the flight of time as 
 if he had decided to camp there for the night. Finally the 
 cold and the dampness touched his marrow, arousing him 
 from his lethargy like the thump from a policeman s club. 
 He arose slowly and unwillingly, muttering to himself: 
 "I m an ass; a hopeless ass, without even enough sense to 
 bray at the right time. Was there ever a man like me? " 
 
 Was there? 
 
 329 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CHARITY AND JUSTICE 
 
 TO my mind, Senator McAllister," said Anthony, " pov 
 erty is not the problem you would make of it. Leave 
 it alone and in time it will take care of itself. 
 Meanwhile, you had better put on an apron and enjoy the 
 delights of humility. There is nothing like it ! I can recom 
 mend it to everybody." 
 
 So by ignoring it did Sir Anthony solve the problem of 
 poverty at the Convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor on 
 the occasion when fashion and diplomacy covered their broad 
 cloths and silks to wait on the dependent ones. In the plain 
 dining room the paupers were already seated, intent on their 
 fare, graced with unusual luxuries, paying small heed to the 
 mighty who had humbled themselves to serve. 
 
 Bruce was about to reply in a jocular vein when Addison 
 Hammersmith, in evident search for somebody, stumbled into 
 the anteroom where Bruce and Anthony were conversing. 
 " Is that you, old fellow? " said Addison, espying Bruce and 
 coming forward to shake hands with him. " Well, upon my 
 word, I didn t expect to find you here. Ruth pulled me 
 into it. Have you seen her anywhere ? Between us, I think 
 the thing is a humbug. What the poor want, according to 
 my idea, is to be given plenty of grub and be left alone while 
 they re eating it." 
 
 A moment afterwards Addison vanished, taking with him 
 the aproned Sir Anthony, who was trying to enjoy the sen- 
 
 330 
 
CHARITY AND JUSTICE 
 
 sation of poverty the way most men would like to enjoy the 
 sensation of riches. The sight of Addison, naturally recall 
 ing Inez, whom he had come hither in the hopes of seeing, 
 set Bruce s heart to beating quicker. A long sojourn in New 
 York and the envious months, as if at the command of the 
 sprite aforesaid, held Bruce and Inez apart; and even the 
 great god Chance, on whom separated lovers are wont to rely 
 for the meeting that shall lead to a reconciliation, had not 
 intervened in their behalf; and as the days of the long session 
 dwindled on and on toward a hurried close, despair seized 
 him and laid a heavy hand on her. 
 
 But in some page of the book of love which is kept, they 
 say, by a mischievous, blundering blind man, it was written 
 that these two should meet, and had it not been so written 
 who is there to say they should not have met after all? At 
 any rate, be these things as they may, Inez seeking the un 
 stable Addison entered that anteroom, saw Bruce and took 
 a startled step backward ; and he, seeing her, remained where 
 he was, confused and at a loss to find the phrases he had 
 coined to honor this very occasion. And she might have gone 
 on her way and he might have stood where he was, and they 
 might have remained as far apart as if sundered by the seas, 
 had they not advanced together and clasped hands, and had 
 she not said to him, missing a better phrase : 
 
 "You here!" 
 
 " Evidently," he replied, conscious of an inward trem 
 bling. 
 
 " But you are not cast for a part! I couldn t imagine 
 your so being. What brings you here?" Her eyes fas 
 tened on him as if to pierce all the changes that the months 
 had made in him ; she discovered none. 
 
 "The hope of seeing you. And you?" There was a 
 heart beat in his voice. 
 
 331 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 " Accident," she answered, the pink encroaching on the 
 ivory of her cheeks, and then she went on hastily, " and you 
 don t approve of it?" She wondered if the uneven tones 
 of her voice were as perceptible to him as to her. 
 
 Should Democracy, given a chance to grow eloquent be 
 fore Love, eager for its words after a long separation, remain 
 silent? He inveighed against an arrangement of men s lives 
 that made necessary the constant appeal to Charity, who de 
 graded and humbled even while she gave, conscious that the 
 necessity for her giving wronged the name she bore. He 
 believed that when Justice swayed the world Charity would 
 leave poverty out of its benign realms. 
 
 Every time one charitable institution was built our con 
 ditions multiplied the necessity for ten more; therefore it 
 was the part of wisdom to obliterate the shameful disease, 
 the bestial overwork, the savage exploitation of the weak by 
 the strong, the fear of want that shattered the lives and 
 health of men, rather than to go on and on treating superficial 
 symptoms, results ever, causes never. When each man and 
 woman did his and her share of the world s work and co 
 operation supplanted caste, when waste was eliminated and 
 the hours of labor supplying the needs of man were reduced 
 to three, then would a life rich and full and magnificently 
 free throw open all the long-closed storehouses of nature 
 and of art to all the sons and all the daughters of men. 
 
 And while he spoke, the aged dependents, bent and 
 crippled by time, were timidly eyeing their plutocratic hosts 
 and diplomats surrounded by the artistry of exquisite toilets, 
 combining their sensuous tones as when an artist in an ab 
 sent moment plies his palette recklessly and flits by accident 
 upon a happy effect that leaves its carefully wrought-out 
 efforts far behind. The hum of voices engaged in trifling 
 conversation, the light laughter attended upon quick wit, 
 
 332 
 
CHARITY AND JUSTICE 
 
 the passing of harmless retorts and easy compliment whirred 
 like so many electric fans to drive out the air musty with 
 unsavory alms. 
 
 And amidst the contrast of the strange festivity, Sisters 
 of the Poor, pale, timid and subdued, were moving softly in 
 and out of the little chapel and the various adjoining rooms, 
 appearing in the crowded corridors as if merely to lend the 
 strong contrast of their somber black garments to the tones 
 of prevailing brilliancy, vanishing from it as if religion 
 impersonated were out of place amid worldliness per 
 sonified. 
 
 The silent going and gentle coming of these sisters re 
 minded one of the movements of the black-robed figures, 
 nuns, monks and friars from some middle-age cathedral 
 clock, whose momentary entrance is but to proclaim the 
 flight of time, and to suggest the vanity and the transitoriness 
 of human existence; while the gathering of the aristocratic 
 reminded one of the crowds in the street that look up at the 
 automatons, wonder for a second or two at the -complicated 
 and peculiar machinery that gives them life, and then straight 
 way forget their existence until the next hour when the 
 images march out of their dark caverns to announce their 
 warning presence once more. 
 
 Others flitting through the room where Bruce and Inez 
 stood interrupted their conversation constantly, forcing it to 
 change its course, and they passed from one theme to another, 
 circling around but never touching the subject that lay near 
 est their hearts, until he said, boldly, filling a pause to suit 
 his purposes, all his pulses afire: 
 
 " I thought you had all but forgotten me." 
 
 And she answered gently, her voice love-tempered : " You 
 must have known better. Trust a woman never to forget." 
 
 " Wanted to forget me," he amended. 
 333 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 She looked in silence, fearful of herself, of his easy con 
 quest, out of the window on the panorama of Washington 
 that spread before her; on the white dome of the Capitol, 
 sparkling in the sunlight as if hewn out of crystal; on the 
 low dome of the library, flashing like a ball of gold that 
 turned in the strong light of the sun. 
 
 He repeated his question, his tones softer. 
 
 " I thought I wanted to forget you," she answered. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " Ah, you know." 
 
 " And you still think I was wrong to have refused you ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " I shouldn t have refused you I don t think I should 
 have." 
 
 " But if you had you would have found me more for 
 giving." 
 
 Her long lashes dropped over her brown eyes. " Perhaps 
 I was harsher than than I should have been." Her voice 
 caught ; she sought the view from the window. 
 
 " I thought so." 
 
 " The excitement of the moment, my position and 
 you ll admit it was difficult carried me away. I said 
 things I shouldn t have said; I said things I really didn t 
 mean." 
 
 " But all this time you have left me to suffer the results 
 of your injustice and you never once hinted to me your re 
 grets. It was cruel of you ! " The memory of suffering 
 endured made him harden his heart for a second. The sprite 
 grinned. 
 
 " But I made the effort to let you know, and you knew 
 that I had made it and you let my effort pass unrecognized." 
 A tender note crept into her voice; her eyes were less hard. 
 The sprite held his breath. 
 
 334 
 
CHARITY AND JUSTICE 
 
 " When was that? " he asked, astonished. 
 
 " When ! On the day your bill passed the Senate, after 
 Shaw made his attack on you." 
 
 " But when I came in the marble room you had left." 
 
 " But you must have known why I came ! " 
 
 He stood aghast before the inconsequential obstacle that 
 had threatened to wreck their happiness, but now that a 
 phrase or two had swept it to one side he was conscious only 
 of being with her again, of moving on with her again, while 
 it dwindled away into nothingness. 
 
 "And the friendship that you said could not continue?" 
 His voice throbbed; his eyes now, as if her answer were a 
 thing to be seen and not heard, looked without. 
 
 " I have already answered that. You must have known 
 I could not have meant it. You were cruel to have given 
 such importance to a word spoken in " memory, impartial 
 to lovers, flayed her now with the recollection of miseries 
 endured. 
 
 " How could I have known ? " 
 
 " By your intuition you used to boast about its relia 
 bility." Pride, humbled by its too easy surrender, strained 
 against the manacles. 
 
 " I have been punished by my boastfulness." The look 
 that swept across his swarthy face vouchsafed for the truth 
 in his words. " Is our friendship to continue? " 
 
 " Do you wish it? " She faltered, her eyes luminous as 
 with tears. 
 
 He was about to ask how life for him could continue 
 without it, when the murmur of confused words and light 
 laughter echoed behind him, and turning he beheld that Ve 
 nus, unwilling, had rilled the room with a detached group of 
 men and women. He was alive to the fact, too, that they 
 had outstayed the time alloted by discretion, and he took care 
 
 335 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 in so far as he could to make himself a part of the peculiar 
 entertainment instead of holding himself aloof from it. 
 
 Half an hour afterwards he walked outside of the convent 
 walls and strolled rapidly toward the Capitol. The Su 
 preme Court was to listen that afternoon to arguments lev 
 eled against the constitutionality of the Child-Labor law 
 and Bruce was anxious to see how the shafts would strike 
 the target at which they were being aimed. 
 
 He hastened through the rotunda and passed the effigies 
 of the nation s glorious ones confined to the niches of this 
 Valhalla, and so made his way into the austere hall, grave 
 as the spirit of the law that solemnly brooded over its des 
 tinies. A screen of Ionic columns, hewn out of Potomac 
 marble, made the background for the Supreme bench where 
 sat enthroned the nine justices, facing the low-domed semi 
 circular room, all its lines disciplined to a fine Grecian sever 
 ity and a noble chastity. 
 
 For the plaintiff, a Georgia cotton manufacturer terrible 
 ogre of the miracle story of modern industry! there spoke 
 one of the lawyers admired by the nation whose name legal 
 history may regret some day to associate with a cause so poor. 
 Silvery was his mustache, silvery his hair and silvery his 
 voice, although that voice, like his gestures, was held in sober 
 restraint, as if feeling were out of place in logic s mansion, 
 inhospitable to the emotions. 
 
 Democracy, sensitively aware of its swarthy hue and 
 ugly countenance, examined these nine faces, all of them good 
 to look on, venerable, conscious of accomplishment, marked 
 for their own by acumen and intellectuality these democracy 
 examined closely and felt itself out of place, for what singu 
 lar reason it knew not itself. But casting our mind far back 
 in these uneventful chronicles, and remembering democracy s 
 
 336 
 
CHARITY AND JUSTICE 
 
 impatience with modern law, let us be more patient with its 
 discomfort in the tabernacle of it. 
 
 Bruce s glittering eyes singled out Justice Addams, whose 
 iron mane fell challengingly on his square military shoul 
 ders, and whose determined countenance looked invincible as 
 destiny, wise as its decrees, and held him, as it were, in 
 the hollow of his hand and put him under the microscope 
 of his fear while he recalled those words that Inez spoke of 
 him long ago on that perfect spring night in the garden of 
 the Polish embassy. He remembered how the same arbiter 
 of the law, honest, constant and sincere, according to his 
 lights, once had changed his so potent and decisive opinion 
 between dusk and dawn, and how by that sudden shifting 
 of attitude democracy s income tax had been thrown into 
 the dust bin of just legislation. 
 
 Bound, then, in one man s skull, might beat the thought, 
 tossed like an irrevocable shuttle in its loom, that was to de 
 termine the fate of his people s children. Inexorable the 
 loom, fashioned by the past and its prejudices and its passions, 
 irrevocable the shuttle having once woven its thread into 
 the warp of the intricate pattern of the law! And of those 
 others shall it not be said that they were human, therefore 
 fallible too, swayed by the prejudgments and the class con 
 sciousness of those to whom they owe birth, education and 
 power, as unable to represent abstract justice as democracy 
 to phrase it! 
 
 And so democracy, brooding there until its thoughts be 
 came as swarthy as its countenance, reflected that the nine 
 fates that speak the ultimate word for our modern prosaic 
 law of commerce have echoed in the long run the public 
 opinion of the country. But that public opinion, fallible 
 as its interpreters, is often wrong, tyrannical, bigoted in its 
 attitude toward the questions that concern the people of 
 
 337 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 Bruce. But when the fixed stars move to their places, shall 
 not the mariners be guided by the light they throw, and shall 
 not the sons of men direct their course by the radiant beacon- 
 light of public opinion? Though the common sense of to 
 day be not the common sense of to-morrow, and the mundane 
 lights shift and bewilder, what matters it? Follow while 
 they shine and whither they direct! 
 
 " Since this court speaks the final word for things as 
 they are," said Bruce to himself, the blue light of inspiration 
 creeping athwart his glittering gray eyes, " and things as 
 they are are wrong to the core of them, what is there left 
 for democracy to do, if it would save itself, but to work a com 
 plete change in the structure erected by the labor of its hands 
 and the sweat of its brow ? " 
 
 Thus solving its own problem for itself, democracy grew 
 lighter of heart and took a human interest in the human 
 comedy, watching the calm guardians of the nation s destiny 
 as they lend an indifferent ear to the argument of the cele 
 brated counsel, yawning, turning over papers, glancing per 
 functorily at legal documents, as if their minds were already 
 made up concerning the merits of the case, or rather as if they 
 wished to keep their thoughts impartial and in suspense 
 until they could hold a more leisurely and profound converse 
 with the written word. 
 
 Celebrated counsel for Mammon drawled on and on ; 
 Bruce, quite as weary of legal platitude as the nine august 
 and potent judges, permitted himself to yawn like them ; and 
 his mind afar, traveled from the dull prelude detached from 
 the play to the denouement to. come, and wondered if modern 
 justice refused to sanction his Child-Labor bill what modern 
 charity would do for the children of his people. 
 
 338 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 SHACKLED 
 
 IN the room of the Committee of Military Affairs, eleven 
 senators were massing their wits to frame a bill that 
 would give the militia power to cope with any emer 
 gency an unreliable hour might bring forth. Hard times 
 frowned down on the country again, and labor, used to bet 
 ter things, roared at the taking away of its fleshpot and men 
 aced industry after industry with strike after strike. 
 
 Commerce, hard pushed, was crying out bitterly for stern 
 measures. Labor was refusing to enroll in the State mili 
 tary organizations, and already the chiefs of railroad brother 
 hoods w r ere locking horns with presidents, and the coal miners, 
 lifting listless shovels, were hearkening for the call to quit 
 work. A social upheaval threatened to overthrow industry 
 unless the voice of authority stopped it before impassioned 
 rebellion got well under way. 
 
 To history proud may we be of the conquest belongs 
 now the Public Military law that made every able-bodied 
 citizen a member of the militia and the militia itself an aux 
 iliary of the national army. Let history then pronounce the 
 verdict and pass the comment, here only we record what has 
 escaped her blazoned rolls and belongs to her vulgar and 
 loquacious handmaid, oral tradition. 
 
 The vulgar one tells us that on a certain Thursday morn 
 ing there appeared before the committee composed of wool 
 and of cotton, of mines, law and railroads, a hard-headed 
 
 339 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 son of toil, sent hither to protest against the bill in the name 
 of his class. This Caliban, short, fat-armed, black-bearded, 
 salaamed to commerce s senators, gazing on him coldly as 
 the commodities they personified and fastening his blue eyes 
 on Bruce McAllister, hated by trade, he hurled bitter words 
 against the bill, his short arms gesticulating vehement hatred. 
 
 He summoned imagination to his aid and bade the sen 
 ators travel with him to Rome, where the crude fellow had 
 the impudence to ask history herself to illustrate and enrich 
 his arguments. To such a pass has arrant democracy forced 
 us nowadays ! 
 
 " The slaves," spake he, " in one of the provinces of this 
 ancient Rome conspire to set themselves free. To consum 
 mate their purpose they agree to break the laws, to burn down 
 the fortresses of their masters, even to shed blood if need 
 be. It is, of course, the duty of the captain of Caesar s le 
 gions to slaughter this revolting rabble. And yet, looking 
 backward, we ask had he the moral right to kill those war 
 ring for the liberty nature gave them ? Well, to-day having 
 won political and religious liberty our wage slaves rise to war 
 for economic equality. Will the laws of humanity, greater 
 than the laws of the Caesars, sanction our shooting them 
 down?" 
 
 "Anarchy!" was the senators indignant response; and 
 refused further argument the militant son of toil angrily 
 sought the arched doors. Then spoke McAllister, who had 
 sat in deep quiet, his knees pressed tightly against the edge 
 of the mahogany table. 
 
 He abhorred force and the baying dogs it let loose and he 
 arraigned the crushing of a strike by mere force of arms. A 
 strike was a symptom, not a disease, and the aim of society 
 should be to cure the disease, not to eradicate the symptom 
 by sheer brutality. 
 
 340 
 
SHACKLED 
 
 Thus he spoke, argument and counter-argument gleam 
 ing like blades now, and his opponents crossed hot swords 
 with him, striving to leave him weaponless. 
 
 The battle, uninteresting, maybe, for those who had no 
 part in it, went on fiercer and fiercer until Fiske spoke in 
 quivering voice and then all were hushed, paying heed to the 
 words of Nestor, left spiritless and broken-hearted by his 
 daughter s death. White-haired, thin and stooped, infirm 
 of gait, he was a changed man. Even Shaw, sitting there, 
 was almost moved to tears by the voice of the erstwhile 
 powerful Fiske, shadowy as if it had come from the sepul 
 chral realms of death whither he was about to depart. With 
 him now Sydney yearned to make his peace. 
 
 Fiske s piping voice proclaimed that both capital and 
 labor must be awakened to a higher consciousness of their 
 duties ; and meanwhile, since it was ordained that there were 
 to be rich and poor, laborer and master in the world, the Gov 
 ernment must preserve peace between the two. Law and 
 order must be maintained at all costs! After the saying of 
 this he lapsed into quiet, his big head sinking slowly toward 
 his breast. 
 
 Our hero declared that the pristine gods Law and Order 
 had no more ardent worshiper than he, only their altar fires 
 must not be fed with the substance and the life blood of his 
 people. 
 
 Out flashed controversy s swords again, aimed as one 
 against our hero s heart, and he, aweary of the unequal fray, 
 retreated from the field silent and gloomy. He felt sepa 
 rated as widely from the others as if continents held them 
 apart ; and as we feel so do we think, and his way of feeling 
 was not their way, and he never could prevail upon them 
 to mete out justice to his people, who were not their people. 
 
 A sense of utter aloofness weighed him down. What 
 341 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 availed the struggle? Victory was impossible unless he sur 
 rendered his captaincy over the humble and ranged himself 
 on the side of the mighty. Victory turned into defeat, de 
 feat after defeat, and even his own signal victory itself pro 
 claimed his hopes so many dupes. Could not he use his 
 energies and gifts to a better purpose than squandering them 
 in prodigal wastefulness here? His soul, taking flight else 
 where, far beyond the confines of that room, brought him 
 his answer ; and he sat there heedless of what went on around 
 him, deaf to all words, the gray gradually dying out of his 
 eyes and leaving them a vivid blue. 
 
 Shortly after twelve, the work of drafting the bill almost 
 accomplished, yawning, worn out with the stress of fatiguing 
 emotions, Bruce was walking with slow, heavy steps through 
 the basement corridors when he suddenly encountered little 
 Butler. 
 
 " I ve been looking for you, Bruce," said the correspond 
 ent excitedly. 
 
 " What s up, Ed ? " he asked, wondering what meant 
 his friend s agitation. 
 
 " I m sorry to tell you I know how you ll feel about 
 it but I thought you d be anxious to hear. You mustn t 
 ask me how I found out, but I ve learned that the Supreme 
 Court is going to kill your Anti Child^Labor bill. A clause 
 in it has been found unconstitutional." 
 
 " Hm! You don t say! Well, I can t pretend that I m 
 exactly surprised," he choked out in a voice that told but too 
 plainly how thin after all was the buffer preparation had put 
 between him and his disappointment. 
 
 Curtly, unceremoniously, he left Butler, almost as if for 
 getful of his presence, and with step still slower and more 
 heavy he moved up the curving bronze stairway to the lobby 
 that led to the chamber. 
 
 342 
 
SHACKLED 
 
 He paused suddenly, coming to a standstill before the 
 door that gave on the Senate, as if the thought that had in 
 spired him were a hand put forth to hold him back. " I m 
 not going in there to be shackled again," he said to himself 
 solemnly. " Free and unfettered, I m going to take my cause 
 out on a fair field before the people." 
 
 Slowly he walked out into the corridor toward the ele 
 vator, his head bent, his hands clasped behind him, and he 
 narrowly averted bumping into the graceful Sydney P. Shaw, 
 strolling along in his easy, confident way. " Coming back 
 for the afternoon session, McAllister? " asked Shaw, deferen 
 tial to Bruce since the last episode in the Senate. 
 
 " I guess not," replied Bruce with a melancholy look 
 that Shaw never forgot; "I ve just concluded that it isn t 
 fair to take up space on the ballroom floor if you can t dance." 
 
 343 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SIR ANTHONY RIDES TO THE RESCUE 
 
 RUMOR, presaging the truth, as it does now and then 
 when it takes the notion, busied itself spreading 
 through Washington stories to the effect that Mr. 
 Hammersmith stood in danger of financial ruin. His un 
 fortunate investment in Shaw s Excelsior Developing Com 
 pany had dragged him to the brink of bankruptcy some time 
 ago, but he had managed by the assistance of friends and his 
 own clever manipulation to draw away from that perilous 
 situation. But now the hard times and the panic were hol 
 lowing out the value of his other securities and holdings, and 
 the foundation of his fortune threatened to tumble and drag 
 down with a crash the entire structure erected on it. 
 
 A quiet, self-sacrificing man, heroic in his modest way, 
 his whole life had been given up practically to satisfying the 
 wants of his family, and even now his last thought was for 
 himself. He had speculated with their money and if they 
 should blame him severely for it, he would complain of no 
 injustice in the reproach. 
 
 He always had kept his affairs to himself, never caring 
 to bother his wife with the dry details of business, but now 
 circumstances compelled him to tell her all. Both did their 
 best to hide their worries behind a mien of outer content. 
 Mrs. Hammersmith proved equal to the effort; but as the 
 outlook grew more and more dismal, the fortitude of one 
 
 344 
 
SIR ANTHONY RIDES TO THE RESCUE 
 
 day was undermined by the increasing bad news of the next, 
 and he moved through the house, glum, silent, dark of visage. 
 
 Nothing is more difficult than to keep the secret that we 
 have a secret; for the very effort to which we go to hide 
 our knowledge soon weaves a telling atmosphere of its own 
 around us. Inez, putting together what she saw now and 
 what she had learned before, reached a dismal but none the 
 less truthful conclusion. 
 
 Slowly and for a long time the conviction had been 
 growing on her that all this wealth and magnificence had 
 not dropped like manna from the skies, but that work and 
 care and anxiety had provided the rich furnishing for the 
 stage on which she had acted a part that seemed unworthy of 
 her now. Her father had been, it dawned on her, like a 
 stage carpenter who had designed and made the rich setting 
 wherein others might appear to their best advantage and in 
 which he himself, the appurtenances once being fashioned, 
 took small pleasure. Her thought for herself was altogether 
 submerged in her worry for others and she was occupied 
 solely in devising means that might lighten their burdens. 
 
 The change in Inez was not sudden. The century plant 
 bursts into bloom in a single night; but, behold! through 
 all the long laborious years every cell and fibre of the whole 
 organism has been toiling, silent and unseen, each contribu 
 ting its mite, like the bee to its hive, toward building up the 
 flower that is in one night so suddenly to bourgeon forth. 
 And so with Inez, unguessed, unseen, unknown, the events, 
 the thoughts, the experiences of the last years had been stor 
 ing up in her soul all the different and varied elements that 
 combined with such seeming suddenness in this one hour to 
 bring forth the fine flower of her unselfishness. 
 
 And all through that long period of suspense and trial 
 Inez recalled often what Bruce had said to her about the 
 23 345 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 fear of want. She never had dreamed that his words could 
 have any warm personal bearing for her, that they could 
 plead afterwards like a voice in her ear ; and now the specter 
 he had painted so vividly was stalking boldly in the parlor 
 below, mayhap was frowning in the bedroom where her father 
 and mother lay, unable to sleep, frightened by the rash intru 
 sion of the forbidding phantom. The personal factor again 
 changed the meaning of Bruce s preachment for her. It 
 struck home as a fact; it stood no longer aloof as a theory 
 wherein a sated intellect might find the sensation of new 
 pleasures. Self-interest which may kindle its light at the 
 vestal fires of love, faithfulness and the highest devotion, is 
 the star by which life guides the vessel of self, and as the 
 star shifts so must its course vary. 
 
 However, the hand of an unseen good fortune stayed 
 the blow that Inez s imagination pictured as struck in ad 
 vance, for at the moment when all seemed the blackest Sir 
 Anthony rode to the rescue. Sir Anthony s right hand did 
 many things that his left hand never knew, nor was this, as 
 some of his harsh critics would have us believe, because he 
 wished to keep the respect of that member. 
 
 If business was business to Sir Anthony, friendship was 
 friendship, and to what friends he had he could be both gen 
 erous and magnanimous there are those who say he had no 
 friends at all. They were mistaken; his stanchness to Mr. 
 Hammersmith proved it. When things were at their worst 
 and Addison, taking counsel with his mother, laid the truth 
 of the situation before his future father-in-law, Anthony 
 scolded that artless youth for the hazardous delay, and he 
 was as quick and ready to loan Mr. Hammersmith the use 
 of his money as ninety-nine people out of every hundred 
 would have been to lend him their sympathy and advice. 
 
 And so dark rumors that passed current as good coin of 
 346 
 
SIR ANTHONY RIDES TO THE RESCUE 
 
 the realm in Washington gossip were withdrawn shortly 
 after they were put in circulation, but not before our hero 
 had been disturbed by them. The thought of the beautiful 
 Inez impoverished, saddened him, and yet out of that very 
 sadness, as a flower may spring up in a ruin, there was born 
 the hope that their union might be founded on her shattered 
 fortunes and his own. The feeling that one whom he loved 
 with all his being might hold him responsible for her reverses 
 added nothing to his comfort of heart or his peace of mind. 
 He knew that he could find surcease from pain only in her 
 presence, and the rumor scarcely had reached him when he 
 was found awaiting her in the library where the malevolent 
 sprite, happily absent now, had . turned his world topsy 
 turvy. A sense of coolness pervaded the room. The light 
 filtered in softly through the high, long, stained-glass win 
 dows, and the green rug and the subdued tones of wall and 
 curtain and furnishing were grateful to one who just had 
 passed through the glaring heat outside. 
 
 Time was when the regal magnificence of this house had 
 thrust invisible barriers between him and her, for whom it 
 served as a fitting background for her queenliness ; but grad 
 ually the surroundings had receded farther and farther from 
 dominance as his imagination lifted her triumphantly above 
 them. She had sanctified them as her so benign presence 
 would have sanctified any place where she happened to be, 
 and even downright democracy, evoking her beautiful image 
 out of the host of suggestions of her with which every cor 
 ner of the room was redolent, found even its overburden 
 ing luxuries dear. A quickened heartbeat announced her 
 coming. 
 
 Her brown eyes, love-lit, fastened on him. " Why, how 
 worn you look," surprise prompted her to say. 
 
 Her sympathy touched him like a tender caress. " It s 
 347 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 one of the little perquisites of politics," he smiled. Endear 
 ing words hung a-tremble on his lips; the call of the blood 
 in him was strong and he gathered all his strength to resist 
 the temptation to proclaim his passion for her, to fold her, 
 protest though she might, in his arms. By sheer force he 
 made love stand in abeyance while duty spun the fine web 
 of its argument. 
 
 Dexterously he turned the conversation away from his 
 own trials to hers, hinting as lightly as he could that the 
 defeat of the Shaw bill might be responsible for the failure 
 of the house of Hammersmith. 
 
 She smiled on him, the love-light flitting across her lim 
 pid brown eyes. " We were more fortunate than others " 
 she flew to the distress she divined " and I believe my 
 father s investment leaves him little to regret." 
 
 " I am glad of it; heartily glad." A broad smile played 
 across the long lips of his mouth, bespeaking his relief, then 
 his face shadowed perceptibly again. Love, growing faint of 
 heart, rent him. 
 
 Her whole spirit, all her being moved toward him, was 
 shocked by the peculiar change of expression that shadowed 
 his swarthy face and stood at gaze to wonder at it. 
 
 " Glad, that is, beyond measure for your sake; sorry for 
 mine," he answered, reading her wonderment. Passion ris 
 ing, rising, threatened to whirl over the dam built by his 
 restraint and carry him away with its barriers. 
 
 She looked a question, bending toward him, her warm 
 fragrant breath on his cheek. 
 
 His words rushed to his lips torrentwise, then he checked 
 himself and spoke with seeming deliberateness : "I thought 
 to approach you on a basis of equality. I thought I would 
 come to you and make what I have your own. I had position 
 
 then, a future I offered them once to you and " 
 
 348 
 
SIR ANTHONY RIDES TO THE RESCUE 
 
 " And I challenged your sincerity, I know ; but have I 
 regretted anything more since than my perfect unreasonable 
 ness?" 
 
 " But now " he hesitated, looking at her as if to garner 
 the word of permission to go on. 
 
 Her breast heaved, pink colored her ivory cheeks, a soft 
 expression in her brown eyes signaled him to risk all nor be 
 afraid. He advanced. 
 
 " But now I find you, secure as you were, put beyond the 
 fear of want, while I I have lost what little you might have 
 valued." He looked at her beseechingly, longingly, as if life 
 itself had passed from him into her hands and she were the 
 arbiter of its future. 
 
 " Enlighten me. I am quite in the dark," she entreated 
 gently. She took him metaphorically. 
 
 " I have resigned from the Senate! " 
 
 "You have?" 
 
 " Yes, I sent my resignation last night to the gov 
 ernor." 
 
 " Why? " Astonishment took her from love s world to 
 the less entrancing realm of affairs. 
 
 Feeling the change, he changed to meet it. " The pathos 
 of wasted effort appalled me." His voice was the man s and 
 not the lover s. 
 
 "And when?" Her admiration for his strength and 
 power of conviction swept her back to the world out of which 
 she had passed. 
 
 " It has been with me since the beginning, when they 
 tried to ridicule me out of my ideals." 
 
 " And so made themselves ridiculous! " 
 
 " From our point of view, maybe, not from theirs. I 
 eluded every snare they spread under my feet : women, money, 
 place. And even where a man s heart is softest, even when 
 
 349 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 they tried to win me by offering my brother Peter a coveted 
 position, I could refuse." 
 
 " Strongest of men," she murmured admiringly, the words 
 half spoken to herself, half to him. 
 
 He nodded, carried beyond himself as it were, beyond 
 her by the confession he was bent on making. " They 
 maligned me ; they spread false reports about me. They did 
 all in their power to ruin me politically. They charged me 
 publicly and privately with being a demagogue and a char 
 latan. But that is the usual course through which sincerity 
 must run, and I took it for granted, heeding it hardly at 
 all." 
 
 " And then I, too, came to tempt you," burst in Inez 
 warmly. She arose from her chair and stood beside him. 
 She had been moved and thrilled strangely by what he said 
 in his own behalf said like one who would put under his 
 feet the sum of his past accomplishments with a just pride 
 merely that he may climb by way of them to greater heights 
 and still bigger victories. It was to her as if his own lips 
 had attempted to render him the praise he deserved and failed 
 in their task through timidity or modesty. 
 
 "Would you make little of that last temptation?" she 
 asked, after a pause, lovingly, her eyes bent full on him, all 
 the woman in her challenged. 
 
 " If that last temptation had come first I might have 
 given way to it ; but I became stronger as I went along," he 
 smiled, it seemed to her as through tears; and in his rugged 
 ugliness she discovered him handsome. 
 
 "No, no, don t say that!" she pleaded ardently, pas 
 sionately; " I won t let you say that! You are too modest 
 in your own behalf. You would always have been honest, 
 I know." It was as if she were daring all the world, not 
 him, to pronounce otherwise. 
 
 350 
 
SIR ANTHONY RIDES TO THE RESCUE 
 
 " I am glad you approve of what I have done, Inez, dear 
 est," he returned, the endearment slipping from him before he 
 was aware, taking advantage of his devotion to his utterance. 
 He paused, half expecting reproof ; she offered none. " I 
 feared you might consider it a straining after the heroic." 
 he went on. " I don t want to appear as a self-made martyr ; 
 I wished only to do what I thought was the upright and 
 manly thing to do." 
 
 "Blame you! I blame you, Bruce McAllister? I seek 
 words to express the admiration I feel for you! I doubted 
 you once it is right that I acknowledge it and I wonder 
 how I could have done so now." She felt the blood beat 
 at the blue veins in her temples, her breath come slow, her 
 spirit rush to his once more. 
 
 " We have both to ask forgiveness of the past, Inez, and 
 the past ought to grant it it has made us suffer so." 
 
 " I have been very hard and very cruel," she said con 
 tritely, her eyes finding his and resting there as if from him 
 she would not, if she could, remove her gaze. For him, in 
 love s conceit, she symbolized his past, all time gone and all 
 to come. " I will be so no more." She was abashed and 
 humbled by his presence and she could express her feeling 
 of inferiority only by dwelling on the superior heights to 
 which she insisted he had attained. 
 
 " I am thankful," she ended, her words surcharged with 
 affection, with sincerity, " that even our day had its heroes 
 and that I, so unworthy, have been privileged to know one 
 of them. You believe me, don t you, won t you ? " 
 
 She felt the ebb and flow of her blood coursing through 
 her veins and she wavered toward him, her body swaying 
 as if passion-tossed. He would have been stone blind not to 
 have read the love that was written, nay, that was carved, 
 on her glowing countenance. 
 
 351 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 His long arms spread out, sweeping toward her, and he 
 said, the words long contained suddenly bursting from him, 
 " I love you, Inez dearest," and she sank into them, sobbing. 
 So falls dawn into the arms of day, easily, as nature, the 
 mother of us all, orders it. Her head rested on his breast, 
 heeding not the aid of his tenderly directing hand ; their lips 
 touched and their spirits became as one. 
 
 352 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 CROSSING THE RUBICON 
 
 A SMALL but strong minority of the legislature of Illi 
 nois, thenjn session, fought hard against the accept 
 ance of Bruce McAllister s resignation from the Sen 
 ate. However slight, it was still a much greater evidence of 
 popular favor than Bruce had expected. Rightly he concluded 
 that unfavorable winds had not blown on arid soil all the 
 seeds of his sowing. His words, spreading far, must have 
 availed somewhat and found response somewhere. His 
 heart was lifted beyond the reach of despondency, and he be 
 lieved more fervently than ever that the years, no matter how 
 begrudingly, must yield inevitably to the justice of his cause. 
 Hope deferred will make even the lion-hearted sick, and the 
 faith that the future would fulfil his desire had come at a 
 moment when it was most needed. 
 
 Inez rejoiced with him, converted heart and soul to his 
 tenets, inspired by his message for humanity. She was ready 
 to range herself at his side though all the rest of the world 
 stood against them. A two-fold cord of love bound her to 
 the man and his doctrines. She was stepping out of her en 
 vironment, away from her class; but the separation from 
 what had become unsatisfying caused her to shed no tears. 
 The light had come to her after a long struggle, and she was 
 too goodly stubborn to turn back into the darkness, she was 
 willing to leave an objecting father and a disappointed moth- 
 
 353 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 er to follow him; but when they came to an understanding 
 of her resoluteness they scarcely could do otherwise than ac 
 quiesce in her choice, and so Bruce and Inez, who planned 
 a quiet marriage in Chicago, were to depart with the paternal 
 and maternal blessing that has passed from convention into 
 proverb. 
 
 In accordance with the arrangements hit upon as best by 
 Bruce and Addison, Inez, together with her mother and fa 
 ther, was to return to Chicago on the same train with Bruce, 
 Peter, and Elaine ; and on the morning chosen for the depar 
 ture, the McAllisters stood on the platform of the Pennsyl 
 vania depot waiting anxiously for the Hammersmiths to put 
 in their appearance. Peter absorbed as usual with a vexa 
 tious problem in chemistry, strode up and down quickly, 
 unmindful of the morning s blistering heat, of the roll of 
 the trunk trucks, the bawling of the conductors, the clang 
 and clatter of moving engines and cars. Although there was 
 nothing in his demeanor to show it, Peter s heart too was 
 big with hope, for he had been offered a professorship in 
 one of the far Western universities, and at last there was 
 promised him the leisure necessary for the working out of his 
 revolutionary theories. 
 
 Bruce himself was anxious, oddly nervous, keeping a sharp 
 lookout for the Hammersmiths and Inez, fearful lest some 
 unexpected accident disrupt his fondly laid plans and do 
 he scarcely dared to tell himself what. Elaine too, was look 
 ing for somebody, and her sharp eyes gleamed through her 
 spectacles and fastened on the high iron fence through the 
 gates of which people were passing in and out the noisy depot. 
 Had the preoccupation of either brother been less, it might 
 have been noticed that the cause of some unwonted excite 
 ment was suffusing Elaine s pale face with a glow of color. 
 It struck her, as she gazed around, that a picture of life in 
 
 354 
 
CROSSING THE RUBICON 
 
 little was presented by the railway depot, with its constant 
 goings and comings, its separation and union of friends, its 
 mingling of sad and happy faces, the uncertainties and the 
 varied fortunes that awaited those who entered or left its 
 portals. Her own hopes for this very morning, her own fear- 
 fulness of its outcome exaggerated the tragic or comic side 
 of every incident that she observed. Bruce s nervousness 
 increased her own; and she clutched his arm in a way that 
 would have awakened his surprise ordinarily. 
 
 "There she comes!" sang out Bruce suddenly, spying 
 Addison and Inez at the gate, followed by their mother and 
 father. He rushed forward to meet her, leaving Elaine 
 where she stood. 
 
 " Had you given me up? " asked Inez smiling. 
 
 " Not anywhere so near as six months ago," he answered. 
 
 Elaine and Peter kept to one side timidly, neither quite 
 used as yet to their sister-in-law to be, and rather constrained 
 by her presence. Addison with characteristic good nature 
 and activity tried his level best to put the McAllisters at 
 ease with the Hammersmiths. 
 
 " I m mighty glad that Bruce is going to come into our 
 family. I always felt toward him like a brother anyway. 
 I don t know which is the luckier, Bruce or Inez," he said 
 to Peter and Elaine, not once but twenty times. 
 
 And then taking Bruce to one side, and engaging him in 
 a conversation, he eased his overladen heart by pouring forth 
 his troubles in that most sympathetic of ears. * Things were 
 all right to begin with, Bruce," ran his plaint, " but only 
 the other day Mr. Wyckoff told me that he expected me 
 to pitch in and work like the mischief the moment I get 
 married to Ruth. He has the idea that I am no better than 
 a clerk and he insists on taking me to New York to break 
 me in. He seems to think that eight or ten hours a day at 
 
 355 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the grindstone would be good for my health. And the worst 
 of it is that my own parents and Inez agree with him. I 
 dread it. But what can I do about it now ? I like him and 
 yet I m afraid of him I don t know just why, but he looks 
 at you with his little eyes and rolls out what he wants done 
 in his deep voice and you ve got to say that you ll do it." 
 
 Meanwhile, Inez, noticing Elaine s timidity, twined her 
 arm around her waist affectionately and said : " We won t 
 have much time to be sisterly in Washington, so let us im 
 prove these few minutes." 
 
 The two young women were chatting together pleasantly 
 when Elaine caught sight of R. R. shambling along with an 
 eager, expectant countenance, and blushing she ran forward 
 to call to him. He grinned recognition in his habitual man 
 ner, and thrust out his ridge of brow. Under his arm, peep 
 ing bashfully from their covering of torn tissue paper, he 
 carried a bouquet of roses of which he seemed thoroughly 
 ashamed, for he thrust them back farther and reddened the 
 moment he saw Elaine s companion. " Didn t know this 
 was to be a society event," he muttered to himself. 
 
 " I ve been hunting all over for you," he growled on join 
 ing Elaine. " I ve gone the rounds of the depot about a 
 thousand times. I ve hunted high and low for you. I 
 thought you would be in the waiting room and I looked for 
 you there. Finally I came out here and then the fool gate- 
 man put me on the wrong track. I suppose these roses 
 are all withered to pieces. They ought to be; it serves you 
 about right for making me stand on my head like this. Come 
 down to the end of the train and I ll give them to you 
 there s no need of your brothers seeing, it s none of their 
 business, is it ? Everybody in Washington is hanging around 
 whenever I want to do anything except to sell a picture." 
 He stopped, panting for breath, and mopped the sweat that 
 
 356 . 
 
CROSSING THE RUBICON 
 
 stood out on his short neck. His collar was limp, wringing 
 with the wet. 
 
 " Don t scold, R. R.," laughed Elaine, " we ve only got 
 three minutes more." In truth she was as pleased to hear 
 him grumble as to say aught else it mattered not so long 
 as he was there, confining his attention to her. 
 
 "Only three minutes! Well, it s not my fault; I cal 
 culated on twenty-five. Ha! I left the book I brought for 
 you the * Life of Rembrandt in that confounded waiting 
 room. I ll run and get it. No, I won t; I ll let it go; it s 
 your punishment for keeping me on pins and needles. I ll 
 express it to you." 
 
 " Yes, don t go back for it. The train might pull out 
 before you return." Her eyes were fairly drinking him in, 
 swallowing him bodily. 
 
 " I ll miss you awfully. But what s the use of repeating 
 that again! Washington won t be the same any more. I 
 hate the thought of going back to the building and finding 
 you gone. I I I " he stopped, stammered and blushed, 
 and Elaine blushed with him, feeling herself on the verge 
 of tears, not daring to choke out a word. 
 
 " I m all upside down this morning," he puffed out. " I 
 don t know what s wrong; it s the heat, I guess. In fact, 
 I know it s the heat." He glared at her as if he defied her 
 to say otherwise." 
 
 " All aboard ! " shouted the conductor. 
 
 Elaine extended her hand to him, in voluble silence for the 
 last time. Bruce called to her, waving his long arm, Elaine 
 turned. Rossiter Rembrandt stood looking at her with 
 mouth agape, his hat pushed far back on his head, his ridge 
 of brow projecting like a missile. A gloomy picture of the 
 musty studio, of his going back there and flinging himself 
 down on the lounge and crying out for sheer loneliness, 
 
 357 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 flashed across his mind. He saw down a vista of dreary 
 days and forsaken months. All that made life precious to 
 him was going away on that train. " And such a little bit 
 of a woman ! " he gasped. 
 
 Addison was waving his handkerchief in farewell, Bruce 
 and Inez had left the platform. The bell clanged ; the con 
 ductor shouted; the wheels turned slowly, with a grinding 
 noise; the engine puffed and the train was off. 
 
 " I m an ape! I m an idiot! I m an ass! " yelled R. R. 
 " I m a pearl-gray ass, a cross between the domestic and the 
 wild kind. By God, she ain t agoing; I won t let her go." 
 He ran forward at full speed, pulling his fat body along, 
 puffing madly for breath, his feet falling with a thump 
 like that of iron. He all but whisked Addison off the ground 
 and barely missed colliding with a hand truck. The spec 
 tators doubled with laughter at the adipose, puffing R. R. 
 in his wild race for the train. His hat fell off, but he did 
 not as much as waste a motion to recover it. The colored 
 porter yelled at him, the Pullman conductor motioned him 
 off, but heedless of all warning, he grabbed the nickel rail 
 ing, hung on for dear life, and they lifted him on. He 
 stood on the step for a second, very red in the face, turned his 
 back, and grinning triumphantly at the impudent ones who 
 had dared to laugh at him, shook his fist. 
 
 Elaine, who witnessed part of the strange performance 
 from the vestibule, covered her face with her hands, dum- 
 founded, afraid to look, expecting the next minute to hear 
 R. R. s dying groan as the feelingless car wheels passed over 
 his crushed body. She was ready to question her eyes when 
 he stood before her, hatless, dirty, puffing for breath, the 
 sweat streaming down from his ridge of brow like water 
 after a rain from the roof. 
 
 " I risked my life for you," he gasped. " I came within 
 
 358 
 
CROSSING THE RUBICON 
 
 an ace of getting killed. See here, I want you to marry 
 me." 
 
 " Oh, R. R., what made you do such a foolhardy thing? 
 You frightened me numb. Don t you ever dare do anything 
 like that again ! " 
 
 " I never will," he grinned, " if you will marry me to see 
 that I can t." 
 
 " I don t see how I can help it under the circumstances, 
 you funny, dear R. R." 
 
 Inside the car, oblivious of what a difference the last few 
 minutes had made in the life of his sister, Bruce sat beside 
 Inez, gazing out of the window on the city slowly disappear 
 ing from sight. The water of the Potomac rolled golden 
 under the glaring sun. Even now the capital was taking 
 on the crowded appearance of a birds-eye view, the burnished 
 and white domes of the Library and Capitol, the graceful 
 shaft of the Monument standing out alone, clear-cut and 
 well defined, forming centers about which the jumble of long 
 streets, verdant tree tops and red brick buildings huddled 
 together and dwindled away. 
 
 Even so in Bruce s mind were tangled and confused the 
 innumerable incidents that made up his life in Washington, 
 the hard trials, and the suffering and the agony of those long 
 years, his smaller failures and lesser triumphs, the many 
 battles he had fought for the principle sacred to him, the long 
 nights given over to heartaches and pain, the few short days 
 of happiness. One and all of these were growing smaller, 
 receding from memory, merging their individuality in the 
 mass that went to build up his impression of the past a birds- 
 eye view, too, a whole city of sensations, as it were, drawn 
 in miniature; each separate joy and grief reduced to a dot; 
 their intensity and vividness diminished and lessened to fit 
 
 359 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 the final picture. And as the city of Washington was fad 
 ing away faster and faster, the Monument and the dome 
 of the Capitol looming out of the distance alone, like moun 
 tain peaks on a flat plain, so in Bruce s mind there loomed 
 forth nothing but the inevitable triumph of his cause and the 
 conquest of Inez. 
 
 He fastened his gaze on the Monument, its outlines merg 
 ing in the surrounding atmosphere, and he turned to Inez to 
 tell her again, as he had times without number, of the hard, 
 rough road they would have to travel together, of the sac 
 rifices she might be called upon to make daily, of the luxuries 
 and comforts of the old life that she might miss. They were 
 crossing the Rubicon now; there would be no return, and 
 he spoke more feelingly, more tenderly on the theme than 
 ever before. 
 
 Inez laughed his fears down. " I don t call that a sacri 
 fice, Bruce, to give up nothing worth the while to get every 
 thing that is. I have a place and a purpose in life now. My 
 aimless, empty look ! " she ended, as if the thought had 
 seized her that second by surprise, " my faith was dying and 
 you gave me a new religion." 
 
 " Well, I guess the trade was no more than fair," he said 
 playfully, " see what you gave me." 
 
 The train whirled on, the plinth of the Monument re 
 ceded to a point, scarcely distinguishable. The gray died 
 out of his eyes, leaving them a deep dreamy blue. The vision 
 came to him of a new Washington, to be transformed in 
 spirit as thoroughly and as truly as the young architects and 
 landscape artists of the day those dreamers of beautiful 
 dreams were planning to remodel the body of the city in 
 which the soul dwelt. Might the spiritual and physical 
 change come together! It would then be no longer a city 
 of swaggering negations, but one of positive accomplishments, 
 
 360 
 
CROSSING THE RUBICON 
 
 equal to its magnificent opportunities, not lagging far behind 
 when it should lead and direct. A city of all cities, ma 
 jestic, commanding, serene, the glory of America, the spark 
 ling jewel in the girdle of capitals that clasped the earth; the 
 new Athens of a dawning state, roofed and pinnacled, painted 
 and carved by the joyous arts and the vital crafts that the 
 wand of another civilization would call into being ; the Rome 
 of the future, throbbing with big purposes, thundering man 
 dates for peace and good will across the seas, the deserts 
 and the mountains; its fashioning hand felt in every clime. 
 No longer the city of despair for him who wended his way 
 thither with noble aspirations for the brotherhood of man, 
 but the city of hope the true capital of the coming democ 
 racy of the morrow. 
 
 "The new religion!" Inez s words burst on him in 
 their full content. Hand in hand the new democracy would 
 walk toward fulfillment with the new religion. The old 
 creeds were tottering fast to their final decay, failing to 
 satisfy, unable to circle the changed concepts of men, stand 
 ing outside of their daily lives and occupations, apart from 
 the huge mechanism of production, sinking back as commerce 
 and science swung forward to alter the face of the universe. 
 The dead past had buried its dead, fertilizing the ground 
 for the new harvest that was to give food to the hungry and 
 wine for the weary in spirit. 
 
 It was a commonplace in the philosophy of history that 
 when the economic system changed, the religion built thereon 
 as a superstructure changed with it. And the competitive 
 system had wrought its own doom, sounded the death knell 
 to its sham and base ideals, its selfishness, its greed, its cult 
 of the purse, its cruelty, its fostering by necessity of crime and 
 corruption, its enslavement of those who toiled by those who 
 profited, its strident insistence on the inequality of men, 
 24 361 
 
THE RADICAL 
 
 its struggle of the classes. What meant the restlessness and 
 stirring about of all mankind, the crying out with dissatisfac 
 tion at the present regime, other than that the ideals of 
 humanity had evolved to higher things, that the new religion 
 was in the making, that competition must yield to coopera 
 tion, even as feudalism and serfdom had given way to a new 
 civilization which now, in its turn, was dropping behind in 
 the march of progress, in the epic movement of the peoples 
 in the pathway of the suns? It was all written down in the 
 unsealed books of evolution, and plutocracy was powerless to 
 stem the tide that swept on with the lift of the seven seas, 
 joyfully carrying all the nations of the earth toward the new 
 democracy. 
 
 The train curved on its tracks, the capital disappeared 
 from Bruce s view. Inez touched his hand as if to remind 
 him reprovingly of her presence. 
 
 " Of what have you been thinking all this time, John of 
 Dreams? " she asked. 
 
 " I ve been pondering over the fact," he answered with 
 a chuckle, " that the White House had a wise designer. It 
 just struck me that it has both a front and a back door." 
 
 Perhaps it had been a part of his day-dream that he was 
 fated before many years to return to the City of Hope, sent 
 thither to preside over its finer destinies by the voice of the 
 people that was calling him away from Washington now; 
 otherwise what rhyme or reason was there in his ambiguous 
 reply ? 
 
 (1) 
 
 THE END 
 
 362 
 
By DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS. 
 The Second Generation. 
 
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 of Lincoln s character and personality. 
 
 " Truly, they who wish to know Lincoln as he really was must read the biog 
 raphy by his friend and law-partner, W. H. Herndon. This book was imperatively 
 needed to brush aside the rank growth of myth and legend which was threatening 
 to hide the real lineaments of Lincoln from the eyes of posterity. . . . There is no 
 doubt about the faithfulness of Mr. Herndon s delineation. The marks of unflinch 
 ing veracity are patent in every line. " New York Sun. 
 
 "The three portraits of Lincoln are the best that exist ; and not the least char 
 acteristic of these, the Lincoln of the Douglas debates, has never before been 
 engraved. . . . Herndon s narrative gives, as nothing else is likely to give, the 
 material from which we may form a true picture of the man from infancy to matu 
 rity." The Nation. 
 
 " Mr. Herndon is naturally a very direct writer, and he has been industrious in 
 gathering material. Whether an incident happened before or behind the scenes, is 
 all the same to him. He gives it without artifice or apology. He describes the life 
 of his friend Lincoln just as he saw it." Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. 
 
 " A remarkable piece of literary achievement remarkable alike for its fidelity 
 to facts, its fulness of details, its constructive skill, and its literary charm." New 
 York Times. 
 
 " It will always remain the authentic life of Abraham Lincoln." Chicago Herald. 
 
 Lincoln in Story. 
 
 The Life of the Martyr President told in Authenticated 
 Anecdotes. Edited by SILAS G. PRATT. Illustrated. 
 i2mo. Cloth, 75 cents net ; postage, 9 cents additional. 
 
 " An excellent compilation on a subject of which the American people never 
 grow tired." Boston Transcript. 
 
 "A valuable and exceedingly interesting addition to Lincoln literature." 
 Brooklyn Standard-Union, 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
AN EXPOSE OF PRACTICAL POLITICS. 
 
 Bossism and Monopoly. 
 
 By THOMAS CARL SPELLING, author of " Trusts 
 and Monopolies," etc. Illustrated. $1.50 net ; post 
 age 15 cents additional. 
 
 This work embodies a life time of investigation. The 
 author exposes the fraudulent practices of party machines 
 and shows how bossism, in partnership with monopoly, 
 rules and fattens in all official circles from the town council 
 to the presidential cabinet. He exposes the deceptions 
 and mystifications of politicians of all parties in dealing 
 with "trusts" and u monopolies" and with other great 
 public affairs. 
 
 " It shows a wide knowledge of the intricate elements 
 that make up the law as it stands, and a practical and 
 lawyer-like grasp of the situation." New York Times. 
 
 " It is timely, judicial in tone, convincing in argument, 
 and cannot help but have large influences for good." 
 
 Hon. JOHN FORD. 
 
 " It has much valuable statistical information and pre 
 sents strongly the relation between monopoly, whether in 
 transportation or production, and bossism in politics." 
 
 FRANCIS .G. NEWLANDS, United States Senator. 
 
 " It is a clean, able, and convincing argument in favor 
 of the national ownership of railroads. Not the least valu 
 able feature of the book is its exposure of sham reforms." 
 
 Judge SAMUEL SEABURY. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
"Extremely entertaining: because it is full of char 
 acteristic anecdotes/ HARRY THURSTON FECK. 
 
 The Man Roosevelt : A Portrait Sketch. 
 
 By FRANCIS E. LEUPP, Washington Correspondent of 
 the New York Evening Post. Illustrated from Photographs. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 net; postage, 12 cents additional. 
 
 " Mr. Leupp has done the country a distinct and most important 
 service in enabling the American people to see Mr. Roosevelt as one 
 sincere and enlightened man." The Washington Post. 
 
 " It is frank, critical, straightforward, yet gives a picture of Theodore 
 Roosevelt that will increase admiration of the man. The book through 
 out impresses the reader with its great moderation and strict adherence 
 to truth." The San Francisco Argonaut. 
 
 " Mr. Leupp s book has an undeniable interest apart from the imme 
 diate appeal of his subject. His pen is one long trained in the art of 
 picturesque presentation, and its cunning does not fail him here." 
 
 The Nation. 
 
 " A book of the times, our own American times, we should call this. 
 The author has not in any way glossed his estimate, but has told the 
 brave truth about the real President Roosevelt." 7^he Boston Courier. 
 
 "For the task he has undertaken Mr. Leupp is exceptionally well 
 equipped. He is a trained observer and critic, and his book is full of 
 passages which throw a novel and interesting light on the President s 
 career and character." The New York Tribune. 
 
 "A sane, well-balanced, interesting study of Mr. Roosevelt s char- 
 acter and career. Though frankly favorable, it is critical in spirit and 
 discriminating in its praise." Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 " The book is in no sense a * life of the President ; it is an attempt, 
 a successful attempt, to throw light upon Mr. Roosevelt s personality, 
 motives, and methods." Public Opinion. 
 
 " A book well worth the writing and publishing, and well worth the 
 reading by any citizen, whatever his political views." 
 
 The Washington Star. 
 
 ^"Mr. Leupp s book, like nearly all intensely personal and well, 
 written narratives, is exceedingly interesting." The Brooklyn Citizen. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COM.PANY. NEW YORK. 
 
By the Author of "THE SILENCE OF DEAN MAITLAND." 
 
 The Great Refusal. 
 
 By MAXWELL GRAY. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The Great Refusal " is the refusal of the son, 
 a man of mind, to continue in the career mapped 
 out for him by the father, a man of money. The 
 whole theme of the novel is whether wealth is to 
 be a means of luxury or a stepping-stone to social 
 service and the alleviation of distress. 
 
 " It is a story full of contrast and color, a brilliant 
 picture." Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 " The lesson of the book is unmistakable, the atmos 
 phere pleasing, the style always graceful and sometimes 
 poetic. There is no lack of varied, effective action, and 
 many of the conversations are noteworthy." Chicago 
 Record- Her aid. 
 
 " When Maxwell Gray gave to the world the celebrated 
 novel The Silence of Dean Maitland, critics wondered 
 if such a gifted writer would one day strike a purer, clearer 
 note. She has just done so in issuing The Great Re 
 fusal/ a novel of self-sacrifice. No more uplifting book 
 of its kind has appeared since Besant s All Sorts and 
 Conditions of Men emphasized the lesson that we do not 
 live only for ourselves and that we can fulfill a high ideal 
 in bettering the condition of our fellow-men." Portland 
 Oregonian. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
BOOKS BY MAARTEN MAARTENS. 
 
 Each, J2mo, Cloth, $J.50. 
 
 The New Religion. A Modern Novel. 
 
 The newest offering from the pen of the gifted Dutch 
 writer a very amusing novel, clever, full of able writing, 
 and a good love story with a background treating of the 
 present conditions of medical science. 
 
 The Woman s Victory. 
 
 " In this volume Maarten Maartens runs the whole scale 
 of human passion, a rapid executant sounding each note 
 clearly. He has a rare gift of condensation and uncommon 
 understanding of woman s nature/ Boston Advertiser. 
 
 The Healers. 
 
 " Every man and his fault or fad in the healing line 
 comes in for brilliant attention and well-turned satire, and 
 he who is closest hit is sure to laugh the loudest." 
 
 St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 
 
 " Mr. Maartens has often been given credit for his subtle 
 humor, but there should be an abundance of praise still in 
 reserve that may well be poured upon the fun of The 
 Healers. The characters are real people battling with real 
 forces." New York Times. 
 
 Dorothea: A Story of the Pure in Heart. 
 
 " Put before us with such truth and with such fine feel 
 ing that it awakens ideas, touches the imagination, and 
 altogether gives us something to add to our conception 
 of life." New York Tribune. 
 
 God s Fool. 
 
 "A remarkable work." New York Times. 
 " Maarten Maartens took us all by storm by his story 
 christened God s Fool. "New York Herald. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
J. S, OF DALE S" GREATEST NOVEL. 
 
 In Cure of Her Soul. 
 
 By FREDERIC JESUP STIMSON (" J. S. of Dale"), 
 author of " First Harvests," " King Noanett," 
 " Guerndale," etc. Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell. 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 One of the big novels of the year big in theme, 
 big in treatment big in its perspective of humanity 
 normal, sinning, repentant people of the kind that 
 one meets in real life. Two young society people 
 have a sudden love affair and marriage. Then works 
 out a strange story of two temperaments widely 
 diverse, two lives wholly apart, yet holding together 
 to an end that can only bring peace and happiness. 
 It is one of the most powerful arguments against the 
 divorce court ever put into the form of fiction. 
 
 : *A novel which stands head and shoulders above its 
 current fellows." Providence Journal. 
 
 " One of the most important novels of the year." 
 Springfield Union. 
 
 "A valuable contribution to current fiction." New 
 York Sun. 
 
 " A novel with a powerful motif. It presents a study 
 of the social whirl of Greater New York; of a young 
 Harvard graduate who loves twice; of a young wife, who, 
 led apart from her mate by the gay maelstrom of the 
 select, plunges into the estrangement with a butterfly 
 flutter until she is abruptly halted and faced about ; of the 
 doings and sayings that go to make the book what it is 
 one of the best of the season." Brooklyn Citizen. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
A MASTERPIECE OF FICTION. 
 
 The Guarded Flame. 
 
 By W. B. MAXWELL, Author of "Vivien/ 1 
 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The Guarded Flame, by W. B. Maxwell, is a boo* 
 to challenge the attention of the reading public as a re 
 markable study of moral law and its infraction. Mr. Max 
 well is the son of Miss M. E. Braddon (Mrs. John Maxwell), 
 whose novels were famous a generation ago, and his first 
 book * Vivien made the English critics herald him as a 
 new force in the world of letters. The Guarded Flame 
 is an even more astonishing production, a big book that 
 takes rank with the most important fiction of the year. 
 It is not a book for those who read to be amused or to be 
 entertained. It touches the deepest issues of life and death." 
 
 Albany Argus. 
 
 " The most powerfully written book of the year." 
 
 The Independent. 
 
 The Guarded Flame is receiving high praise from 
 the critics everywhere." Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 "This is a book which cannot fail to make its mark." 
 
 Detroit News. 
 
 " Great novels are few and the appearance of one at 
 any period must give the early reviewer a thrill of discovery. 
 Such a one has come unheralded ; but from a source whence 
 it might have been confidently expected. The author is 
 W. B. Maxwell, son of the voluminous novelist known to 
 the world as Miss Braddon. His novel is entitled * The 
 Guarded Flame. "Philadelphia Press. 
 
 " The books of W. B. Maxwell are essentially for think 
 ers." St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
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