THE 
 
 SPIDER S.WEB 
 
 
 REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN 
 
BERKELEY \ 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OP 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 
 THE GIRL THAT GOES WRONG 
 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 
 THE WAY OF PEACE 
 WHAT IS SOCIALISM? 
 RUNNING SANDS 
 
 THE THINGS THAT ARE CESAR S 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
I .KTTY STOOD AT THE WINDOW IN THE FULL LIGHT OF Till 
 STREET-LAMP 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 BY 
 
 REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN 
 
 Author of " The House or Bondage," etc., etc. 
 
 Illustrated by 
 JEAN PALEOLOGUE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY 
 1914 
 
That s the shout, the shout we shall utter 
 
 When, with rifles and spades, 
 We stand, with the old Red Flag aflutter 
 
 On the barricades! 
 
 FRANCIS ADAMS. 
 
 Thou orb of many orbs! 
 
 Thou seething principle! Thou well-kept, latent germ! 
 
 Thou center! 
 
 Around the idea of thee the strange sad war revolving, 
 With all its angry and vehement play of causes, 
 (With yet unknown results to come, for thrice a thousand 
 
 years). . . . 
 
 WHITMAN. 
 
 While three men hold together, 
 The kingdoms are less by three. 
 
 SWINBURNE. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " Betty, " he said, "do you understand what your 
 father is asking me to do ? . ( Outside 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Betty stood at the window in the full light of the street- 
 lamp Frontispiece 
 
 The girl nodded comprehendingly .... 192 
 
 The mob was using the coal from the dismantled 
 
 wagon 380 
 
EXPLANATION 
 
 IN order to warn off trespassers, I have begun my 
 novel with four chapters that an expert book 
 maker indeed, my own book-maker has pro 
 nounced dull: I knew that only those to whom the 
 book belonged would persevere. By the same token, 
 being aware that the story which is prefaced by an 
 apology is ended with suspicion, I preface this story 
 with an apology: I want to apologize to my friends 
 for using them and to my enemies for not giving them 
 what they have expected; I want to create in the 
 minds of the former the suspicion that I am darker 
 than I have been painted, and in the minds of the 
 latter the suspicion that I am not a whited sepulcher 
 but a blackened altar. 
 
 In 1909 I projected, vaguely it is true, a cycle 
 of four novels, each to be independent of the others 
 in plot and character, but all carrying forward a defi 
 nite view of life. As, however, the announcement of 
 a cycle is the surest means of alienating readers, not 
 to mention publishers, I held my tongue about the 
 general plan and concerned myself, in public, only 
 with its separate parts. These were " The House of 
 Bondage," " The Sentence of Silence," " Running 
 Sands " and " The Spider s Web." 
 
 Privately, the first question demanding answer was 
 that of method. In what I had to say I believed 
 burningly, as I still believe deeply, and the great 
 thing with me was not to say it in the manner that 
 most people would call Art, but to say it in the man 
 ner that would convert as many readers as possible 
 
 vii 
 
vlii EXPLANATION 
 
 to my way of thinking. I did not want to produce 
 the effect of a work of Art; I wanted to produce con 
 viction of truth. On the one hand, I must avoid 
 even the appearance of a personal interest in my 
 characters, because that would divert my readers 
 into the charge of sentimentality; and on the other, 
 I must not hesitate to marshal my events in their 
 largest force, even though the reviewers called this 
 melodrama. 
 
 Here is a choice that is sure to come sooner or 
 later to every writer of fiction: the choice between 
 what he has considered Art for Art s sake and what 
 he considers art for Man s sake. He has kept in 
 mind the day when his books will be judged solely by 
 their own merits, when the causes with which he sym 
 pathizes have been defeated and forgotten or estab 
 lished and beyond the need of sympathy; when new 
 evils demand new remedies and old wounds are 
 healed. He knows, as few of his contemporary read 
 ers can know, that then he will be heavily handicapped 
 by all that is immediate or local in what he writes; 
 that by nothing save adherence to the eternal stand 
 ards of Art can he endure. He may be certain, in his 
 own mind, that any true art is the expression, in the 
 manner best calculated to secure a desired effect, of 
 the ideas essential to the effect, but he will be equally 
 sure that the world will not so consider. If he sets 
 any propaganda above Art, the future will forget his 
 work, the present meet it with prejudice, probably 
 with opposition; and against all this he has to set 
 only his own faith in the righteousness of the thing 
 he has to say. 
 
 I made my choice and began my cycle with that 
 one of my four novels which I knew would receive 
 the readiest hearing. In " The House of Bondage " 
 I wanted to put before my readers the theory that 
 the superimposing of one human being s will, or the 
 
EXPLANATION ix 
 
 will of any group of human beings, upon any other s 
 is the Great Crime. For the purposes of illustration, 
 I chose for attack the chief present means of such 
 imposition or compulsion, the pressure of our eco 
 nomic system, and depicted its effects in forcing 
 women into prostitution. The result was amazing: 
 the book sold and, they tell me, is still selling in my 
 own and several other countries and tongues; it either 
 originated or promoted a series of sociological cru 
 sades and legislative investigations concerning them 
 selves with the symptoms and neglecting the disease, 
 and by no persons was it so heartily welcomed as by 
 those who are themselves the instruments of compul 
 sion. I began to think that the instruments were be 
 coming conscious and that I might not be so unpopu 
 lar after all. 
 
 I was never more mistaken. In " The Sentence of 
 Silence " I proceeded to show other effects of the 
 same evil compulsion: the effects of pur failure to 
 instruct our children in sex-hygiene ; of imposing upon 
 our heirs the moral code that our economic system has 
 imposed upon us, and of imposing upon our daugh 
 ters an abstinence from which we absolve our sons. 
 In its circulation, this book left its publishers nothing 
 to complain of; but its reception was of a sort vastly 
 different from that of its predecessor. Parents that 
 were loath to see other people s daughters forced into 
 prostitution were shocked at a proposal to educate 
 their own sons against the practice of seduction; hus 
 bands that lived in secret polygamy were aghast at 
 the idea of instructing their wives in any code save 
 that which they preached, but did not follow; and 
 men that took any woman s body they could get were 
 horrified at the notion of any woman sharing their 
 liberty. 
 
 The remarkable book-reviewer of the generally 
 sane Philadelphia " Inquirer " upbraided me be- 
 
x EXPLANATION 
 
 cause, after I had dragged my central character, 
 Dan Barnes, through the sewers of debauchery and 
 venereal disease, I did not " save " him by marrying 
 him to a " pure " woman! 
 
 Came the third novel, " Running Sands/ and came 
 a louder protest. I had here tried to take a step 
 further my argument against compulsion and to show 
 that, if I had been right before, then compulsion by 
 matrimony the marriage of the old to the young 
 and the knowing to the ignorant, rape within wed 
 lock and forcing of wives to become mothers against 
 their will was wrong. Here again the people read 
 and the instruments of compulsion condemned me. 
 Those persons who, without a wry face among them, 
 swallow the funny but futile jokes of another type of 
 fiction were so whole-hearted in their curses of my 
 book that I was inclined to believe their present bitter 
 ness enhanced by their recollection of how they had 
 once praised me. 
 
 Now I have written " The Spider s Web," the last 
 of my four, and I have read that it is expected to be 
 to its predecessors what Landor said the fourth 
 George was to his. For a good pair of eyes at the 
 conventional point of view, it is all this and more; 
 but then there are no good eyes at the conventional 
 point of view, and so I fear that, without help, the 
 condemners of " The Sentence of Silence " and 
 u Running Sands " may find this novel innocent: there 
 is only one " bad " woman among its speaking-roles, 
 and she appears but three brief times. In order that 
 my condemners may not miss what they want to find 
 in me, I shall tell them in a simpler form than the 
 dramatic what I have done. 
 
 I have made Luke Huber a man that comes to see 
 the sin of compulsion exerting itself against humanity 
 in all the powers that conduct modern society; in the 
 ownership of men and things; in our entire system of 
 
EXPLANATION xi 
 
 production and distribution, and in the creatures and 
 ministers of that system : Government, Politics, Law, 
 and what passes by the name of Religion. 
 
 Such a mind as Huber s comes to Dora Marsden s 
 conclusion: " Life is no two days the same: the same 
 measure never fits twice exactly; hence the futility of 
 state-making, law-making, moral-making, when all 
 that is of importance is life-augmenting, and that is 
 the individual s affair." He sees that only Labor 
 creates wealth, and that nothing should be robbed of 
 a fraction of what it creates. He sees that actually 
 government is " not the president, congress and the 
 courts, not any body or power created by the Consti 
 tution, but always a combination of important busi 
 ness interests," * not even any individual, and that 
 even if it were completely constitutional it would still 
 be compulsion that to " consent " to be governed is 
 to consent to be compelled. 
 
 He would argue of politics: 
 
 " We Americans pretend to hate kings, and so we 
 devise a republic; finding the rule of one man bad, 
 we believe we can better it by multiplying it by ninety 
 millions; finding an ounce has evil effects, we take a 
 ton. We simply change the tyranny of one for the 
 tyranny of many. Even if the will of our fifteen 
 million voters ruled us as they tell us it does, then 
 each one of the fifteen million would be giving all the 
 14,999,999 others the right to interfere with him 
 in return for his one fifteen-millionth right to take a 
 hand in interfering with them. For that fraction of 
 power over others, he would be giving away all his 
 power over himself." 
 
 Huber would say of religion and law: 
 
 " Both are tools in the hands of compulsion. Both 
 try to belittle divine humanity, the first making Man 
 a pygmy before God and the second making Man a 
 * Charles Edward Russell. 
 
xii EXPLANATION 
 
 pygmy before a few men. There can be no crime 
 against God, since God, or the force that created the 
 world, is omnipotent; no crime against law, since law 
 is an instrument of the great crime. The law a deter 
 rent? It isn t. The statistics prove that, so far as 
 statistics can prove anything. But you prove it your 
 self. Why do you try to refrain from conscious 
 wrong? Not because you re afraid of the law in 
 heaven or on earth you re not a coward. You 
 simply want to do the decent thing because it is the 
 decent thing. The desire to do the decent thing: 
 that s all the religion and law there is to-day among 
 even the people that make laws and religions for the 
 purpose of ruling other people by them. The rulers 
 sin only because their system has dimmed their judg 
 ment of the decent thing, and so they go on maintain 
 ing their law and their religion. The ruled will 
 want to do the decent thing just as soon as they be 
 come responsible creatures through the abolition of 
 these compulsions, exactly as the rulers, though 
 dulled by keeping up their system, wanted to do it 
 as soon as they became responsible creatures by 
 growing above the dictates of these compulsions." 
 
 Other men, other religions. For some faith; for 
 some denial. Huber s religion was the Gospel of 
 Negation. 
 
 He came to this by conversion, which means the 
 sudden revelation by the sub-conscious self to the 
 conscious self of the meanings that the sub-conscious 
 self has long been drawing from the conscious self s 
 experiences. The outward phenomena of such con 
 versions " beinjr saved," " receiving grace," " be 
 ing regenerated," " experiencing religion " are per 
 fectly familiar to all persons that have attended evan 
 gelical churches, know the work of the Salvation 
 Army, or have read Harold Begbie s " Broken Earth 
 enware." The psychology of the force causing them 
 
EXPLANATION xiii 
 
 has been elaborately, but not always scientifically, 
 treated in William James s stimulating volume, 
 " Some Varieties of Religious Experience." The 
 force itself can, and often does, change the entire life 
 of a man from evil to good. The men so changed 
 that we most hear of are changed by an affirmation of 
 faith, because they are men whose only spiritual ex 
 perience has been in connection with accepted religions 
 and because their change is generally first exhibited in 
 the public meeting-place of the followers of some such 
 religion; but there are other men similarly changed by 
 a denial of faith, because they have had spiritual ex 
 periences distinct from any accepted religion, and of 
 them we hear little, because their change is generally 
 wrought in the solitude in which they have had those 
 spiritual experiences which are unconnected with ac 
 cepted religion. 
 
 Huber was a man of the latter sort. Being of that 
 sort, he says the last word that follows logically from 
 an acceptance of " The House of Bondage." 
 
 About the manner of this last word I should, per 
 haps, say something more. I have not, I confess with 
 shame, read M. Fabre s book on the habits of the 
 spider, but I have read other books and studied the 
 spider in my own garden; and the more I learned of 
 web and spider the more I realize how Huber would 
 see their simulacra in our civilization and learn at 
 last that there the web outlived many spiders. That 
 is how I got my title, and that is why I have tried to 
 construct my chapters with a certain rough resem 
 blance to the female diadem-spider s web. At the 
 end, both the web and Huber win : the former be 
 cause it catches its fly and goes on catching other and 
 larger flies; the latter because his soul has found it 
 self. 
 
 The method of procuring data requires a fuller 
 explanation. The writer who endeavors to present 
 
xiv EXPLANATION 
 
 actual conditions in fictional form has constantly to 
 choose between truth and facts, and if his readers ac 
 cept his facts, they are inclined to doubt his imagina 
 tion. In all of these four books, I have been careful 
 to present only types, but I have tried to endow each 
 type with character, and each character has assumed 
 a living personality in my own mind. I have used no 
 person and no event that was isolated; but, having in 
 dividualized my types and chosen my typical events, I 
 have felt free to employ the latter in whatever w v ay 
 seemed to me best fitted to enforce my argument, 
 and at liberty to imagine what the former would 
 think and do under the stress of the latter. I have 
 heard of a dozen women in real life designated as the 
 originals of Mary Denbigh, three wives selected as 
 Muriel Stainton, and one man myself named as 
 Dan Barnes. The discoverers of these prototypes 
 only flattered my powers of detection and portraiture 
 at the expense of my imagination and good taste. 
 
 I intended to present, and I have presented, sim 
 ply certain types produced by our civilization and 
 working in the media of our economic system. I 
 spent considerable time in New York last winter to 
 procure certain data; I found the data, selected what 
 was typical as I saw it, and made my story. " The 
 Spider s Web," whether well done or ill, has been 
 done by my own imagination. 
 
 Help I have had and eagerly sought. An historian 
 always cites his authorities and acknowledges his 
 assistants; I could never see why a novelist should be 
 less honest or less courteous, since every realist must 
 delegate some of his research-work, and even the 
 writer of that fiction farthest from life must take 
 something from the fancy of his acquaintances. I 
 know, and I shall not soon forget, how much u The 
 House of Bondage " owes to the encouragement 
 
EXPLANATION xv 
 
 given my work by its publishers. During the latter 
 part of the actual writing of " The Spider s Web," 
 it was impossible for either my wife or me to be in 
 New York, and I taxed the generous patience of many 
 a friend by inquiries. I exacted tribute from Max 
 Eastman s editorials in " The Masses," Walter Lipp- 
 mann s papers in " The Forum," and C. P. Con 
 nolly s in " Everybody s Magazine " as expressing 
 three current phases of American opinion; I even 
 seized a picture from Mary Macdonald Brown s ac 
 counts of New York and secured from an editorial in 
 " The Nation " my reference to the past of the Astor 
 House. Moliere took his own where he found it; I 
 have taken other men s at my need. To all of these 
 my score is long; to those few and fine newspaper and 
 magazine critics and reviewers who have seen my 
 purpose and helped it who, when they have differed 
 or blamed, blamed or differed honestly to them, 
 from whom I have learned so much, my obligation is 
 still greater. 
 
 No opinions that are worth while are unalterable; 
 only the insincere have fixed convictions : my cycle of 
 four books expresses an attitude toward life that I 
 may some day very well change. This series com 
 pleted, I am left with my conscience free and my 
 brain at liberty to turn toward work that I may try 
 to design only by the more lasting standards of Art, 
 but no change of belief or work will make me regret 
 having expressed what I believed. I am thoroughly 
 aware of how, if they understood it, the condemners 
 of " The Sentence of Silence " and " Running Sands " 
 would condemn this book. I am equally aware of 
 how many persons that are my comrades, friends, and 
 well-wishers will alter their relations toward me when 
 they have read "The Spider s Web"; but, though 
 I shall be sorry to lose these, I shall not be sorry for 
 
xvi EXPLANATION 
 
 the reason of their loss. Horace Traubel, who puts 
 most things well, has put this well: 
 
 " I have tried to stay in the house of comfort, to sleep in my bed 
 
 of ease, 
 But something not outside of me, something inside of me says : 
 
 This will not do. . . . 
 I have tried the easy way : it was hard : 
 Now I will try the hard way : I guess it will be easier/* 
 
 REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN. 
 
 POSCHIAVO, SWITZERLAND, 
 8th September, 1913. 
 
 X 
 
CHARACTERS 
 
 A MAN, 
 
 the head of a group of men virtually controlling industrial, fi 
 nancial, and political America. 
 
 GEORGE J. HALLETT, one of his associates. 
 
 L. BERGEN RIVINGTON, another. 
 
 Politicians. 
 
 THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
 
 THE MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 HON. G. W. HUBER, U. S. Congressman, from Don- 
 
 caster County, Pennsylvania. 
 HON. JESSE KINZER, his successor. 
 
 SENATOR SCUDDER, the MAN S lieutenant in the 
 
 Albany legislature. 
 HON. JARED SPARKS, his lieutenant in the Connecti 
 
 cut legislature. 
 BRINLEY, commander of his lobby at 
 
 Washington. 
 
 KILGOUR, City Chamberlain of New York. 
 
 TIM HENEY, Leader of Tammany Hall. 
 
 SEELEY, an anti-Tammany Democratic 
 
 leader. 
 
 ELLISON, another. 
 
 THE POLICE-COMMISSIONER OF NEW YORK CITY. 
 GEORGE KAINDIAC, a U. S. Post-Office Inspector. 
 
 E, } 
 , ) 
 
 , leaders of the Municipal Re- 
 
 YEATES, ) form 
 
 JARVIE, a Municipal Reform League 
 
 " worker." 
 
 Lawyers. 
 
 BROUWER LEIGHTON, District-Attorney of New 
 
 York. A Republican. 
 
 LARRY O MARA, a member of his staff. 
 
 UHLER, another member of Leighton s 
 
 staff, 
 xvii 
 
XV111 
 
 CHARACTERS 
 
 EX-JUDGE MARCUS F. STEIN,of the firm of Stein, Falcon- 
 ridge, Falconridge & Perry, 
 corporation-lawyers. 
 
 IRWIN, a member of Stein s staff. 
 
 ANSON QUIRK, an underworld lawyer. 
 
 LUKE HUBER, a young lawyer. 
 
 Businessmen. 
 
 president of the M. & N. R. R. 
 
 his successor. 
 
 president of the East County 
 
 National Bank. 
 
 head of the firm of R. H. 
 
 Forbes & Son, manufacturers 
 
 of ready-made clothing. 
 
 financial-inquiry agent. 
 
 the MAX S secretary. 
 
 his chief broker. 
 
 his almoner. 
 
 one of his confidential clerks. 
 
 manager of the Ruysdael es 
 tate. 
 
 superintendent of the Forbes 
 
 factory. 
 
 in the Arapahoe Apartment- 
 house. 
 
 CHARLEY, a clerk in the M. R. L. offices. 
 
 REV. PINKNEY NICHOLSON, rector of Church of St. Atha- 
 
 nasius. 
 
 ROBERT M. DOHAN, 
 
 HENRY G. McKAY, 
 
 B. FRANK OSSERMAN, 
 
 WALLACE K. FORBES, 
 
 ALEXANDER TITUS, 
 JAMES T. ROLLINS, 
 ATWOOD, 
 SIMPSON, 
 COXOVER, 
 HERBERT CROY, 
 
 WHITAKER, 
 
 THE DESK-CLERK, 
 
 Miscellaneous Persons. 
 
 THE MAN S NIECE. 
 CORNELIUS RUYSDAEL, 
 
 MRS. RUYSDAEL, 
 TOMMY HALLETT, 
 JOHN JAY PORCELLIS, 
 BETTY FORBES, 
 MRS. HUBER, 
 
 JANE HUBER, 
 
 JAMES, 
 
 MISS WESTON, 
 
 BREIL, 
 
 AN I.W.W. ORGANIZER. 
 
 a wealthy New Yorker of 
 
 good family. 
 
 his wife. 
 
 son of George J. 
 
 a young man of leisure. 
 
 daughter of Wallace K. Forbes. 
 
 mother of Luke and wife of 
 
 G. W. Huber. 
 
 her daughter. 
 
 the Forbes chauffeur. 
 
 a telephone operator. 
 
 a strike-breaker. 
 
CHARACTERS xix 
 
 Policemen. 
 
 HUGH DONOVAN, a police-lieutenant. 
 
 MITCHELL, ) 
 
 ANDERSON, V patrolmen. 
 
 GUTH, ) 
 
 Militiamen. 
 
 CAPTAIN ANTONIO FACCIOLATI, of the New York N. G. 
 TERRY, first-lieutenant under Faccio- 
 
 lati. 
 SCHMIDT, a sergeant. 
 
 Citizens of the Underworld. 
 
 A BUM. 
 
 GACE, an assassin. 
 
 A DISORDERLY WOMAN. 
 
 A WOMAN-RIOTER. 
 
 A DRUNKEN WOMAN. 
 
 REDDY RAWN, leader of an East Side "gang." 
 
 REDDY S " GIRL." 
 
 THE KID, one of his associates. 
 
 CRAB ROTELLO, head of a rival gang. 
 
 ZANTZINGER, a gunman. 
 
 BUTCH DELLITT, another gunman. 
 
 Other Persons. 
 
 Women of the street, the brothel, the world. 
 
 Clothing-factory workers. 
 
 A mob. 
 
 Waiters in saloons. 
 
 Clerks and foremen in the Forbes factory. 
 
 Stenographers and typists. 
 
 Gamblers. 
 
 Other gangmen. 
 
 Other policemen. 
 
 Various minor Republican, Democratic, Reform, and Progressive 
 
 politicians. 
 
 Newspaper-reporters. 
 Some newspaper-editors. 
 A corps of strike-breakers. 
 Scabs. 
 Soldiers of the New York National Guard. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I . Early that morning, Luke Huber stood before 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad Station at Americus and 
 fancied himself a latter-day crusader setting out to 
 reconquer from the infidels the modern Holy City of 
 God. He had graduated from the Harvard Law- 
 School in the previous June. Now the Republican 
 brother-in-law of one of his classmates, having been 
 elected District-Attorney of corruptly Democratic 
 New York, offered a place on his staff to Luke as 
 soon as Huber should meet successfully the neces 
 sary formalities. This new public-prosecutor was to 
 " clean up " the largest city in the country, and Luke, 
 as his assistant, was to aid in restoring to the metropo 
 lis the ideals of the framers of the Constitution. 
 
 A slim young man, with a smooth face too rugged 
 to be handsome, and gray eyes too keen to be always 
 dreaming, Huber stood erect, the wide collar of his 
 woolen overcoat turned up, for the spring lingered 
 that year in the valleys of Virginia, and the brim of 
 
2 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 his Alpine hat pulled over his nose. He disregarded 
 the group of boys waiting for the " up-train " that 
 would bring the Philadelphia morning newspapers to 
 his native Pennsylvania town, disregarded the grimy 
 station-buildings, and looked toward the river, where 
 the morning mists were lifting and the cold sunshine 
 was creeping through to light the Susquehanna hills. 
 He was one of those fortunate and few human 
 beings who are born without the original sin of super 
 stition, but what he saw seemed to him almost a 
 favorable omen. He had come down early, because 
 he disliked to prolong the good-bys of his mother 
 and sister, and because he felt that even the walk to 
 the station was an important advance in the quest 
 which he was so eager to begin. When he arrived 
 beside the railway tracks and allowed his father, the 
 Congressman, to see to the checking of the baggage 
 a concession that Luke made to his parent s desire 
 for some part in the great adventure the entire 
 river was hidden from view by a thick dun curtain : 
 one could see nothing beyond the point by the shore 
 where the black arms of a derrick, at the Americus 
 Sand Company s works, were silhouetted against that 
 curtain and stretched over a tremendous mound of 
 sand, as if they were the arms of some gigantic skele 
 ton pronouncing the benediction at a Black Mass. 
 But now, though the fog really rose, it appeared 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 3 
 
 to Luke to be torn from above, and as the sun 
 mounted over distant Turkey Hill and gradually 
 gilded the pines on the surrounding summits, it 
 seemed to advance up the bed of the stream, slowly 
 descending of its own force along the dark hillsides, 
 until, all at once, the river was a rushing stream of 
 gold. Luke found himself thinking of the veil of the 
 Temple, and how it was rent in twain from the top to 
 the bottom. 
 
 His father, who was taller than Luke, but broad 
 out of all proportion to his height, came puffing back 
 from the baggage-room. He held the checks for 
 Luke s luggage and a slip of pink paper. 
 
 " Here are your checks," he said, " and here s your 
 pass. I forgot to give it to you. It came last night." 
 
 Luke took the proffered paper. 
 
 " I thought," he began, " that the Interstate Com 
 merce Commission didn t " 
 
 The Congressman interrupted with a deep chuckle. 
 
 " Oh, that s all right," he said. " Don t let your 
 conscience worry you about that. This is for a con 
 tinuous ride to a terminus of the road." 
 
 " I see," said Luke; but what he saw was that his 
 father, whom he loved too much to hurt uselessly, 
 had, out of kindness, strained a legal definition. His 
 father, he reflected, was not a man to abuse privilege 
 in large matters, and would be only hurt by a refusal 
 
4 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 in the present trivial affair. Luke put the pass in the 
 cuff of his overcoat and silently decided to pay his 
 fare to the conductor. The elder man, big as he was, 
 stamped his feet on the concrete pavement and com 
 plained of the chill in the April air; the younger was 
 too happy to notice the cold. 
 
 " Train s five minutes late," remarked the Con 
 gressman as, through a cautiously unbuttoned over 
 coat, he drew and snapped open a heavy watch. 
 
 " Is your time correct?" asked Luke. 
 
 " Hasn t varied three seconds a week in ten years," 
 his father assured him. 
 
 Neither was thinking of what was being said. The 
 younger man was so full of the high work ahead of 
 him that he had already forgotten his mother s ill-con 
 cealed tears at parting; the elder, granted political 
 favors rather because of his personal popularity and 
 pliant good-nature than for any ability at the game of 
 vote-keeping, possessed at least the chief virtue of the 
 politician : he was a man of few words, and the more 
 truly he felt the less he spoke. 
 
 The " up-train " arrived (it was the " down-train " 
 that Luke must take), and the Congressman was be 
 sieged by the newsboys, who knelt about him, strik 
 ing their rolls of newspapers on the pavement the 
 quicker to burst the wrappers in which the journals 
 were closely confined. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 5 
 
 "Press, Mr. Huber? " 
 
 "North American or Record?" 
 
 "Ledger?" 
 
 The boys bobbed up, flourishing their wares. 
 
 " Aw, I know what he wants," said an older lad, 
 elbowing the rest. " Here s yer Inquirer, Mr. Con 
 gressman." 
 
 Luke s father smiled: he had never outgrown his 
 liking for homage from whatever quarter; but he 
 bought a paper from each boy, giving each a five- 
 cent piece and telling him to keep the change. 
 
 " You might as well take the lot," he said to Luke. 
 " You ll want something to read on the train." He 
 was handing all the papers to Luke, when his eyes 
 were caught by a large headline on the first page 
 of one of them. " Hello ! " he commented, his lips 
 immediately pursing themselves as if to whistle. As 
 Luke took its fellows, the Congressman folded this 
 paper with the sudden skill of the confirmed news 
 paper-reader, who can handle a journal in the open 
 air as neatly as a trained yachtsman can reef a top 
 sail before an undesirable wind. " I see the Big 
 Man s been giving some more testimony to that com 
 mittee of the legislature up at Albany." 
 
 For the past few weeks, Luke had been too busy 
 preparing for his bar-examinations to keep track of 
 current events. 
 
6 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Who s the Big Man? " he asked. 
 
 The elder Huber raised his thick brows. 
 
 " You know," said he, and he mentioned the name 
 of one of the richest men in America; not a man that 
 had made his wealth even through the building of a 
 great industry, but one that had, by " editing " money 
 and combinations of money much in that manner in 
 which a news-desk copy-reader edits the reporters 
 " copy," made himself a member of the triumvirate 
 rumor said made the triumvirate and made himself 
 its head which had for years controlled alike the 
 labor and capital of the country. 
 
 "What s he been saying?" asked Luke. 
 
 " He s been answering questions about campaign 
 contributions." 
 
 "To the Democrats?" 
 
 " Well, no." The Congressman was reluctant. 
 " It seems it was to the Republicans." 
 
 Luke colored. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " I always knew those fel 
 lows had no real political convictions, and of course 
 any party is bound to have some bad lots among its 
 small fry, but I do wish our National Committee 
 would kick out of the ranks the men that take money 
 from such people." 
 
 The father did not like this. Luke had been a 
 great deal away from him, first at boarding-school 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 7 
 
 and then at college and the law-school, so that the 
 two had not seen much of each other for many years; 
 but since the younger had come home this last time, 
 he had given frequent expression to sentiments of the 
 present sort, and the Congressman, although he dis 
 liked argument as keenly as most Congressmen, felt 
 that now it was his duty to protest. 
 
 " My boy," he said, " you won t go far if you go 
 about talking that way. This contribution went to 
 the fund that elected your District-Attorney Leigh- 
 ton." 
 
 " I don t believe it!" 
 
 " That s the testimony." 
 
 " I don t believe it. This man s swearing to that 
 so as to hurt the party in New York." 
 
 This man? " Luke s father repeated the phrase 
 interrogatively. His usual taciturnity fell from him. 
 "Why do you say that? How do you know it? 
 Why should he want to hurt the party? As a matter 
 of fact, what do you know about this man, any 
 how ? Nothing but a lot of unfounded gossip printed 
 in papers that want him to come over to their side. 
 Why shouldn t he help our party? I do know some 
 thing about him. I ve never met him, but I know the 
 whole story of his career know it intimately and I 
 tell you that his is the greatest intellect in America 
 to-day, and he has used his intellect, and the wealth! 
 
8 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 it got him, to help not only once, but again and 
 again to help and to save yes, save, the party and 
 the prosperity of the nation. I tell you " 
 
 He did not tell any more. The down-train had 
 been rumbling over the last span of the river-bridge 
 when he began talking; and now it rolled before the 
 station. 
 
 Luke took his suitcase in one hand and extended 
 the other in farewell. Unexpectedly he felt a lump 
 in his throat. 
 
 "Good-by," he said. 
 
 His father gripped the hand. His habitual in 
 articulateness redescended upon him. " You ve I 
 know you re all right, Luke. Don t forget to write 
 once a week: your mother worries." 
 
 " I won t forget." 
 
 They stood, hands clasped. 
 
 Close by, the " train-crier " was calling in a high, 
 nasal voice: 
 
 " Train for Mountwille, Doncaster, Downington, 
 Philadelphy, and Noo York! First stop Mount 
 wille ! " 
 
 " And, Luke " 
 
 "Yes, father?" 
 
 " Don t make charges when you don t know facts." 
 
 " Perhaps I have a weakness that way," Luke 
 smiled. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 9 
 
 His smile conjured another. 
 
 " That s right; now you re showing the proper 
 spirit." With his free hand, the elder man patted the 
 younger s shoulder. " Stick to your books and stick 
 to Leighton. Gratitude is the best virtue and the 
 rarest." 
 
 Luke nodded. 
 
 " Now, get aboard," concluded his counselor. 
 " Got your pass? and the checks? I ll be running 
 over occasionally, I dare say. And let me know if I 
 can do anything for you." 
 
 Luke clambered into the smoking-car. He took a 
 seat on the side near the station and waved his hand 
 to his father as the engine began to snort. He paid 
 his fare to the conductor, and, when Americus was 
 well behind him, he opened the window, tore the pink 
 pass into a dozen small pieces and let the clean April 
 breeze carry them away. 
 
 At Doncaster he changed to the Pullman car that 
 was there attached to the train; he again carefully 
 chose his seat, this time selecting one on the side from 
 which he could the better enjoy his first view of New 
 York. He had always liked this view when it came to 
 him on his returns to Boston after his vacations; it 
 wakened in him the dreams of the day which should 
 light him into the city, there to work for its salvation 
 and the nation s. His youthful dreams were still 
 
io THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 with him, and, since the moment when the sun had 
 rent the Susquehanna mists, he was looking forward 
 to that sight of the southernmost walls of New York 
 towering like the ramparts of a mighty fortress above 
 the crowded waters of the Jersey City ferry. Then, 
 indeed, with the battle yet to be fought, he would feel 
 as the crusaders must have felt at their first sight of 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 But Luke s train was late, and by the time that it 
 reached the point from which the city should have 
 been visible, the mists had again descended. They 
 had deepened. All that Luke, with straining eyes, 
 could see were a few spectral turrets, distorted and 
 ugly in the thickened atmosphere, swaying overhead 
 upon waves of yellow fog. 
 
 2. Jack Porcellis, with his mother s motor, met 
 Luke. They were driven to the apartment-house in 
 Thirty-ninth Street where, upon Jack s advice, 
 Huber had written to engage two small rooms and 
 bath. It was Jack Porcellis (his real name was John 
 Jay Porcellis) who had District-Attorney Leighton 
 for a brother-in-law and had induced that official to 
 give Luke a place on the staff of the public prose 
 cutor. 
 
 Porcellis was considerably taller than Huber and 
 very considerably thinner. He was a quiet member 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB :n 
 
 of an old Knickerbocker family, who was at home 
 in every sort of society, had gone to law-school as 
 an intellectual diversion and now spent most of his 
 time traveling, always well within his income, 
 through whatever lands chanced to attract his con 
 tinually changing fancy. 
 
 " I hope you ll be comfortable here," he said, 
 when they had been lifted to the fifth floor of the 
 house, which was dry and hot from the steam radi 
 ators and smelled as all steam-heated houses smell. 
 
 The elevator-boy was unlocking the door to Luke s 
 apartments while Porcellis spoke. He stood aside 
 as the two men entered. 
 
 " I think I ll make out very well," said Luke. He 
 handed the boy a tip and dismissed him. " It s not 
 so big as our rooms in Ware Hall, but then there 
 were two of us there." 
 
 The quarters were indeed small. The parlor was 
 almost diminutive, and the bedroom, which opened 
 from it, was an alcove; the front window gave upon 
 the busy street, with a bit of Broadway to the 
 right, and the bathroom, in American fashion, was 
 as large as the parlor. 
 
 " I did the best I could for you," Porcellis ex 
 plained: he failed to account for his friend s tone 
 by the fact that Luke was fresh from the spacious 
 ness of a small town. 
 
12 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Huber softened. 
 
 " I didn t mean to criticise, Jack. I m sure this 
 will do splendidly. After all, I m in New York for 
 hard work." 
 
 " I know you are." Porcellis smiled faintly. 
 " You were never anywhere for anything else. Well, 
 you ll probably get over that before you ve quite 
 spoiled yourself for everything. It s a way New 
 York has." 
 
 Huber was tolerant. "Is it? You see, I don t 
 know the town very well." 
 
 " Who does? However, I ll show you what I can 
 before I sail I m going to Russia next week, you 
 know and by way of a beginning I ve brought you 
 a ready-made engagement for to-night. We ll dine 
 at my club, and see the Follies, and after that 
 well, I ve got you a card to Mrs. Ruysdael s dance." 
 
 " This doesn t sound like preparation for work," 
 chuckled Luke; " but, thank you and who is Mrs. 
 Ruysdael?" 
 
 "Who is Mrs. Ruysdael?" Porcellis repeated. 
 He was stroking the spot where his blond mustache 
 had been a year ago, but where, because mustaches 
 had since become unfashionable, it no longer grew. 
 " Why, the Mrs. Ruysdael, of course : Mrs. Cor 
 nelius Ruysdael." 
 
 When he heard it in full, Luke remembered the 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 13 
 
 name. Of Mrs. Ruysdael he knew only that she 
 was a woman of fashion; but her husband was every 
 where known as the worthy representative of a 
 Dutch New York name long eminent in the coun 
 try s history. The family had been rich for several 
 generations, but they had proved themselves sur 
 prisingly able to wear the cloak of wealth with 
 dignity. 
 
 " I remember now," said Luke. " They re said to 
 be among the heaviest real-estate owners in New 
 York, aren t they? " 
 
 Porcellis laughed. 
 
 "Well, yes, they are," he conceded: "but none 
 of us ever think of that. I doubt if even they do. 
 They leave their estate to their agents to manage, 
 and we leave the story of it to the yellow press to 
 talk about." 
 
 " I never knew there was any story connected 
 with it." 
 
 "No? Well, for my part, I don t believe there 
 is. Some labor-agitator searched the records and 
 tried to prove they made their first fortune buying 
 condemned muskets from the British garrisons just 
 before the Revolution and selling them as good arms 
 to the Continental Congress. He said they invested 
 the profits in New York land as soon as prices fell 
 after the Declaration of Independence was signed." 
 
14 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Was it true? " asked Luke. 
 
 Porcellis shrugged. 
 
 " It was all a long time ago, at any rate," he said, 
 " and the Ruysdaels are very nice people now: you 
 would never guess they were worth more than a mil 
 lion. Besides, Charley that s my Wall Street 
 cousin says they ve somehow funded their land- 
 holdings with one of Old Nap s concerns. I don t 
 know. I don t pretend to understand finance." 
 
 Luke felt extremely ignorant. 
 
 "Old Nap?" he wondered. "Who s he?" 
 
 In reply, Porcellis mentioned the name of the man 
 of whom Luke s father had spoken so highly that 
 morning at the railway station in Americus. 
 
 Huber pushed forward a chair. 
 
 " Sit down," he said, " and have a cigarette. I 
 want to ask you one question more. You ve been 
 all over the map. You ve got the cosmopolitan point 
 of view. What do you think of this man?" 
 
 " I think," said Porcellis, accepting both the chair 
 and the cigarette, " that it doesn t make any differ 
 ence what I think of him." He lit the cigarette. 
 " But I m quite sure," he presently added, " he is 
 the sort of man nobody can help thinking something 
 about. Why do you ask? " 
 
 " Because " Luke was not certain why he did 
 
 ask. He could not politely inquire of Porcellis 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 15 
 
 whether he believed that his brother-in-law had ac 
 cepted, to aid his election, money from a power that 
 could not but be interested in the official actions of 
 a District-Attorney of New York. " Because," he 
 compromised, " my father was speaking to me about 
 him only this morning." 
 
 " So were a lot of other fathers. So are a lot 
 of other fathers every morning. That s greatness. 
 What I think is that Old Napoleon is the greatest 
 man this country has ever produced." 
 
 " You think so well of him as that! " Luke was 
 amazed. 
 
 " I didn t say I thought he was good," Porcellis 
 defined; " I said I thought he was great. Greatness 
 hasn t anything to do with good or bad, or only acci 
 dentally. The greatest national figure a country 
 produces is the figure that most intensely and well, 
 and powerfully expresses that country. That s why 
 Shakespeare was the greatest man produced by 
 Elizabethan England." 
 
 " Oh Shakespeare ! " laughed Luke. 
 
 "Why not?" asked Porcellis. "Shakespeare 
 lived in a country and time of expanding intellectual 
 conceptions, and he expressed them the way I ve said. 
 We live in a country and time of tremendous financial 
 combination and expansion; we re not working in 
 the material of intellectual conceptions, except as we 
 
16 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 conceive finance intellectually; we re working with 
 figures and dollar-marks and differentials and com 
 pound interest and dividends as complicated as an 
 astronomer s calculations. Well, this little old man 
 in Wall Street can see those figures before they hap 
 pen; he can make them come to life out of nothing 
 make them happen, give them life just the way 
 Shakespeare gave life to another sort of ideas. 
 These ideas are the ideas of our country; they are 
 our country. Here is a genius that most fully and 
 powerfully, most intensely and perfectly expresses 
 them, and so I say he is the American Shakespeare." 
 
 Luke writhed in his chair opposite Porcellis. He 
 could withhold the question no longer. 
 
 " Then " he almost blurted it out at last 
 " those campaign contributions " 
 
 But Porcellis was scandal-proof. 
 
 " Those ! " he said lightly. " You ll have to ask 
 Brouwer Leighton about them." 
 
 3. After they left the theater, the two young 
 men were driven, again in the motor belonging to 
 Mrs. Porcellis, up the noisy river of yellow light 
 that was Broadway, where their vehicle joined a long 
 procession, until they reached a cross-street in the 
 early Fifties. Then their car darted from the pa 
 rade and plunged through a dark thoroughfare to 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 17 
 
 Fifth Avenue. They drew up before a house where 
 Luke could at first see little save that from its door 
 way, high above the pavement, a long and narrow 
 tent of white canvas striped with red ran to the curb. 
 Several other motors were ahead of theirs, so theirs 
 had to wait its turn. 
 
 " Is this the place? " asked Luke. 
 
 Porcellis nodded. 
 
 " It does look rather like a barn from the out 
 side," he said, guessing his companion s thought and 
 agreeing with it. " That s a Ruysdael way : they 
 maintain the old tradition of severe exteriors; they 
 don t believe in flaunting their wealth in the face of 
 the public; they believe in keeping the best for their 
 friends." 
 
 Luke leaned shamelessly forward. Whenever he 
 had gone to dances heretofore, the houses of his 
 hostesses had shown lights in every window and dis 
 pensed a glow of festivity to the streets; but this 
 house, essentially forbidding, stood dark and silent, 
 its windows masked. Except for the faint illumina 
 tion of a street-lamp that sputtered bluely at the 
 corner, the only scintillations visible were two thin 
 lines of radiance, one along the pavement, at the 
 bottom of the entrance-tent, and a corresponding 
 one above, between the walls of the tent and the 
 loose overhang of its roof: these and a glowing spot 
 
1 8 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 at the end of the tent upon the curb where, between 
 rows of ragged night figures watching the scene, dis 
 mounting guests appeared and disappeared white 
 shirt-fronts, and opera-cloaks, and the glint of jewels 
 like pictures in dissolving views. 
 
 With each arrival, motors swung away from the 
 entrance, turned to the other side of the street, and 
 proceeded to the farther corner there to await their 
 recall, while their drivers gossiped in the darkness 
 or drank beer at a convenient bar. Thus, with starts 
 and stops like those of an American railway train 
 leaving a station, the Porcellis car slowly approached 
 the canvas mouth. 
 
 When that mouth yawned directly before them, 
 Luke and Porcellis, the door of their automobile 
 held open by a servant in livery, descended into the 
 tent. A string of incandescent lamps had been hung 
 in this corridor it was the light from these lamps 
 which crept from above and below the walls and a 
 thick carpet covered the pavement. Along it they 
 walked to the house-steps, where two turbaned East 
 Indians stood ready to relieve them of their hats 
 and top-coats and show them to a room prepared for 
 incoming men-guests. 
 
 " Now," said Porcellis, " you see what I was talk 
 ing about." 
 
 A greater contrast between the outside and the 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 19 
 
 inside of the Ruysdael house it would, indeed, have 
 been hard to find. The reception hall was of white 
 marble and of a height generally seen only in public 
 buildings. Pillars held the distant ceiling; the stair 
 case rose in a pentagonal tower, a copy, Porcellis ex 
 plained, of that in the Francis First wing of the 
 Chateau of Blois; the light, although its sources were 
 hidden, was almost blinding to eyes fresh from the 
 darkness of the street; there was music heard lightly 
 from a distance, and the air was faint with the scent 
 of American Beauty roses. 
 
 Porcellis and Luke went up the carved staircase in 
 the tower, which was open at each landing so as to 
 command a view of the hall, and were directed to 
 the men s room, where three valets were in attend 
 ance. Against the walls of this room were several 
 dressing-tables, each with a strong lamp before it 
 and each covered with toilet articles. 
 
 " I m not sure," said Luke, in a whisper that was 
 both amazed and amused, " whether I m in a belle s 
 boudoir or a musical comedy star s dressing-room." 
 
 " It s a judicious combination," said Porcellis in 
 a conversational tone that disregarded the fluttering 
 attendants. He picked up a gold-backed buffer and 
 polished his always coruscating finger-nails. 
 
 Luke contented himself with a touch to his hair, 
 which had a way of standing upright, and a tug at 
 
20 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 his tie, which was forever straining toward inde 
 pendence. 
 
 " What s this? " he asked as he lifted a glass case. 
 He removed its lid and sniffed at the contents. " It 
 looks like rouge," he added. 
 
 " It is," said Porcellis. 
 
 " But I thought this room was for men," said 
 Luke. 
 
 Porcellis drew down the corners of his sensitive 
 mouth. 
 
 " It is," he said again. 
 
 They went toward the ballroom. 
 
 A man-servant with those brief side-whiskers 
 which, twenty years before, were used to proclaim 
 the millionaire, stood splendidly against the crush 
 about the doorway. He bent to each newcomer and 
 secured a name, which, turning his head, but not 
 moving his body, he then shouted, from an impas 
 sive face, into the ballroom. 
 
 Porcellis nodded to him familiarly 
 
 " Good-evening, James," he said. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mr. Porcellis. And the other 
 gentleman, sir?" 
 
 " Mr. Huber," said Porcellis with careful dis 
 tinctness. 
 
 The servant turned his head toward the crowd in 
 the room behind him. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 21 
 
 " Mr. Porcellis ! " he cried, and then, as if it were 
 an afterthought: "Mr. Urer!" 
 
 " It s all right," Porcellis hurriedly reassured 
 Luke. " Nobody pays the slightest attention to 
 him, anyhow." 
 
 Nobody did. As they shouldered their way for 
 ward, the huge apartment that they now entered was 
 like what Luke thought the rooms of state at Ver 
 sailles must be, and the great hall in the Brussels 
 Palace of Justice. All about the walls, and espe 
 cially about the large entrance, was a press of men 
 and women, standing still, or moving slowly from 
 group to group through an invisible, but palpable, 
 cloud formed by a mixture of the odor of wither 
 ing flowers, Parisian scents, and human sweat. A 
 band of music, concealed in a far-away balcony, 
 blared rag-time, but distinct from its impudence, 
 there rose from all these people the noise of shoe- 
 leather dragged over parquette flooring, the com 
 posite of laughter in many keys and the perplexed 
 buzz of small-talk. The moving figures of the 
 women, over whom countless aigrettes quivered, had 
 a kaleidoscopic effect, curiously unreal: an effect of 
 flashing colors crimson, ivory, blues, greens, and 
 pinks splashing against white breasts and backs, 
 falling away from dazzling shoulders, the waves 
 mounting in oily satin, feline velvet, or clinging 
 
22 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 peau de cygnes, and breaking in the foam of lace 
 and the flying spray of diamonds. Here even the 
 ordinary black-and-white of the men became black- 
 and-gray or black-and-lavender, with gems for waist 
 coat buttons. On the dancing-floor many couples, 
 hugging each other so tightly that their bodies 
 touched from chest to center, swayed to the sensuous 
 music of a one-step, the leaders high collars wilting, 
 the fingers of their right hands spread wide along the 
 women s upper vertebras, their partners looking into 
 their intent faces from narrowed eyes. 
 
 The picture was too bright, too varied, for the 
 unaccustomed mind to seize it: Luke turned to Por- 
 cellis: 
 
 "And Mrs. Ruysdael?" 
 
 He was expecting his hostess to meet her guests at 
 the door of the ballroom. 
 
 Porcellis, however, did not wholly understand. 
 
 " Oh, she s about somewhere, I dare say," he re 
 sponded " though she doesn t care for late hours 
 and sometimes leaves after the third dance. Come 
 on. I ll introduce you to some worth-while people." 
 
 He introduced Luke to a great many people, for 
 he seemed to know them all. There was the British 
 Ambassador and a German baron, a string of 
 dowagers with marriageable daughters (Luke 
 danced with each daughter and liked her) , an artist, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 23 
 
 a scientist, and a bibliophile, and several debutantes 
 that were not marriageable at all, but were quite 
 frankly determined to marry. 
 
 As is the way when a name runs in one s brain, 
 three out of five of the people that Luke talked to 
 sooner or later mentioned the man that the elder 
 Huber had spoken of that morning and that Por- 
 cellis had later so highly extolled. The Ambassador 
 said that this man had, by lending or withholding 
 tremendous sums, preserved the peace of nations; the 
 artist praised him as the only true patron of art in 
 America; the scientist told how the same man had 
 established and equipped a now world-famous insti 
 tution for the study and cure of a world-plague; the 
 bibliophile envied his first editions and medieval 
 manuscripts. 
 
 Leading his prettiest partner across the floor, 
 Luke s glance, in spite of his will, rested on a dia 
 mond pendant that hung from a thread of gold about 
 her neck and fell above her beautiful bust. She was 
 a girl with the face of one of those Italian peasant 
 girls that the early painters loved to paint as Ma 
 donnas, and Huber felt that his regard must be an 
 insult. 
 
 The girl, however, took the pendant between a 
 white thumb and forefinger and looked from it to 
 him with pleased eyes. 
 
24 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 "You like it?" she asked. 
 
 " I think it s wonderful," said he. 
 
 " It is pretty," she replied. " My uncle gave it 
 to me on my last birthday. It used to be in a heathen 
 god s crown in some Chinese or Hindu temple or 
 other." 
 
 " The god ought to be pleased to lose it to you," 
 said Luke, " even if it didn t come to you directly." 
 
 " Oh, but it did come to me directly," she laughed 
 prettily. u That s half the charm of it. Uncle sent 
 right over there and got it for me." 
 
 When Luke found Porcellis again, he asked him 
 about this. 
 
 " Who s that girl with the broad, low forehead," 
 he inquired, " and the expression of a stained-glass 
 saint?" 
 
 " You re aiming high," said Porcellis; " that s one 
 of the richest girls in New York." 
 
 " Who s her uncle?" 
 
 " Ah, she s been talking of him, has she? Well, 
 I don t blame her. Her uncle is the man I call the 
 American Shakespeare. She ll get a lot of his money, 
 too, for he has no children of his own." 
 
 "Is he here himself?" 
 
 " Not he. He doesn t care for this sort of thing. 
 That football-playerish sort of fellow that the niece 
 introduced you to that s young Hallett she s danc- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 25 
 
 ing with now he s the son of George J. And 
 there s George J. himself! " 
 
 Luke remembered that George J. Hallett was one 
 of the financiers whose name was most frequently 
 associated with the donor of diamonds and benefac 
 tor of medical research. 
 
 " And," continued Porcellis, u do you see that 
 stoutish, nervous pale man over there talking to the 
 British Ambassador? Oh, don t be alarmed: they re 
 probably not talking about anything more important 
 than how they hate dances. Well, that s the third 
 member of the triumvirate : that s L. Bergen Riv- 
 ington." 
 
 Luke went home in the early dawn, feeling that 
 these were pleasant people, however they came by 
 their money, and that he had certainly judged the one 
 that was not there long before he knew much about 
 him. 
 
 4. Leighton was out of town he, too, was be 
 fore the legislature s investigating committee at 
 Albany and the bar-examination was not to be held 
 for a week or more, so that Luke had the next few 
 days to devote to himself. The use that he put 
 them to was an endeavor to learn what he could of 
 the city of which he had seen so little before he came 
 to live there. He saw what, considered of itself, 
 
26 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 was a great deal, but what, considered as a part of 
 New York, was minute; and at many turns, the num 
 ber of which surprised him for long as he had 
 known of the man s power, he never before looked 
 for its effects he came across traces of that finan 
 cier who more and more seemed to him to be the 
 controlling force in America. 
 
 He was shown a great college, handsomely 
 housed, splendidly equipped, in which the higher edu 
 cation was provided free to every graduate of the 
 public schools that chose to take advantage of it, 
 and this, he was told, had been given to New York 
 by the great " money editor." He was taken through 
 a cancer hospital, where mesothorium, which cost 
 about $52,000 a grain, and radium at $64,000, had 
 been bought and were kept and used without charge 
 in the treatment of poor patients where physicians 
 and surgeons of international repute were engaged to 
 spend all their time searching for a true cure and 
 final prevention and this institution had been largely 
 endowed by the same man, whose first wife, it ap 
 peared, had died of cancer. There were homes for 
 destitute widows, pure-milk depots, orphan asylums, 
 all assisted by this man or his associates. 
 
 "Do you know him?" Luke asked Porcellis one 
 evening as they sat at dinner in the latter s club. 
 They had been talking of many things, but Luke 
 found this one conspicuously interesting. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 27 
 
 " No," said Porcellis. " He doesn t go out much. 
 I saw him once. I was being shown through his 
 library it s a marvelous place, full of treasure-trove 
 that would make a scholar think he was in heaven 
 and the librarian pointed him out to me : he was 
 sitting in the alcove that held the First Folios, and 
 he was reading the current World Almanac. 
 
 They both laughed. 
 
 " Still," protested Luke, " he seems more Jovian 
 than ever to me. I don t know whether he s a good 
 Jove or a bad one, but I don t see how he can really 
 be bad when he does so much good." 
 
 Porcellis was still intolerant of the ethical ques 
 tion. He pointed out that nobody of weight ever 
 knew or cared whether Shakespeare s life was moral 
 or whether the effect of his work was immoral. What 
 had happened in regard to the American was that, 
 because he had at last been secured to come to a 
 public hearing, people were beginning to realize that 
 he was a living man and not a force of nature. For 
 a quarter of a century he had been the greatest indi 
 vidual power in the United States, and for all that 
 time he had remained hidden. He had been doing 
 daily tremendous things, things that were epic in their 
 sweep and yet affected every man, woman, and child 
 included in the census and nobody knew of them, no 
 paper printed a word about them, until he had passed 
 
28 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 them out of his own hands and into those of his 
 lieutenants, not until, indeed, his lieutenants had sent 
 them so far from hand to hand that none could 
 tell precisely when and where they had started. 
 
 " The man s a genius," said Porcellis, " and like 
 all geniuses he s just what we all are when his genius 
 isn t at work. What he feels is just what we d feel 
 if we were in his place." 
 
 " Still," argued Luke, " the influence of such a 
 man is too great; it s dangerous. It oughtn t to be 
 allowed in politics." 
 
 " There you go again ! " sighed Porcellis. " Al 
 low? How are you going to allow or disallow a 
 force? It simply is. This man can give the big 
 politicians certain large advantages if they pass laws 
 that suit him. The big politicians can give the little 
 politicians certain lesser advantages if they furnish 
 the votes. The lesser politicians can get the votes 
 if they let the police charge the criminals for pro 
 tection in crime. Each man seizes his opportunity, 
 and that s all there is about it." 
 
 " You think so? " said Luke. " I can t believe it. 
 I can t believe it would be necessary if the right laws 
 were passed and enforced. Wait till your brother- 
 in-law gets the District-Attorney s office cleaned 
 out and in working order. Then you ll see I m 
 right." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 29 
 
 5. At ten o clock on the following Sunday night, 
 Luke, on a lonely walk through the East Side, noticed 
 that, whereas the front rooms of the saloons were 
 darkened, the back rooms were all alight. The doors 
 to these back rooms were forever swinging to the 
 entrance and exit of unmistakable customers, many 
 of whom came out bearing foaming jugs of beer 
 under the indifferent noses of policemen at the cor 
 ners. Luke chose a saloon in Essex Street and 
 entered it. 
 
 The room was small, but crowded. The walls, 
 which were papered in green, bore a few framed 
 prints in high colors, advertisements of various 
 brands of beer and whisky. All about were small 
 tables at which blowsy women and men in stained 
 clothes were drinking. 
 
 Luke hesitated. Nobody had questioned his en 
 trance, there was no guard and no password : the door 
 hung free; but now his startled eye could not see a 
 vacant table, and he knew that he must appear an 
 alien to this place. 
 
 Presently a nearby woman smiled at him. She 
 looked to be about fifty years old. There was a 
 mangy peacock feather in her straw hat, which was 
 set a-slant of dank black hair touched with gray. 
 
 " Hello, sweetheart," she said. " Come over 
 here a minute." Her smile was toothless. 
 
30 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Shut up, Mame," somebody else commanded. 
 " You re drunk." 
 
 Luke looked at the man that had spoken. He 
 was sitting alone at a table the length of the room 
 away. He had a puffed face, red from liquor and 
 blue from an unshaven beard; his coat, once black, 
 had turned green; he wore no collar, and a part of 
 the rim of his greasy derby-hat was torn away. 
 
 " Shut up," he repeated. " You re drunk." 
 
 " Thank Gawd," the woman assented. Her ac 
 knowledgment of the accusation was fervent; she 
 returned her attention to the glass of whisky that 
 stood on the table before her. 
 
 " You can sit here, if you want to," said the man, 
 addressing Luke, and nodding at a chair beside him. 
 
 Luke crossed the room and took the chair. The 
 other people in the room were indifferent to his 
 entrance with the same indifference that the guests 
 of Mrs. Ruysdael had shown. The woman that 
 had invited him did not look his way; even the man 
 that had invited him remained for some time silent. 
 Luke ordered a glass of beer from an aproned 
 waiter, who came with a tray full of whisky glasses 
 in one hand, and five foaming beer-mugs in the 
 fingers and thumb of the other. 
 
 "Will you have a drink with me?" Luke in 
 quired of the derelict beside him. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 31 
 
 " Sure," said he, and Luke noticed that, though 
 he did not cough, his voice was hoarse. 
 
 They gave their orders. 
 
 u And perhaps your friend would have one?" 
 Luke suggested. 
 
 The man raised his rheumy eyes. 
 
 "What friend?" 
 
 " The the one that spoke to me when I came in." 
 
 "Who? That skirt? I never saw her before 
 in my life." 
 
 Their drinks came, and the men drank for a 
 while in silence. 
 
 "What s your graft?" asked the man presently. 
 
 u I m a lawyer," said Luke. He was first proud 
 of the answer and then ashamed of himself for being 
 proud of it. 
 
 The man looked at him dreamily through watering 
 eyes. 
 
 " Quit yer kiddin ," he presently remarked. 
 
 " I m not kidding." 
 
 "You re a lawyer?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, I m a bum," said the man. He tilted up 
 his bristled chin; his seamed throat swelled; sounds 
 that, because they were not speech, Luke took to be 
 song, came from his throat. He sang: 
 
32 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 "The Spring has came, I m just out o jail; 
 I haven t any money an I haven t any bail ! 
 //a//eyloolyah, I m a bum bum ! 
 Halleyloolyah, bum again! 
 Halleyloolyah, give " 
 
 He stopped abruptly. " I m sorry for you" he 
 said. 
 
 " Why? " asked Luke. He thought the sentiment 
 of that song as horrible as the creature that sang it. 
 
 " Because you re all tied up with everything. But 
 me there ain t nothin can tie me. You fellers is 
 in jail all the time an don t know it; I m only in 
 jail when you fellers can ketch me and put me 
 there." 
 
 Luke realized that he had found a philosopher 
 who, however mistaken in his deductions, had seen 
 quite as much of the world as Jack Porcellis. He 
 attempted the vernacular. 
 
 " Is this a bums joint? " he inquired. 
 
 The philosopher sneered. 
 
 " Naw," he said. " It s a bum joint, but it ain t 
 a bums joint. Too much class for me. This bunch " 
 he included the entire company with a wide ges 
 ture " is all in the same jail with you. If they 
 wasn t here, you d be where I am." 
 
 " I suppose they do give us lawyers cases," Luke 
 granted; " but they seem to get around the laws 
 pretty frequently: they re wide open to-night." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 33 
 
 " Sure they are. See that? " The other man in 
 dicated the waiter, who was disappearing into the 
 dark vestibule with two drinks on his tray. " Them s 
 for the cop on this beat, an a vice-squad cop at s 
 with him. I m wise. I seen Tony (that s the boss 
 o this joint) slip them a fifty-dollar bill last Sun 
 day protection money." 
 
 " But some day," urged Luke, who was trying to 
 plumb the dark pool that was this man s mind, 
 " the Mayor or the District-Attorney will get proof 
 of that sort of thing some day when the Mayor 
 and the District-Attorney are honest men " 
 
 " Don t make me laugh," the derelict interrupted: 
 " me lip s cracked. The Mayor and the District- 
 Attorney s got to get elected, whoever they are, don t 
 they?" 
 
 Luke supposed so. 
 
 " Well, then. Tony an his kind gets the votes. 
 They can t elect without the Tony kind says so. It s 
 a fair trade. An the Mayors an the District-Attor 
 neys ain t got no easy thing of it, neither. Votes costs 
 money. They ve got to get the money from the 
 money-guys, the candidates do, an then they ve got 
 to let the money-guys kill as many people as they 
 wants to on their railroads without sendin them to 
 jail for it. Have another?" 
 
 Luke consented to another drink. 
 
34 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " This one s on me," said the other man, and he 
 paid for the order. " No, sir," he went on, as they 
 were finishing their second drink together, " there s 
 only two sorts o men that ain t tied up. One sort s 
 me that knows things an ain t afraid to starve 
 (there s lots of me) ; the other sort s the guys at 
 the top that does the tyin , an there s only a few of 
 them, with the King as the boss-knotter." 
 
 " The King? " repeated Luke. " Who s he? " 
 
 But he had guessed the answer before the derelict 
 gave it: the answer was the man that Porcellis con 
 sidered the greatest American. . . . 
 
 All the way to his apartments in Thirty-ninth 
 Street that night, Luke s feet were pounding to the 
 wretched derelict s wretched hymn : 
 
 " //a//eyloolyah, I m a bum bums 
 Halleyloolyah, bum again ! " 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 On a morning of that same April in a large rear 
 room on the twentieth floor of a Wall Street sky 
 scraper, three men were seated around a large ma 
 hogany table. They were talking business. Each 
 man had his own offices and his own businesses^ but 
 they frequently and quietly met in this, the inner 
 office of one, because most of the businesses of each 
 were closely connected, at several points, with the 
 business interests of all. 
 
 There was nothing unusual about the outward 
 appearance of the public actions of this trio; they 
 were apparently but three units of the legion that 
 makes this portion of New York a city by day and 
 a desert by night. Each had come downtown in his 
 own motor that morning, defying speed laws and 
 traffic regulations, just as scores of his business neigh 
 bors had done. Each had descended at his own 
 offices, passed through a half-dozen doors guarded 
 by six bowing attendants, and proceeded to his own 
 desk in his own private room, precisely as a small 
 army of other business men were doing at the same 
 time within a ra dius of half a mile. Each looked like 
 
 35 
 
36 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 the rest of that army. All three were men of about 
 the average in height, not noticeably either above or 
 below it, and inclined to bulkiness. They had pale 
 faces and close mouths and quiet eyes, which looked 
 out upon the world from under bushy brows with 
 glances that gave the lie to the lethargic indications 
 of the little pouches of loose skin below their lower 
 lids. Each man wore a flower in the lapel of his 
 dark coat; one wore a white waistcoat; the cropped 
 mustache of one was black; that of another was 
 touched with gray; the man at the head of the table 
 was clean-shaven. 
 
 The man at the head of the table was, for the 
 most of the time, even less remarkable than his com 
 panions. He was somewhat shorter and heavier; his 
 abdomen swelled so that his shoulders were some 
 what farther from the table than were those of his 
 associates; his bushy eyebrows were somewhat more 
 bushy; his pale face somewhat paler; his calm eyes 
 somewhat sharper, yet more calm; and his lips, 
 in addition to closing tightly, were so heavy that 
 the compression of the mouth must have resulted 
 from a habit acquired only by a strong and long 
 effort of the will. He sat with his great hands flat 
 upon the surface of the table, his thick fingers ex 
 tended, his elbows raised at right angles to his torso 
 and pointing ceilingward. His chest heaved visibly, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 37 
 
 but his breathing was inaudible. His eyes were 
 everywhere. He spoke rarely, but when he did 
 speak it was as if he darted over the table, seized 
 something, and returned: he was startlingly brief 
 and sudden, and was instantly back again in his quiet 
 watchfulness, apparently heavy, unruffled, slow. 
 
 He had come to work that morning with his 
 usual promptness the moment of his coming never 
 changed and in his usual temper. He had threaded 
 the maze of corridors with a springing step. In the 
 mahogany-paneled room with its heavy table and 
 arm-chairs, and its one decoration, a rare engraving 
 of George Washington, hung between the two win 
 dows that gave the place its only chance for sun 
 light, he found on his desk, in a corner, a clean 
 blotter, a fresh pen, a small pad of cheap paper for 
 memoranda, and nothing else. He pressed one of 
 a row of worn buttons in the side of the desk. He 
 was ringing for his private secretary. 
 
 The secretary, who patently tried to look as much 
 like his master as possible, and succeeded, entered, a 
 sheaf of open letters in his hand, and noiselessly 
 closed the door behind him. 
 
 " Good-morning," said his master. His voice was 
 quite low; it was thin and cool, but his words fell 
 quickly. 
 
 " Good-morning," said the secretary. 
 
38 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 "What s in the mail?" 
 
 " Not much, sir. Only about twenty things that 
 need your personal attention." 
 
 "About twenty!" The master s words seemed 
 to leap from him and assault the secretary, but his 
 face was set like a plaster-cast of calm and his tone 
 was even. u Do you mean nineteen or twenty-one? " 
 
 The secretary was too used to this manner of 
 speech to be alarmed by it. 
 
 Twenty-two," he said. He handed the letters 
 to his master. 
 
 That one ran them over with a quick hand and a 
 quicker eye. In terse, sharp sentences, he directed 
 his secretary how to reply to them, the latter taking 
 rapid stenographic notes of the commands. 
 
 You have turned the begging communications 
 over to Simpson to investigate?" the employer in 
 quired. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " And the requests for contributions?" 
 
 * Yes, sir. There was one for a new hospital at 
 Akron. The rubber people have given five thousand, 
 and " 
 
 * Tell Simpson to write that I ll give ten thou 
 sand if the town raises ten thousand more." 
 
 " Very well, sir." 
 
 " Has Mr. Brinley telephoned from Washing 
 ton?" 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 39 
 
 " Yes, sir. He says he is to take breakfast at 
 the White House to-morrow." 
 
 " What s that? He was told to arrange it for 
 to-day." 
 
 " He was; but he said he d got word from 
 the " 
 
 " Never mind. To-morrow will do, if he only 
 keeps his word this time. Wire him: Right; but 
 positively no more postponements. Use the code 
 signature and send from somewhere uptown, Any 
 thing from Albany?" 
 
 " Yes. Senator Scudder says to tell you that bill 
 will be reported to-day and rushed through before 
 evening." 
 
 " Have Conover go up to the Astor and get Scud 
 der on the phone and say that the bill must be 
 passed before noon recess. The Governor will sign 
 it immediately." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And Conover is not to mention names." 
 
 " Of course not, sir." 
 
 "Anything else?" 
 
 " No except somebody has been trying to get you 
 on the long-distance wire from Hartford." 
 
 That s Sparks. Run over to the corner pay- 
 station and call up the legislative building at Hart 
 ford. Get Sparks on the phone. Be sure it s the 
 
40 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 right man you re talking to. Tell him that the New 
 York gentleman he wanted to speak to just that: 
 the New York gentleman he wanted to speak to 
 is out of town, but has telegraphed you to say to him 
 it is all right for him to go ahead. Got that? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Read it." 
 
 The secretary read from his notes. 
 
 " Now," said the business man, " get Mr. Riving- 
 ton and Mr. Hallett on your own phone and ask 
 them if they can find it convenient to come around 
 here to see me for a half-hour. Tell me what they 
 say, and then give me Atwood and the other brokers 
 in the regular order." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "And, Rollins " 
 
 "Yes, sir?" 
 
 " When Mr. Hallett and Mr. Rivington arrive, 
 we are not to be disturbed." 
 
 The secretary went; the brokers were given their 
 orders, and then came L. Bergen Rivington and 
 George J. Hallett, the two men with whom this third 
 man was now consulting. 
 
 " About the Manhattan and Niagara " began 
 
 Rivington. He had a way of moving his hands nerv 
 ously when he spoke, and he rarely completed a 
 sentence. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 41 
 
 Hallett, who was the man in a white waistcoat, 
 stopped chewing his cigar to ask: 
 
 " What are they kickin about? We own seventy- 
 five per cent, of the preferred and sixty of the com 
 
 mon." 
 
 " And it is too much, I think," said Rivington. 
 " We need it only to keep from unsettling the N. Y. 
 & N. J. interests, because Fifty-five of the pre 
 ferred and fifty-two of the common, perhaps, but 
 seventy-five and sixty " 
 
 " And, now," chimed Hallett, " this little fellow 
 what s his name? the president. Oh, yes: 
 Dohan, that s it starts out to launch a new stock- 
 issue to bridge the river five miles from town and 
 come into New York, an all without as much as say- 
 in If you please to us ! We ought to wreck his 
 damned picayune road for him; that s what we ought 
 to do." 
 
 The two continued their indignant comments. 
 Every little while they paused to give the crouching 
 man at the head of the table a chance to speak, and 
 more often they looked at him to see whether he 
 wanted to speak; but, though his eyes were always 
 alert to meet theirs, he did not, for some time, 
 utter a word. 
 
 " Of course," said Rivington, " we are not direct 
 ors of the road, but still " 
 
42 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Oh, hell ! " grunted Hallett disgustedly. " Did 
 n t you just say between us we owned all the stock 
 worth ownin ? We ought to unload and smash em." 
 
 u You may be right. I am inclined to think " 
 
 " Right? Of course I m right. I m not goin to 
 be bullied by a handful of dummies when I can sell 
 them up as if I was a sheriff closing down on a cross 
 roads grocery store! " 
 
 " They certainly are impudent and " 
 
 "They re beggars on horseback! Wastin our 
 money like this ! " 
 
 "They have We should tell the legisla 
 ture " 
 
 " Gentlemen," it was the clear, crisp voice of 
 the man at the head of the table that interrupted; he 
 spoke in a tone somewhat different from that in 
 which he habitually addressed his clerks and his 
 brokers, but he spoke as suddenly and with all the 
 authority that he used toward them " if the M. & 
 N. comes into New York, it will not take one-half 
 of one per cent, of the profits away from our other 
 roads. For all but its last thirty-two miles, the new 
 line taps territory new to us, and the new stock will 
 have paid for itself, and have paid a profit too, in 
 five years." 
 
 Rivington and Hallett looked at each other. The 
 latter took his cigar between his fingers and folded 
 his arms. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 43 
 
 " What do we care? " he asked, but his tone had 
 lost the assertiveness that had marked it a moment 
 earlier. The man at the head of the table did not 
 answer this question directly. He proceeded: 
 
 " Except for ourselves, most of the old stock 
 holders are poor people. They need the money, and 
 the old holders are to have the first chance at the new 
 issue. In five years, then, the minor stockholders will 
 have realized a profit on their investment; so shall 
 we. At that time we could unload without hurting 
 anybody but the officials that have defied us. Al 
 ways supposing," he added, u that the management 
 observe a proper economy." 
 
 Hallett s eyes burned. 
 
 " You re right," he said. " We can win both 
 ways if we do that. The road will be bankrupt, 
 and we can buy it in." 
 
 The man at the head of the table did not smile. 
 He only said: 
 
 " You have always been very naive, Hallett; but 
 I did think you would have seen this point sooner." 
 
 Rivington at length cut in: 
 
 " But the cost of getting the bill through the 
 legislature " 
 
 " The bill will pass this morning," said the man at 
 the head of the table. "The Governor will sign 
 it immediately." 
 
44 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 His certainty silenced them for a moment; but 
 Rivington, whom the outside world pictured as a 
 pirate, was still timid. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " but the expense of the city 
 ordinance " 
 
 " Oh, we ll take care of that," grinned Hallett. 
 
 " And the cost of construction " 
 
 " I said," repeated the man at the head of the 
 table : " Always supposing the management observe 
 a proper economy. " 
 
 He settled back in his chair. He seemed to con 
 sider the subject closed, and so, presently, did his 
 companions. Within five minutes they had left him, 
 and he was ringing for Rollins. 
 
 " Rollins," he said, " take this letter." 
 
 The secretary seated himself at the far end of the 
 table. 
 
 His employer walked to a window and looked out. 
 His hands were clasped behind him now, and he did 
 not turn his head as he rapidly dictated: 
 
 "Robert M. Dohan. (Send it to his house address, Rollins, 
 and mark it Confidential. ) I understand that the bill of which 
 you have spoken to me will be passed and become a law to-day. 
 I have just seen Messrs. Hallett and Rivington and have secured 
 their agreement to the plan outlined in my personal conversation 
 with you last week. In view cf the favors that you have done 
 me in the past, I think it fair to tell you, for your own use 
 only, (Underline that, Rollins), that my friends have decided 
 that they and I ought to do what you thought they might decide, 
 viz. : unload at the end of five years. Considering your con- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 45 
 
 templated resignation next year, this will not affect you, except 
 favorably in case you care to manipulate your own holdings 
 in accordance with this news. 
 
 "(Paragraph) I note what you say about the estimate sub 
 mitted by the construction-department; also the letter of the 
 steel-rail manufacturers which you inclosed, in which they say 
 that the grade I suggested might not wear well. I think their 
 use of the word dangerous is absurdly exaggerated. We have 
 used this grade on several of our roads and feel sure from 
 long experience that, with proper repair-gangs, it will wear for 
 five years as well as the best. 
 
 "(Paragraph) My desire, and the desire of my associates, is 
 to protect the interests of the stockholders. With that in mind, 
 I should state, what you have probably already gathered, that 
 we feel that the new line must be built and operated with all 
 possible economy. Very truly yours." 
 
 The secretary closed his book. 
 
 "Is that all?" he asked. 
 
 Without turning, his employer nodded, and Rol 
 lins left the room. 
 
 In the corner by the desk, a stock-ticker was 
 clicking out yards of tape into a high wicker basket. 
 The man that had just given the M. &. N. Railway 
 permission to enter New York started to walk to 
 the ticker; but he paused again, at the second win 
 dow, to look down on the thoroughfare and buildings 
 below him. From that height the streets of the city 
 seemed to be threads leading in every direction; they 
 seemed to radiate from the building in which the 
 watcher stood. On the threads black dots that were 
 hurrying men and women seemed to quiver like 
 entangled flies. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 i. The legislature s committee made its report 
 the legislature was heavily Republican that year 
 declaring that no wrong had been done, and Luke 
 accepted this verdict as a proof and triumph of 
 right. He passed his examinations and, shortly after 
 Porcellis sailed for Russia, became a member of the 
 staff of the District-Attorney, who was to " clean 
 up " New York. 
 
 District-Attorney Leighton was a pleasant man, 
 still young at forty, who had a plausible and engag 
 ing manner supported by that bluff and downright 
 good-humor which passes current as the legal tender 
 of honesty. He had been in politics, and on the los 
 ing side, since his twenty-first year, and during all that 
 time he was fighting toward the office which he had 
 ultimately attained. Even his relatives, who were 
 people of so high a position that they regarded vot 
 ing as something beneath their caste and would rather 
 be pillaged than lay hands upon the pillagers, had 
 kept him at a distance and were a little ashamed of 
 their pride in his success now that he had secured it. 
 With a few other men, all his elders, he had found 
 
 4 6 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 4 7 
 
 his party a ruined fortress and rebuilt it, stone by 
 stone, now seeing the work of months plundered in a 
 day, now resisting his assailants by their own sort 
 of arms, until the stronghold, still far from im 
 pregnable or potent to command the entire city, 
 could at least dominate that spot beneath its guns 
 on which he had been able to take up his present 
 position. 
 
 Under him Luke went cheerfully to work. He 
 was at first disappointed because his tasks were 
 minor tasks and seemed to possess only the most dis 
 tant connection with the great crusade; but he was, 
 in those times, as modest as he was ardent, and he 
 realized that he was still in his novitiate. He tried 
 petty offenders whose crimes were so insignificant 
 that he frequently found it hard to consider them 
 crimes at all, and he was often too sorry for the 
 accused to be glad when he convicted them. The 
 first time he won a sentence, which was by no means 
 the first time he tried a case, he passed a sleepless 
 night, because he feared that the defendant s plea 
 might have been the true one. It was long thereafter 
 before he could exult in a conviction that carried 
 with it a term in prison, even when he was certain 
 of the condemned man s guilt. 
 
 The other members of the staff, more experienced 
 in criminal practice, showed no compunctions. They 
 
48 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 were a rather jolly lot of men, ranging in age from 
 twenty-five to thirty, with a cynical tolerance of life 
 and a tendency to regard their work as a game that 
 everybody played solely for the sake of winning it, 
 with the opposing lawyers as the rival players and 
 with the accused as insensate pawns. Luke forgave 
 them only because of their unanimous and unbounded 
 loyalty to their high-purposing chief. 
 
 " I got that case," declared one of these young 
 men, a Larry O Mara, when he came through Luke s 
 little office one afternoon after the court had risen. 
 
 What case?" Luke inquired. 
 
 " That one I had against Burroughs and old 
 Laurie was sitting, too. The jury was only out ten 
 
 minutes." 
 
 O Mara was pink with triumph. 
 
 " What was the charge?" asked Luke. 
 
 " Larceny. It was hard work to make out; but 
 the fellow s past record did for him. I got that in 
 while Burroughs was asleep at the switch. When 
 he did object, Laurie ruled against me, but the jury d 
 heard it all right. Laurie s the strictest man on 
 the bench, and Burroughs is about the cleverest 
 criminal lawyer in town." 
 
 Luke blushed for this victor: 
 
 "Was the man guilty?" 
 
 O Mara s eyes were first wondering and then 
 amused. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 49 
 
 " They all are," he said. " If he didn t do this 
 he did something else we didn t know about lots 
 else. They re all guilty." 
 
 Luke supposed they were, but he could not under 
 stand his associates desire to secure convictions for 
 the convictions sake. 
 
 The innocent did not always suffer, nor yet the 
 guilty. Luke was not directly attached to the homi 
 cide bureau, the name applied to that branch of the 
 staff regularly employed to investigate and try cases 
 of suspected murder. Nevertheless, Leighton be 
 lieved in giving his men some chance at many 
 branches of practice, because he wanted them to be 
 what he called " all-round criminal practitioners " 
 when the time should come for them to leave his serv 
 ice, and so Luke was once or twice called into a capi 
 tal trial. On one such occasion he was helping young 
 Uhler. Leighton himself had tried a striker named 
 Gace on the charge of shooting and killing a detec 
 tive during a strike-riot, and Gace, greatly to the 
 District-Attorney s chagrin, was acquitted. Some 
 slight evidence adduced at the Gace trial seemed to 
 point to another striker, Reardon, and, though there 
 was small hope of convicting Reardon, popular 
 clamor forced Leighton to plead for a true bill 
 against him and bring him to trial. 
 
 4t I won t touch it any more, though," laughed 
 
50 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Leighton. " Uhler, you ll have to take it, and you 
 might as well have Huber with you. We re bound 
 to lose, and so I m going to give my assistants a 
 chance to bear the discredit. That s what you boys 
 are here for." 
 
 Smarting under his chief s prophecy, Uhler, one 
 of the youngest of the staff, went into court and 
 fought hard, which was doubtless the intention be 
 hind Leighton s words. His enthusiasm was strong 
 and contagious. He convinced himself of Rear- 
 don s guilt, and he ended by convincing Luke. The 
 proceedings, indeed, went largely in the State s fa 
 vor until, shortly after the defense had opened its 
 case, the man Gace, who had previously been ac 
 quitted, was called to the stand to testify to some 
 minor detail. His examination was about to be com 
 pleted when he quite calmly volunteered the state 
 ment that it was he who had done the killing. 
 
 " Cross-examine," said the defending lawyer and, 
 covering amazement, sat down. 
 
 Uhler looked helplessly at Luke. Luke, now 
 enough of a lawyer to believe that this was no more 
 than a clever ruse to secure an unjust acquittal, sprang 
 to his feet and shook an angry finger under the nose 
 of the witness murderer, whose confession, had it 
 been expected, would have been prevented. 
 
 " So," he cried, " not satisfied with cheating jus- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 51 
 
 tice in your own case, you come back here to taunt 
 it, do you? " 
 
 " Oh, I don t know as I m taunting anything," 
 replied the witness. He was a big man with the 
 frame of a blacksmith and the eyes of a ruminating 
 cow. 
 
 " Then," thundered Luke, " you really mean to 
 tell this court that you actually killed that man? " 
 
 The faintest shadow of a smile brushed the mur 
 derer s lips. 
 
 "They buried him, didn t they? " he inquired. 
 
 That answer lost Luke s case. 
 
 2. Luke s enthusiasm long resisted these miscar 
 riages of justice and the undeniably slow progress of 
 his chief to secure indictments against the Demo 
 cratic politicians whose drastic punishment Leighton 
 had promised in his ante-election speeches. It re 
 sisted even the callousness of the participants in the 
 legal game, and the discovery that the best minds at 
 the Bar, of course seeking the most lucrative field 
 for their practice, were in the position of advisers to 
 the great financiers, their incomes, which far exceeded 
 those of their more active fellows, being composed 
 almost entirely of the annual retaining fees and 
 " tips " for speculation. It required more and more 
 resistance, but Luke continued to hug tightly the 
 
52 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 faith that the wrongs of the world could be set right 
 through honest laws administered by honest men. 
 
 As he loved his work, so also he came to love the 
 scene of it. The vortex of the city fascinated him. 
 Broadway, one color by day and another by night, 
 one spot of color uptown, a second at its middle, and 
 a third below the street that lies across New York 
 like a gorged but devouring anaconda; the dark pas 
 sages full of tenements; the quiet pavements bor 
 dered by prosperous dwellings; the roar of every sort 
 of business and the crackle of all sorts of pleasure; 
 the joy and suffering eternally intermingled, yet so 
 intermingled that he could not tell which caused the 
 other, or whether they were independent; the whole 
 tremendous whirlpool whirled him, a straw among 
 uncounted straws, now on its surface and now sucked 
 below beyond all plummets soundings, and intoxi 
 cated him by its dizzy revolutions. 
 
 He knew Fifth Avenue, Riverside Drive, and Cen 
 tral Park. Because he felt it his duty, he learned the 
 outsides of the houses in the Italian quarter, the 
 French quarter, the Syrian quarter. He walked the 
 Bowery and thought that he understood it. From 
 that artery of America, he turned a corner and found 
 himself in China, in crooked streets heavy with the 
 smells of the East, among shops whose signs bore 
 Oriental characters, among crowds of impassive yel- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 53 
 
 low faces men and only men where there was no 
 sound of English speech. Once, passing the door 
 of a slum mission, he saw a crowd of half-human 
 things, their heads sunk upon their chests, listlessly 
 droning a popular hymn around a puffing har 
 monium: on one side of the mission was a saloon 
 and on the other a shop that displayed the legend: 
 
 BLACK EYES 
 PAINTED HERE 
 
 With some of his friends for he made many 
 friends both in the office and out of it, and Mrs. Ruys- 
 dael and her husband, whom he finally met, were 
 exceedingly kind to him he went on a tour of those 
 cafes that called themselves Bohemian. That night 
 he descended from restaurants where one drank 
 champagne and heard songs by vaudeville perform 
 ers who thus earned more money than at the theaters 
 which they had deserted, to seats in shoddy beer-halls 
 where there was dancing by women too old or too 
 unskilled to continue upon the stage; and on the way 
 home from " Little Hungary," a place in which a 
 dull company drank strange wines to the music of 
 a good band, the motor that conveyed his party crept 
 under smoking naphtha lamps through a jumble of 
 
54 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 push-carts converted into bargain counters, and past 
 the overcrowded squalor of the quarter of the Rus 
 sian Jews. 
 
 Poverty hurt him, or the sight of poverty. Some 
 where he read that one per cent, of the families in 
 the United States owned more than the other ninety- 
 nine per cent., but he explained this by the theory that 
 the one per cent, had created the wealth that they 
 owned. He was told that there were four million 
 paupers in the country; but he ascribed their condi 
 tion to their failure to take advantage of a republic s 
 free opportunities. Somebody said that, during the 
 past winter, seventy thousand New York children 
 had gone hungry to the public schools; Luke was 
 sure that the schools would soon supply their pupils 
 with free meals. From a report of the New Jersey 
 Department of Charities that came into his hands, 
 he learned that, in New Jersey, one person in every 
 two hundred and six of the population was a ward 
 of the State; but his reflection was only that New 
 Jersey must be badly governed. His heart ached 
 over what he saw; but his intellect satisfactorily ex 
 plained all hearsay evidence. He could go out to 
 Ellis Island and, listening to its thousands of immi 
 grants prattle their hopes in forty-three languages 
 and dialects, could share their hopes. Evil adminis 
 trators had hurt the country by overturning the pur- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 55 
 
 pose of its founders; the remedy lay in a return to 
 first principles. 
 
 Already in men of the Leighton type and in their 
 works, he saw signs of the revival. He had more 
 than one occasion to visit the Children s Court. Its 
 quarters near Third Avenue were cramped, but it 
 was soon to be fittingly housed, and already here 
 especially adapted magistrates, acting as judge, jury, 
 and parent, conducted in kindly, quiet, and colloquial 
 fashion the cases of fourteen thousand children in one 
 year. These, all of them under the age of sixteen, 
 were no longer herded with mature criminals that 
 completed their education in vice, though their of 
 fenses ranged from mere waywardness to burglary. 
 Their judges were patient and sympathetic men. 
 One was the president of a society called the Big 
 Brothers, the duty of whose members was to act in 
 fraternally helpful fashion to boys less fortunate 
 than they themselves had been; and some of the 
 women probation officers of this court belonged to a 
 similar organization known as the Big Sisters. There 
 were twenty-six probation officers, some men and 
 some women, and into their care were given all the 
 little offenders for whom the court entertained any 
 hope of reformation. 
 
 Luke concluded that the public schools, because 
 of bettered conditions, were turning out fewer candi- 
 
56 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 dates for the Children s Court than ever before. He 
 saw with high hope the Washington Irving High 
 School for Girls, the result of an agitation begun by 
 pupils. Here was a building eight stories high, and 
 Luke, with the American love for size and numbers, 
 wrote enthusiastically home to his sister that it was 
 the largest school in the world. 
 
 " It cost half a million dollars," he told her; " it 
 has a hundred and sixty rooms and it holds six thou 
 sand pupils. Think of that! Six thousand, not 
 your pasty-faced, moping diggers either, but all 
 noisy, laughing, healthy girls. The equipment is 
 wonderful just wonderful: you girls from the old 
 Americus High School would think you were in 
 Heaven if you came here. There are two big restau 
 rants, chemical and physical laboratories, a conserva 
 tory, a zoological garden and a roof-garden, and 
 laundries. There s a regular theater stage, scenery, 
 and all that a store, a bank, a housekeeping depart 
 ment, and an employment bureau. They have an 
 orchestra, and they dance. There are nurseries with 
 real babies in them babies that can cry and there is 
 a five-room model house, a hospital, and a section 
 where they train nurses. They use all these things 
 really to teach, and this is in addition to languages 
 and the usual unpractical stuff. They teach libra 
 rians work, shorthand, typewriting, bookbinding, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 57 
 
 costume-designing, and dressmaking. Why, Jane, 
 the girls are taught to make their own clothes. Every 
 girl is expected to make her own graduation dress, 
 and only a few of the dresses cost more than a dol 
 lar apiece. I ll bet you wouldn t like that part of 
 it!" 
 
 Even his social life served subtly to confirm him, 
 during this period, in the opinions he had brought to 
 it. He mistrusted combinations of capital, because 
 he thought they tended to restrain honest trade, but 
 he believed such combinations could properly and 
 effectively be curbed by legislation, and he had a 
 fine respect for such of his acquaintances as had made 
 their own money by building up their own indus 
 tries. He doubted certain men in whose hands lay 
 the administration of government, but he was sure 
 that the cure for this was the election of honorable 
 men. He brought to New York, and long retained, 
 what he called a muscular Christianity (he had read 
 Kingsley), and, under its control, he sought a rem 
 edy for the world s evils that he could synthesize 
 with, a respect for authority and an acceptance of the 
 dogma that the individual man is nothing and the 
 omnipotent Deity everything. 
 
 He used often to be invited to dinners at the Ruys- 
 daels when there was no other guest, because Ruys- 
 dael liked this earnest lad and enjoyed long evening 
 
58 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 talks with him. On one such occasion, his host, little, 
 sallow, with almond eyes that gave him a strangely 
 Japanese appearance, fell to talking of these ques 
 tions while the two men sat over a glass of port 
 for Ruysdael liked the old-fashioned English custom 
 of after-dinner port in the candle-lit, oak-paneled 
 dining-room. 
 
 " I can t understand," said Ruysdael, " the short 
 sightedness of these really honest men who call prop 
 erty a crime." 
 
 " They call it that," said Luke, " because it s the 
 result of profit." 
 
 "Yes, but what s profit?" 
 
 " Selling dear what you buy cheap, I suppose." 
 
 " Yes, that s one way of putting it, but it s really 
 wages. It s the wages that the employer draws for 
 his executive ability: he must be paid for his work 
 if his employees are paid for theirs. It s the fair 
 return that he gets for the risk he s run in starting 
 his business, and it s his reward for his years of 
 saving up his money till he had enough to start that 
 business." 
 
 Luke agreed.. 
 
 " Of course," said he, " we don t want the man 
 that s done these things to use his power so as to 
 prevent other men from doing them, but we haven t 
 any right to take from him what he s earned or to 
 stop him from going on earning it." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 59 
 
 In much Ruysdael s manner, Luke s father, during 
 Luke s visits to his home in Americus, would talk of 
 government. Government, by which he meant the 
 particular form of government adopted by the 
 United States, was one of the few topics that could 
 move the Congressman from his characteristic reti 
 cence. He scorned the tyranny of Russia and the 
 English make-shift of a constitutional monarchy. In 
 the United States the people could rule; the means 
 were provided; if they failed now and then, it was 
 for a brief time only. To Mr. Huber the majority 
 was as infallible in matters of government as, in mat 
 ters of faith, the Pope is to a devout Catholic, and 
 the hope of the majority lay in that party which had 
 freed the negro from slavery and saved the country 
 from disruption. 
 
 To these ideals Luke was true. He saw the rotten 
 ness of Tammany rule in New York and knew it for 
 a symptom of the disease that made a national dan 
 ger of the entire rank and file of the Democrats; he 
 saw the integrity of Leighton, and accepted it as 
 a true token of Republican virtue. He wanted the 
 government restored to its pristine simplicity, wealth 
 curbed of its newly developed predatory instincts, 
 religion restored to its place in the daily thought 
 and conduct of man. 
 
60 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 3. Leighton s announced intention to " clean 
 up " New York was proving, nevertheless, a slow 
 process. He had great difficulty in obtaining evi 
 dence against the Democratic politicians whose scalps 
 he had promised to hang to the belt of the public. 
 Grand Juries had a way of including enough partisans 
 of these politicians to prevent the finding of true 
 bills. When true bills were found, petty juries gen 
 erally contained enough Democrats to persuade the 
 other jurors to acquit or to hold out for a disagree 
 ment. Even when convictions were secured, the 
 appeals had to be argued before appellate courts 
 composed of men that owed their positions to friends 
 of the appellants. 
 
 " It s rotten luck," said Leighton, " but I believe 
 they ve got us scotched. We ve tried seven cases, 
 four of them twice and two three times; we ve had 
 our hands full with appeals, and the only one of the 
 lot that we ve sent to jail is a peanut politician from 
 Second Avenue who doesn t control ten votes." 
 
 " Yes," said O Mara, " and they let him go be 
 cause they believed he was getting ready to go back 
 on them next election." 
 
 " We ve got to begin lower down," concluded 
 Leighton, " and work up." 
 
 He began immediately. He found that, in viola 
 tion of the law, cocaine was sold at scores of places 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 61 
 
 on the East Side, and that the use of the drug was 
 spreading alarmingly. Against these retailers he pro 
 ceeded with all the vigor he had shown in his larger 
 and less productive efforts. Evidence to convict the 
 sources of supply was hard to get, since those sources 
 were high in Tammany politics, but small sellers and 
 street peddlers were rushed to jail with such com 
 mendable speed that the trade soon seemed abolished. 
 
 Luke appeared in some of these cases, and won 
 most that he appeared in. He had been feeling the 
 chill of disappointment, but this gave him fresh 
 courage. One day, when Uhler was on vacation and 
 Luke was taking the work of the absent man, he 
 thought he saw the chance to approach " the people 
 higher up," which they had all been waiting for. 
 
 A gang-leader named Zantzinger had been dancing 
 with his wife at a ball on the second floor of a house 
 in Avenue A. As he waltzed past the door leading 
 to the back stairs, a friend looked in and called 
 Zantzinger aside. 
 
 " Excuse me a minute," said the gangster to his 
 wife. 
 
 He left her and went to his friend. 
 
 "Well?" he demanded. 
 
 " Butch Dellitt s down there," warned his friend, 
 nodding toward the door. " His crowd s after you 
 cause they say you piped off Dutch s brother-in-law s 
 
62 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 poolroom to the fly cops. He says he s goin* to 
 croak you." 
 
 "Where is he?" 
 
 " He ll be round front when you come out" 
 
 " Where is he now?" 
 
 " Down back." 
 
 "Down these stairs?" 
 
 The friend nodded. 
 
 Zantzinger walked to his wife. 
 
 " I ve got a little business below," he explained. 
 " Wait here: I ll be right back." 
 
 He opened the door and descended the stairs. As 
 he went, he drew his revolver. Dellitt was standing 
 in the doorway, with his back to the stairs, smoking 
 a cigarette. Without warning, Zantzinger shot him 
 through the head. Then he returned to the ball 
 room, apologized to his wife for leaving her so hur 
 riedly, and resumed his interrupted dance. 
 
 This was the story that came to the homicide 
 bureau. Luke took it at once to Leighton. 
 
 " And this man Zantzinger," he reminded the 
 District-Attorney, " is the right-hand man of the 
 Tammany leader in that ward." 
 
 "Who saw him?" asked Leighton. 
 
 " Three men on the street." 
 
 "Got their names?" 
 
 " We can get them." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 63 
 
 " Is the coroner on the case ? " 
 
 Luke thought he was. 
 
 Leighton shrugged. 
 
 " Then that ll be the end of it," he said. 
 
 Luke could not credit this. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Leighton wearily, " I mean it. 
 By the time he s done with the case, he ll see to it 
 nobody knows anything. Why, man alive, that 
 coroner s the cousin of the ward leader." 
 
 " But you ll try? " urged Luke. " You ll fight? " 
 
 Leighton swung back in his swivel-chair. He put 
 his feet on his desk and clasped his hands behind his 
 head. 
 
 " No," he said, " I won t. What s the use? I m 
 getting tired of trying to do things with all the peo 
 ple taking no interest and a Democratic Mayor and 
 Police Commissioner fighting against me." He spoke 
 like a man at last driven to declare something he has 
 long striven to conceal. " If ever I want to be re- 
 elected," he continued, " this office has got to be 
 more careful about taking up cases that are lost to 
 begin with." 
 
 4. Luke fought hard with the ugly doubt this 
 incident raised. He tried to convince himself that 
 Leighton had spoken only in a moment of passing 
 weariness and discouragement; but he daily found 
 
$4 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 this endeavor more difficult. What suddenly turned 
 his mind to other things was the news that an aunt, 
 his father s widowed sister who lived in Philadelphia, 
 had died, leaving him a hundred thousand dollars. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 i. Luke had never expected to be possessed of 
 so much money. His father s income was comfort 
 able, but it was well understood that the family 
 lived somewhat beyond it, and that what might be 
 left at the Congressman s death would go to his 
 widow for life and, after that, to Luke s sister Jane. 
 The Philadelphia aunt had inherited her fortune 
 from her husband, and her affection for her relatives 
 was generally supposed to be slight. Luke, conse 
 quently, found himself in a position for which he 
 was totally unprepared. 
 
 " I suppose," he said to Ruysdael, to whom he 
 went for advice, " that I ought to invest it." 
 
 " You ought to lose no time," counseled Ruysdael. 
 " A hundred thousand dollars is too much for a 
 young man to have at his call in New York. It s 
 not enough to spend, and it s too much to gamble 
 with in the bucket-shops." 
 
 Ruysdael thought he knew a safe investment. 
 
 " There s a man named Forbes," he said " Wal 
 lace K. Forbes, who came to the offices of our estate 
 the other day when I happened to be there. He 
 
 65 
 
66 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 wanted to borrow just the amount you name, and my 
 agent says it s a good thing; but we happened to have 
 a bigger one on hand. His concern s an old one, one 
 of the oldest American firms in its line; this man s the 
 third generation of his family to be in it, so it s well- 
 established and has the good old-fashioned element 
 of family pride behind it. Nowadays, you don t 
 find many men regard their businesses the way an 
 English landed gentleman used to regard his estates 
 and his family honor; but Forbes seems to be an ex 
 ception." 
 
 " What is the business ?" asked Luke. 
 
 " Ready-made clothing, and well made, too, I m 
 told." 
 
 " Still, he does need money." 
 
 " Yes, but you couldn t get in if he didn t need it. 
 He only wants it to complete some improvements 
 he s begun. He s perfectly well-grounded, but I 
 suppose he has to keep up with the progress of the 
 trade. Of course, that very element of family pride 
 might disincline him to give an outsider any hold 
 on the business, but if you want me to, I ll have Croy 
 that s the man that runs our estate for us look 
 into the situation and sound Forbes." 
 
 Luke, after some satisfactory inquiries in other 
 quarters, acquiesced in this proposal. All the re 
 ports were good, and that of Herbert Croy, the 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 67 
 
 shriveled Ruysdael lawyer, was especially rosy. 
 Forbes expressed his willingness to meet Luke, and 
 Luke called at the offices of the R. H. Forbes & 
 Son s factory in Brooklyn. 
 
 The present head of the firm was a grave man with 
 a direct and unassuming manner. His aquiline nose 
 gave his face the air of strength, and his mustache 
 and the hair about his temples being slightly touched 
 with gray, he seemed sober and conservative. He 
 sat at a plain roll-top desk, in a room simply fur 
 nished, and he lost no time in coming at once to 
 business. 
 
 " Would you like to walk through the place? " he 
 inquired, when he had told Luke much of what Ruys 
 dael had already said. 
 
 " I suppose I ought to," smiled Luke; " though 
 of course I don t know enough about the business to 
 appreciate what you show me." 
 
 Forbes smiled sadly. 
 
 " You are no different, then," he said, " from 
 most modern investors, or, for the matter of that, 
 most owners of businesses either. In these times the 
 average president of a company thinks he earns his 
 salary by manipulating its stock; he seldom knows 
 anything about the work that makes the stock mar 
 ketable. Our firm isn t like that." 
 
 Under Forbes s care, Luke was accordingly taken 
 
68 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 through the factory, with which, he noted, the office 
 of the chief administrative was in close touch. He 
 was shown the room where the cloth manufacturers 
 brought their products; the scales to weigh the ma 
 terial; the windmill-like machine that spread the 
 offered fabric on its wide arms and, turning at the 
 will of the expert buyers, displayed its burden before 
 the examiners in a strong north light; the long boards 
 on which, having been re-rolled, the cloth, once its 
 quality had been thus determined, was again uncoiled, 
 an ingenious contrivance attached to the uncoiling- 
 wheel stamping its measurements at every fifth revo 
 lution. 
 
 " We have to be careful," Forbes explained. 
 " Business isn t so honest as it once was, and if the 
 cloth-makers could gain an inch in ten yards, they d 
 do it." 
 
 The factory, which closed the end of a street, 
 was built about four sides of a small square, and the 
 center of this square was occupied by a large room 
 with overhead ventilation and lighting, the glass 
 fluted and sloping as the ribs of a Venetian blind may 
 be made to slope, so that, in summer, the sun s rays 
 would be tempered to the workers under it. Here, 
 at the tables nearest the entrance, men were employed 
 at designing patterns of cardboard and working, amid 
 busy calculations, with rulers and T-squares, like so 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 69 
 
 many architects draughtsmen. From them the com 
 pleted patterns were taken to other tables at which 
 they met the cloth accepted in the first room, other 
 workmen tracing the designs in chalk upon pieces of 
 the cloth. The problem of these second workers, 
 Forbes explained, was to arrange the designs in such 
 a way that almost no shred of cloth was wasted. 
 Luke observed that they solved it with astonishing 
 skill; and, as each piece was completed, a ticket was 
 roughly sewn on it with written directions for its 
 further progress and blanks to be filled in by the sig 
 nature of each worker responsible for its future steps. 
 Then came what to Luke was the most wonderful 
 part of the work. Nineteen pieces of unmarked 
 cloth to be made into suits of the same style as that 
 on which the chalk pattern had been outlined, were 
 laid under that piece and the whole bundle given 
 to a man at a large table. Through a slit in the 
 center of this table, a knife of incredible strength and 
 keenness plunged rapidly up and down. The man in 
 charge forced the bundle against the knife, deftly 
 pushing it forward, so that the blade followed the 
 lines drawn upon the top piece, and in three minutes 
 a score of suits of clothes were cut into their various 
 parts and were being sorted and ticketed and signed 
 for waiting boys to carry them to the sewing- 
 machines. 
 
70 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Those patterns look like the parts of a jig-saw 
 puzzle," said Luke, " and that knife looks like a 
 cross between a jig-saw and the guillotine." 
 
 " It cuts twenty suits at a time," said Forbes 
 gravely, " and the bottom one doesn t vary the thir 
 tieth of an inch from the one on top." 
 
 "Twenty suits! " Luke wanted to rub his eyes. 
 * Yes ; but the inventor is still at work on the 
 knife. We hope soon to get one that will do three 
 dozen." 
 
 At each corner of the building was an elevator and 
 a stairway, the latter walled in so to serve as a fire- 
 escape. Forbes took Luke up one of these stairways, 
 a broad and easy flight of which the corners at each 
 landing were protected by curved wainscoting to 
 prevent jamming in case of panic. 
 
 The three floors above ground contained the rooms 
 in which the sewing was done and one room known 
 as the matching-room. All seemed well lighted and 
 well aired and well protected by the overhead pipes 
 of an automatic sprinkling-plant. 
 
 In the matching-room girls especially trained to 
 the task selected, from vast quantities of samples, 
 the fitting shades of thread and buttons best adapted 
 to the different bundles of cut fabric brought by ele 
 vators from the cutting department below. Beside 
 them were four other girls, who worked at a con- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 71 
 
 trivance in which, when covered buttons were re 
 quired, an uncovered button, a piece of tin and a bit 
 of cloth were inserted, a lever pulled and the three 
 factors withdrawn ready clamped together and com 
 plete for use. From here, after the tickets had been 
 signed, and the necessary further directions added to 
 them, the cloth was sent on to the sewing-rooms. 
 
 Luke found those sewing-rooms crowded with ma 
 chines of possibilities that he had heretofore never 
 dreamed machines could realize; machines horrible 
 because they seemed half-human, and diabolically 
 intelligent; machines that not only moved up and 
 down in the manner of the old foot-pumped sewing- 
 machine in the second floor back of his home in 
 Americus, but twirled and danced over the cloth 
 pressed under them by women feeding them as a 
 frightened keeper in a menagerie might feed an angry 
 beast. They were all of them run by steam or gaso 
 line, and Forbes told Luke that they were all made by 
 one trust, which owned all the patents. There were 
 different machines for every kind of sewing, for every 
 loop that could be required of the thread: machines 
 for hemming; machines for the cord-stitch, the lock 
 stitch, the chain-stitch, and the damask-stitch; ma 
 chines for sewing the cloth together, for sewing the 
 lining, for sewing the trouser-seams; and there was 
 one machine, the needle of which moved in dizzy 
 
72 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 zigzag, for sewing, on a sort of herring-bone design, 
 the stiffening material into coats. 
 
 Next Luke was shown a room in which, on 
 benches a foot from the floor, beside tables six inches 
 high, sat rows of intent little girls, their arms flying 
 like flails as they stitched the shoulders into the coats, 
 and still another row in which still other girls, their 
 arms flying in a similar manner, sewed buttons on 
 coats, waistcoats, and trousers the only two proc 
 esses that invention was as yet unable wholly to 
 deliver over to machinery. Lastly, there was a half- 
 floor given to what at first looked like linotype ma 
 chines, and at these sat brawny women who passed 
 over the coat-shoulders long flat-irons, each heated 
 by flexible tubes attached to it and reminiscent, for 
 Luke, of those terrible instruments that, immediately 
 revolving, grind the heart and lungs out of a pa 
 tient s teeth. 
 
 Forbes exhibited it all with a quiet pride. He 
 said there was no work sent out of the factory, and 
 so no " sweating"; the factory was a union shop; 
 there had never been but one strike, and that one 
 was speedily adjusted by arbitration. 
 
 Luke was impressed. He secured favorable re 
 ports from a financial agency and from a firm of 
 expert accountants. Then he invested his fortune 
 in R. H. Forbes & Son. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 73 
 
 2. About this time, the United States Senate hap 
 pened to be investigating itself and unavoidably 
 stumbled upon a witness whose testimony filled all 
 the newspapers for several weeks and remained a 
 matter of public comment for quite two months. 
 Perhaps because he had fallen out with his em 
 ployers, this witness insisted upon telling how he had 
 for ten years been hired by a combination of the 
 ruling corporations to influence national legislation. 
 Five hundred letters and telegrams substantiated his 
 assertions; he gave dates and mentioned places; the 
 names of popular idols fell from his lips with in 
 finite carelessness, and the idols broke as their names 
 fell. 
 
 Speaking in unimpassioned detail, the informer 
 showed how his activities had covered the entire 
 country and included the chiefs of both the large 
 parties with a splendid catholicity. He had bought 
 the services of labor leaders to end strikes, had 
 broken up unions by purchasing information from 
 their members, and had ended one dispute by having 
 himself appointed a member of its arbitration board. 
 He had operated in congressional campaigns through 
 out the Union, and he told how he had bought the 
 defeat at the polls of members of Congress that 
 sought re-election after having opposed the corporate 
 interests at Washington, and how he had spent thou- 
 
74 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 sands of the trusts dollars in electing candidates 
 who, personally or through their bosses, promised 
 that they would support a high tariff and prevent 
 the passage of laws too kindly to the working class. 
 He had hired congressional clerks and pages, the 
 former to betray what advance information came 
 to them, the latter to pick up valuable gossip. He 
 had the secretaries of Congressmen on his salary- 
 roll when he could not buy or defeat their masters 
 or when, having bought those masters, he feared 
 treachery. He had secured the appointment of those 
 legislators in his pay to important committees, and 
 he had, he said, planned and secured the establish 
 ment of a national tariff commission for the benefit 
 of the powers he served. Those powers were headed 
 by the man that Jack Porcellis likened to Shakespeare 
 and that the derelict in the Essex Street saloon called 
 the King. 
 
 Luke, who of course had nothing to do with the 
 management of the Forbes company, nevertheless 
 occasionally passed an evening at the quiet Brooklyn 
 home of its president, who was a widower living 
 alone with his only child, Betty, a pretty, high- 
 colored, brown-eyed girl, as yet unformed and only 
 twenty-two years old. As a rule, these two men sat 
 in the parlor, a room that retained the character of 
 Forbes s grandfather, and talked of everything and 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB {75 
 
 nothing, the girl rarely intruding upon them. It 
 was inevitable that they should, during the floodtide 
 of the Washington scandal, speak of its revelations. 
 
 " I don t know what to make of them," sighed 
 Luke. " It seems as if the fellows at the head of our 
 party were no better than the fellows at the head of 
 the other." 
 
 " They are not," said Forbes with conviction. 
 " Here they all are blackmailing the tariff, a system 
 the country owes all its prosperity to." 
 
 " We shall have to pick honest leaders in the fu 
 ture," Luke reflected. He still believed in the power 
 of a party s individual members. " We ve simply 
 been too easy-going in the past." 
 
 Forbes thought this would avail nothing. 
 
 " The parties themselves are rotten," he declared, 
 " and the deeper a man gets into them, no matter 
 how well he starts out, the more certain he is to be 
 infected. You see how even the good measures are 
 fraudulently put through. Then here s our own 
 state with a Governor we all believed in a Demo 
 crat, to be sure, but an anti-Tammany man. He 
 comes out for a fine thing like direct primaries. Well, 
 the other day an Assemblyman I know went to him 
 and asked him to sign a bill this Assemblyman wanted 
 passed. What happened? The Governor said: 
 1 Will you vote for the direct primary law? The 
 
76 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Assemblyman happens to be a fool and against that 
 law. He said he d vote against it, and he tells me 
 the Governor told him in that case the other bill 
 wouldn t be signed. No, the thing we need in this 
 country is a brand-new party run by honest business 
 men on sound business principles." 
 
 Luke could not yet consider such a revolution; but 
 the next day the papers contained further news of the 
 senatorial investigation, which lent weight to Forbes s 
 opinion. A witness, after testimony further entan 
 gling that great financier whose power seemed to per 
 vade the country s entire industrial system, described 
 an alleged forgery in the books of a railway known 
 to be controlled by Porcellis s hero and eager to 
 evade the anti-trust laws. According to this witness, 
 a " double entry " of $2,000,000, representing se 
 curities that the road assumed in taking over two 
 other roads, was carried in the " Consolidated balance 
 sheet " for some time, then erased from one side of 
 the ledger, and left as a credit balance on the other 
 side. 
 
 " They took all the securities of the acquired 
 roads," he swore, " and used them as securities for 
 a bond-issue. They got that money and used it to 
 finance two other outside transactions that they sold 
 out at a tremendous profit." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 77 
 
 He named as participants in this three Senators 
 high in the councils of Luke s party. 
 
 " Of course they re a bad lot," Leighton cheer 
 fully admitted when the District-Attorney s staff gos 
 siped about the latest revelation, " and the party is 
 no better right here in New York than it is in any 
 other state. But you can t repair an organization 
 by smashing it. What we need is reform within the 
 party. The party must reform itself. And that s 
 what I m trying to bring about." 
 
 He did, indeed, give out interviews to this effect, 
 and gathered a considerable following. A little con 
 vention was called at Saratoga where, fired by fresh 
 faith, Luke made his first political speech, holding 
 up Leighton as the Erasmus of Republicanism. It 
 was an unfortunate simile, for the opposition press 
 lost no time in lampooning the District-Attorney as 
 Erasmus at his weakest; but the movement grew, and 
 Luke, in common with his fellow-believers, began to 
 see light in the political darkness. 
 
 He still possessed the beautiful power of dream 
 ing, and when, by night, coming from a theater or 
 leaving the house of Mrs. Ruysdael or one of her 
 friends, he turned into Broadway and saw the myriad 
 lights of its cafes mount heavenward and mix with 
 and illuminate the pillars of smoke and steam rising 
 from its chimneys, he could detect in their wreaths 
 
78 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 the faces of grinning devils raised by the pestilential 
 life below, laughing at it, dipping enormous white 
 claws to stir it, and then hissing skyward as if to 
 proclaim, because of what New York was, their defi 
 ance of God. Once or twice, to escape from them, 
 he walked as far downtown as Wall Street and 
 loitered through the silent night, where the three 
 churches stood on the modern battleground of mad 
 finance to remind of its history the city with the short 
 est memory in Christendom. Mentally, he converted 
 that portion of the town to what it once had been. 
 He saw it the home of a modest aristocracy in simple 
 houses along shaded streets, a center of good taste, 
 of culture, of social well-being. 
 
 The old Astor House, now fallen into shabby 
 desuetude, he pictured as it was when state banquets 
 were given there, and when it was the one place in 
 which the distinguished visitor would stop. Close by 
 the spot where the Woolworth Building to-day 
 houses eighteen thousand persons, the Astor House 
 had moved Horace Greeley to admiration because 
 six hundred and forty-seven persons slept under its 
 roof. There Clay had received the news of his 
 nomination in 1844, an d Webster the word of his de 
 feat at the hands of the Whig convention in 1852. 
 That hotel had been familiar to Pierce, Van Buren, 
 Buchanan, and Taylor, to Seward, Choate, and 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 79 
 
 Douglas. Edward, Prince of Wales, had given it an 
 almost royal atmosphere, and recollections of Lin 
 coln still hung about its tarnished walls. 
 
 Would the old spirit come back again? Could it 
 return? Luke was sure that it could and would. 
 He was sure that Leighton, and the honest men asso 
 ciated with him, had begun a movement that must 
 end by restoring the nation s lost ideals. Government 
 would govern, honest property would be protected, 
 religion would again open man s eyes to his own lit 
 tleness and the omnipotence of the Deity. There 
 would be legislation that would be the end of indus 
 trial combinations, of the crushing of the small manu 
 facturer and the grinding of the faces of the poor. 
 No more national banks would be merged, none 
 would engage in promoting or underwriting; inter 
 locking directorates would cease, and the concentra 
 tion of credit, the Money Trust, would forever after 
 be an impossibility. It was so easy. It needed but 
 an awakened conscience in the majority of the voters 
 and a few conscientious men to lead. 
 
 3. Luke s father died within three years after 
 the young man entered upon his duties under Brouwer 
 Leighton. The elder Huber had embarked his small 
 fortune in an adventure that, as events soon proved, 
 was opposed to one of the interests of the great 
 
So THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 financier whom he had once so much admired : those 
 interests ruined the adventure and, more from grief 
 because of this than from any specific malady, the 
 Congressman fell in the fight. He died proud of 
 his son a pride that Mrs. Huber and Jane zealously 
 shared and he left the family in Luke^s care. 
 
 The young man, who had loved his father in spite 
 of all the differences between them, and long felt the 
 loss, met this situation without complaint. Neither 
 the mother nor the sister wanted to go to New York, 
 and, as Luke managed to live within his meager 
 salary, he was able to continue for them the home 
 in Americus upon the income from his now well- 
 paying investment in R. H. Forbes & Son. Jane, 
 indeed, soon engaged herself and was married to a 
 Doncaster lawyer who secured an election to the late 
 Mr. Huber s seat in Congress, so that Luke s ex 
 penses in Americus were light. 
 
 He began to fall in love with Betty Forbes. The 
 women of the Ruysdael set did not fail to attract 
 him, but he never considered them as within his 
 means, and so speedily placed them outside of his 
 desires. Forbes s daughter, on the other hand, was 
 the feminine counterpart of her father, and, as she 
 grew, she developed many of his qualities, being 
 quiet, determined, unobtrusive, and womanly in the 
 sense in which men like Forbes used that word before 
 
THE SPIDER WEB 81 
 
 Woman began to give it a new significance. Accept 
 ing the world in the garb in which Forbes thought it 
 well to present it to her, she owned only the finest 
 standards of her type, and there was no meanness in 
 her. Physically, she had that rarity in young women : 
 height combined with grace. Her hair, as Luke saw 
 it, was like so much sunshine, her eyes were clear and 
 brown, and the radiance of her coloring not even a 
 man that was not her lover could deny. Luke, for 
 his part, thought her far too good for him. He told 
 himself she was all that the people of the Ruysdael 
 set should be and were not : she made important and 
 shameful the casual relations he had had with women 
 of the half-world and that in their occurrence less 
 frequent than is usual in the lives of young men had 
 seemed trivial and matter-of-fact; and therefore he 
 determined to win her, so soon as he could make 
 a place for himself through the pursuit of his ideals. 
 
 4. That pursuit grew daily more difficult. The 
 candle of his faith in Leighton, though it continued 
 to burn steadily, burned less fiercely than of old. 
 The movement for reform within the party spread, 
 but it spread almost too rapidly; it came to include 
 certain politicians who were now for the first time 
 in their careers evincing a desire for the organiza 
 tion s betterment, and that only after the organization 
 
82 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 had failed to re-elect them to office. These men, in 
 one or two instances, came into control, and it was 
 soon necessary to reform the reformers. Sometimes 
 Leighton appeared disheartened, and Luke began to 
 acquire a weary and well-nigh uninterested manner in 
 dealing with his part of the crusade. 
 
 " Look here," he once said to his chief, " that 
 fellow you got a pardon for last week has been in 
 to see me." 
 
 " Yes? " said Leighton. His feet were cocked on 
 his desk and, in his favorite attitude, he was leaning 
 back in his chair with his fingers clasped in his crisp, 
 black hair. His face was not the face that Luke had 
 known when he first came to New York. 
 
 " Well," continued the assistant, " he came in just 
 after I got back from the Ludlow Street Jail. That 
 place is full of nobody but husbands who won t pay 
 alimony, but the keepers act as valets and barbers 
 and do light housekeeping for the prisoners." 
 
 " It s the civil prison. We can t help it." 
 
 " Couldn t you swing things so a Grand Jury would 
 report on it? " 
 
 " What s the use? And what has Ludlow Street 
 got to do with Auburn, where our pardoned friend 
 has been? " 
 
 " Only this : the rich men in Ludlow Street are liv 
 ing as if they were in a hotel, but at Auburn, this 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 83 
 
 fellow says, they ve got a cell with pointed nails in 
 the floor so a prisoner sent to it for bad behavior 
 
 can t sit down or sleep. They ve Oh, I can t 
 
 go into it all now; but the women are treated as bad 
 as the men; the thing must be worse than the Black 
 Hole of Calcutta, and all the while the State s pay 
 ing for the warden s horses and carriages." 
 
 Leighton showed some interest, but later, when 
 Luke returned to the subject, he said there was noth 
 ing to be done : the political situation would not just 
 then permit it. 
 
 Came the unmasking of one of the new partisans 
 of reform. This man, a Simon Kaindiac, was an in 
 spector in the New York post-office. Federal detec 
 tives arrested him and showed him to have made a 
 fortune by extortion from swindling concerns that 
 .were using the United States mails to entrap their 
 victims. 
 
 " I know, I know ! " cried Leighton peevishly 
 when Uhler brought him the news in Luke s pres 
 ence. " But how am I to blame for that? All the 
 papers will be at me for it. As if I were responsible 
 for the business morals of every man that happened 
 to think as I do about the political ethics of the 
 party!" He turned to Luke. "What s on your 
 mind, Huber? " 
 
 Luke said that what was on his mind was this: the 
 
84 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 office had that morning received the report of inves 
 tigators who pointed out that, since the success of 
 the cocaine raids, heroin had taken the place of the 
 proscribed drug. 
 
 " Well," said Leighton, " I m sorry, but the laws 
 governing the sale of heroin aren t the same as those 
 governing the sale of cocaine, and, until they are, 
 you ll find you can t successfully prosecute under 
 them." 
 
 " We might get at the thing another way," Luke 
 protested. His growing love for Betty had given 
 him new views on some old subjects. " They say the 
 girls in the houses " 
 
 Leighton swung his feet to the floor. His tired 
 face worked irritably. 
 
 " Now, don t begin on them," he commanded. 
 " They re the police s affair, anyhow. They ve al 
 ways existed and always will. They simply adapt 
 themselves to whatever form of society happens to 
 exist. No really effective method of regulation, let 
 alone suppression, has ever been devised or ever will 
 be. Gee whiz, young man, do you know what you ll 
 get up against if you tackle this subject? For four 
 thousand years the high-brows have been trying to 
 make it unpopular, and they haven t succeeded yet." 
 
 It was much the same when Luke and O Mara 
 came across the trail of corruption among the police. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 85 
 
 They found one man who would make affidavit to the 
 fact that patrolmen had paid him to instigate bur 
 glaries in order that the patrolmen might make arrests 
 and win promotion. This man had friends among 
 the keepers of illegal resorts who would swear to 
 paying tribute to police captains. He introduced the 
 two lawyers to a collector who said that $2,400,000 
 were yearly paid in this way, that he himself was the 
 go-between for a police lieutenant, securing from 
 fifty to five hundred dollars a month each from those 
 who bought protection. No discretion seemed to be 
 used, and he showed checks to corroborate his story. 
 
 " Do you think you could do anything on such evi 
 dence?" sneered Leighton. " You couldn t send a 
 yellow dog to jail on it. This fellow confesses he s 
 a crook himself. Start an agitation to force the 
 Police Commissioner to resign as unfit? Not much! 
 If he resigned, * unfit would mean * guilty. His 
 crowd s in the saddle, and if you want to unhorse 
 him, you ve got to unhorse them." 
 
 He walked up and down the floor. 
 
 The trouble with us is we don t fight the devil 
 with fire," he said; " and the trouble with the whole 
 system is too many laws. There are too many lawyers 
 at Albany and Washington; they know all about law 
 and nothing about Man, so when the public con 
 science turns over and whines in its sleep, these fel- 
 
86 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 lows think they can cure it of what ails it by passing 
 a few more laws. They pass a law against dance- 
 halls, and they breed brothels. That s the way it 
 goes all down the line. They pass a lot of such laws 
 and then say : Now, let the District- Attorney do 
 the rest. I wish they had my job for one day 1 Peo 
 ple have got to understand that other people don t 
 indulge their tastes out of mere love of law-break 
 ing." 
 
 He took another turn of the room. 
 
 " And if we re going to whip political gangs," he 
 said, " we must have a political gang of our own, and 
 one better than the one we happen to be fighting. 
 There s Tim Heney over on the East Side. He may 
 be as crooked as God makes them, but when people 
 give him votes, he gives them coal in winter and pic 
 nics in summer. He goes to their funerals and their 
 weddings, and he knows more about what the people 
 of this country want than Thomas Jefferson would 
 have known if he d lived to be a hundred. And 
 what s more, he can do what none of your statesmen 
 ever can do : he can keep them quiet. Do you won 
 der? Think what he does for them. Do you wonder 
 they stick to him?" 
 
 5. Luke began to believe that Forbes was right: 
 There was need of a new party. Daily his lethargy 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 87 
 
 increased; daily he lived more in his love for Betty 
 and in the dreams that emerged less and less upon 
 the plane of his actual life. 
 
 His contact with the bar did not raise either it or 
 the bench in his estimation. In a file of documents 
 at his office, the legacy of a former administration, 
 he came across vouchers for sums aggregating 
 $3,000 paid by a local railway to witnesses who had 
 sworn against a lawyer indicted for subornation of 
 perjury in pressing a damage-case against the com 
 pany, and among these was one for $500 paid to 
 the referee that signed the report. He heard of a 
 rural courthouse that by night became a gambling- 
 house conducted by court officers; there was a judge 
 on the Pacific Slope who sold a patent, the idea for 
 which he stole from the plaintiff in a patent case in 
 his own court; the District- Attorney of Doncaster 
 County, in Pennsylvania, told Luke that only the 
 statute of limitations saved from jail three associate 
 judges of that county who had accepted bribes in the 
 granting of liquor licenses, and that a judge in a 
 nearby county had accepted $3,500 toward his cam 
 paign fund from brewing companies whose retailers 
 must apply to him for licenses. It seemed that of 
 two of the most prominent judges of the higher 
 court in New York, one was chosen directly through 
 the efforts of Tim Heney, and the other was the 
 
88 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 brother of the principal member of a trust which 
 had cases in his court. A judge of a Federal Court 
 was forced from the bench because of his financial 
 interests in a company with which he had to deal 
 in his judicial capacity, and a New Jersey judge, 
 a friend of Leighton, was said to be hearing suits 
 to which a certain railway was a party and then, 
 during vacations, appearing in a neighboring county 
 court as a lawyer retained by the same com 
 pany. 
 
 The follies of the law appeared to be more numer 
 ous than its faults. One judicial decision enjoined 
 members of a labor union from the peaceable persua 
 sion from work of individuals not under agreement 
 to work for the corporation in the mills of which a 
 strike was in progress. A Philadelphia jurist denied 
 the right of free speech to aliens. In Illinois, Smith 
 appealed from a conviction for swindling Brown, and 
 the Supreme Court upheld him because the indict 
 ment, which read that Smith " did unlawfully and 
 feloniously obtain from Brown his money," was in 
 definite and misleading: the learned court held that 
 the pronoun " his " might refer to either party, and 
 that the Grand Jury might simply have been indicat 
 ing its belief that Brown obtained his own money 
 unlawfully. 
 
 Worse miscarriages of justice were, of course, com- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 89 
 
 mon, even in Leighton s office,, and sentences were 
 often out of all proportion to the crimes that incurred 
 them. The editor of a radical paper in Paterson was 
 given an indeterminate term in prison of not less 
 than one year and not more than fifteen years for 
 criticising the Paterson police. The larger the scope 
 of a swindler s transactions, the better his chances of 
 immunity. One minor case long remained in Luke s 
 memory. A clerk in a trust company disappeared 
 with $25,000, and a fugitive bill of indictment was 
 returned against him; the runaway opened negotia 
 tions with his former employers by means of adver 
 tisements in the Paris newspapers and then used his 
 wife as an intermediary until the trust company 
 promised to have the District-Attorney submit the 
 indictment for a verdict of not guilty if the clerk 
 would return with the $15,000 still in his hands; 
 the careful fugitive hid $7,500 in Germany, and 
 returned with the rest; he refused to tell the hiding- 
 place until he was safe; the company found the 
 District- Attorney willing to follow its suggestion; 
 the verdict of Not Guilty was accordingly recorded, 
 and the clerk, free from further harm, made over to 
 the company the remaining $7,500 that he had left 
 in Europe as an anchor to windward. 
 
 There was probably no more laxity among law 
 yers than among men of other professions, but to 
 
90 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Luke s mind it seemed imperative that traders in 
 justice should be especially just. He came across 
 countless cases of pettifogging among shyster prac 
 titioners, and nearly as many suspicious actions in 
 the ranks of their cleverer and, therefore, more suc 
 cessful and eminent brethren. 
 
 Ever seeking remedies, he once drew up a list of 
 such as he found. He wanted more publicity and 
 freedom of criticism; measures to curb the bench s 
 power to declare laws unconstitutional, to force it to 
 give fuller reasons in support of its decisions; he 
 wanted devices to end " the law s delays," simplified 
 procedure and judges who were closer to the people 
 and farther from the corporations; he thought the 
 courts of appeal ought to be forced to decide every 
 question in every case appealed to them; and he ad 
 vocated but one appeal in civil actions together with 
 the right of recall both in regard to judges and 
 to their decisions. 
 
 6. He had come to a point where he doubted, not 
 it is true Leighton s intentions, but his ability to 
 achieve them. Those were the days when the Pro 
 gressive Party was being formed, and Luke for some 
 time considered it as a hopeful sign. Forbes enlisted 
 in the ranks of the new organization and championed 
 it wherever he went, not least among the workers in 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 91 
 
 his factory. Luke had joined a club of young men 
 who had for the most part inherited their money 
 and were unanimous for the new movement; it was 
 time, they said, that politics should be taken out of 
 the hands of the muckers, and they came near to con 
 vincing Luke until, in a moment of enthusiasm, he 
 happened upon secrets which showed him that the 
 men in power in this party were not different from 
 the men that had spoiled Leighton s plan for the 
 purification of the Republican Party from within. 
 From a source he could not doubt, he heard that even 
 George Hallett had talked of offering his support 
 " because these old crowds are too greedy; they re 
 chargin us too much; it s got to be highway rob 
 bery that big business has to submit to, and I m 
 tired of it." 
 
 For some time Luke lost faith in the possibility 
 of any cure. There was talk of a movement to fuse 
 the reform voters of all parties, but it left him cold. 
 He had been a successful prosecutor, and his name 
 was familiar to newspaper readers; his advocacy of 
 Leighton had won him a prominence, even a certain 
 following, among the public; but the irony of life 
 was too much for him; he had, at this period, an eye 
 too appreciative of the odds against him. He saw 
 Betty two or three times a week, took her motoring 
 and to the theaters, but he refrained from showing 
 
92 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 her that he loved her, because he saw no chance of 
 offering her himself as a man worth while. The 
 lethargy of his manner became more marked. He 
 began to bear the outward tokens of one that does 
 not care. To this he had come after four years in 
 New York. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 i. The hideous North Bridge disaster occurred 
 on a spring morning during the last year of Leigh- 
 ton s first term in office. The District-Attorney, 
 whose habitual disparagement of his post did not 
 dull his desire to retain it, was busy planning for re 
 election, and the work of his staff, labor how they 
 would, was congested. The assistants were straining 
 to make a record of convictions with which their 
 chief might go before the electors in the autumn, 
 and were giving to participation in political coun 
 cils every half-hour that they dared spare from their 
 legal tasks; they were hard driven and worn to 
 the nerves; yet the news of the wreck of the Man 
 hattan & Niagara Railway, immediately within the 
 city s limits, burst through doors that had been 
 opened only to men with power or appointments and 
 swept, even from the collective mind of the corps, 
 the bulking thought of jury lists and ballots. 
 
 The Manhattan and Niagara had entered New 
 York only a few years before, with a line that tapped 
 fresh territory. Along this line real-estate opera 
 tors forthwith plotted ten or a dozen towns, and 
 
 93 
 
94 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 white-and-yellow suburbs leaped up like mushrooms. 
 They were peopled by clerks and small businessmen 
 that came into the city over the M. & N. every morn 
 ing and returned home by the same route each 
 evening. 
 
 From the opening of the new line, complaints had 
 been common : it was said that the service was inade 
 quate, that the cars and other rolling-stock were 
 largely second-hand material purchased from the 
 older New York & New Jersey Railroad; that the 
 rails were the cheapest obtainable, the ties bought 
 from an abandoned branch line near Buffalo. One 
 serious wreck had preceded that at the North Bridge, 
 but had not been followed by the improvements the 
 company had promised. The patrons had protested 
 with all the vigor Americans exhibit when they feel 
 that a public-service corporation is cheating them, 
 and had stopped as far on the discreet side of action 
 as protesting Americans usually stop : the M. & N. s 
 parsimony became grist for the mill of the humorous 
 weeklies and produced no further reaction. This 
 morning, a train crowded with men going to their 
 offices plunged through a bridge crossing an uptown 
 street: a hundred passengers were wounded and 
 twenty-five killed. 
 
 The earliest editions of the evening papers 
 shrieked the news, and special editions rushed from 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 95 
 
 the presses. In most of them the M. & N. had 
 taken care to be a heavy advertiser, but here was an 
 event so clearly due to the railway s known policy 
 that no paper could belittle the culpability of the 
 management : the bridge had been recently examined 
 and pronounced safe by state inspectors, yet all re 
 ports agreed that it was constructed of the very light 
 est material, and the earliest evidence showed that a 
 rail had flattened and thrown the train. To persons 
 having a fair knowledge of current finance, it was 
 known that the M. & N. was controlled by the group 
 of capitalists who were actively at the management of 
 the nominally rival N. Y. & N. J. 
 
 Luke sent his office-boy to buy him the first edition 
 that he heard called beneath his window. It placed 
 the dead at a hundred and the injured at thrice that 
 figure, and when Huber s eyes caught the obscure 
 paragraph that hinted at the real ownership of the 
 road, his cheeks, now so generally pale, reddened, 
 and the hand that held the paper trembled. Some 
 thing of his old indignation and purpose woke in 
 him. He ordered the boy to bring him a copy of 
 each fresh edition as it appeared on the street, and 
 though the lists of victims shrank to their true num 
 ber, the outstanding fact of the owners guilt re 
 mained. 
 
96 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Leighton passed through Luke s room on his re 
 turn from luncheon. His face was drawn with the 
 long worry of his campaign; he had been eating with 
 two politicians and shaping plans while he bolted 
 food. 
 
 " Begins to look as if we can get the indorsement 
 of the anti-Tammany Democrats," he said as he hur 
 ried by. " I ve just had a talk with Seeley and El 
 lison. They re coming here at three o clock." 
 
 Luke held up his paper. 
 
 " This is an awful thing," he said. 
 
 "What?" asked Leighton. He passed beside 
 Luke s desk. " Oh, the North Bridge wreck? Yes, 
 isn t it? When Ellison and Seeley come, don t let 
 anybody butt in on me." 
 
 " You know who are really the responsible crowd 
 in the M. & N. ? " Luke persisted. His manner was 
 the sleepy manner that had grown upon him for the 
 past twelvemonth, but his eyes were keen. 
 
 " Yes," said Leighton absently. He ran his fin 
 gers through his always disordered hair. " Yes, I 
 know, but we couldn t prove it." He looked at his 
 watch. " Don t forget," he concluded, " you re to 
 head off anybody that comes after three o clock, 
 and if you re busy, then turn them over to one of the 
 other fellows." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 97 
 
 2. At half-past four Luke s office-boy announced 
 James T. Rollins. 
 
 Luke looked up heavily from the latest edition of 
 the Evening World. 
 
 " Who s James T. Rollins? " he inquired. 
 
 The boy did not know. " But he looks like he 
 owned the Stock Exchange," he said. " Wanted the 
 Boss: I told him he was busy." 
 
 Luke wearily laid aside his paper. 
 
 " Very well, bring him in." 
 
 The boy went out and straightway reopened the 
 door to admit the visitor. 
 
 Dressed in a russet brown, Rollins was short and 
 stout; his eyebrows were bushy, and he made an 
 effort to keep his thick lips drawn in a firm line. 
 He so much resembled the pictures of the man just 
 then predominant in Luke s mind that the assistant 
 District-Attorney was startled. 
 
 "Mr. Rollins?" 
 
 The visitor tried to speak, but seemed to be un 
 able to accomplish articulation. He nodded. He 
 stood erect in the attitude of one accustomed to 
 receive orders, and his right hand tapped his stiff 
 hat against his thigh. 
 
 Luke indicated a chair beside his desk. 
 
 " Sit down." 
 
 Rollins complied. He sat far forward in the 
 
98 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 chair, as if expecting to be ordered out of it at the 
 next moment. Both hands now clutched the brim 
 of his hat, which he held between his fat, outspread 
 knees. 
 
 " You wanted to see Mr. Leighton?" inquired 
 Luke. 
 
 Rollins coughed. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I m sorry." Luke was accustomed to callers of 
 the hesitant sort: he wished that this one would go 
 and leave him alone with the new idea that was grow 
 ing in his brain; but Leighton, like the good politician 
 that he was, had always given strict orders that every 
 caller should be well received. " I m afraid Mr. 
 Leighton s very busy now. He has some most im 
 portant business in hand." 
 
 Rollins made an effort toward dignity; his words 
 succeeded, but his manner of uttering them failed: 
 
 " My business is important, too." 
 
 " And immediate?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Then perhaps I can attend to it for you." 
 
 Rollins shook his head. 
 
 " I ve got to see the District-Attorney." 
 
 " But I am his assistant." 
 
 Yes, sir, I know. But this is confidential." 
 
 Luke began to lose patience. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 99 
 
 " Well/ he said, " as I told you, I m sorry, but 
 you can t see him." 
 
 In spite of Leighton s orders and his own cus 
 tomary obedience to them, Luke s voice had become 
 sharp. It was just then only the sharpness of an 
 underling; but, because Rollins himself was an under 
 ling, the visitor resented it, and this resentment gave 
 him the courage he wanted. He stood up, and he 
 bore himself with an erectness which had a fresh 
 character. 
 
 " It s him that will be sorry," he said. " I came 
 here to give him information that d re-elect him." 
 
 Notwithstanding the man s new attitude, Luke 
 thought he scented the crank. All sorts of cranks 
 infested the District-Attorney s office, and every sort 
 was certain it could purge the city or re-elect Leigh- 
 ton. Luke lost his temper. He spoke with the drawl 
 with which he commonly spoke, but his tone was 
 bitter. His tongue laid hold of the uppermost 
 thought in his head. 
 
 " I suppose," he said, " you ve come here to place 
 the blame for the North Bridge wreck?" 
 
 The breath caught in Rollins s throat. 
 
 " How did you know? " he demanded. 
 
 It was not a crank that asked that question: it 
 was a sane man badly startled. Luke recognized 
 the distinction and instantly resolved to push the ad- 
 
ioo THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 vantage he had fortuitously gained. He rose, smil 
 ing slowly. 
 
 " You ve told me you knew I was one of the 
 assistant district-attorneys of New York," he 
 drawled. " I would advise you to act on the knowl 
 edge, Mr. Rollins, and not to lose any time about 
 it." 
 
 "I " began Rollins; but bluster came to the 
 
 aid of his timidity. " No," he said, u I ve got to see 
 Mr. Leighton." 
 
 Luke had no idea who his visitor was or what 
 information he might possess, but he was now cer 
 tain that worth-while information was in Rollins s 
 possession. Without further fencing, the lawyer, 
 therefore, resorted to an old stratagem that he had 
 learned when he first entered the District-Attorney s 
 office: on the bare chance that the evidence might be 
 documentary and within reach, he took a quick stride 
 towards Rollins, raising his right hand as if to seize 
 him. At once the right hand of Rollins shot up 
 ward and stopped protectingly over his breast. 
 
 " Now then," said Luke, " hand me those papers 
 that you ve got in your breast-pocket." 
 
 " No," said Rollins; " no; they re for Mr. Leigh- 
 ton." 
 
 " Hand them over." 
 
 " They re mine." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 101 
 
 " If you don t hand them over," said Luke lazily, 
 " I shall take them." 
 
 " You ve got no right to ! " 
 
 " You d better save yourself trouble, Mr. Rollins." 
 
 "I won t!" 
 
 From under his lazy lids, Luke saw that the man 
 was only frightened. With a flash of inspiration, the 
 lawyer guessed something of the truth. This fellow 
 was probably a clerk in the M. & N. offices. 
 
 " You won t be arrested for robbing the office- 
 files, if that s what you re scared about," he said; 
 " and you won t be told on and discharged." 
 
 Rollins was visibly relieved. 
 
 "You give me your word, Mr. Huber?" 
 
 " I do. Come on now: let s see what you ve got." 
 
 " And I m not a rich man, Mr. Huber." 
 
 Luke s face showed his disgust. 
 
 " I shan t pay you a cent," he said; " but I dare 
 say Leighton won t mind paying. Only even he 
 won t buy a pig in a poke. Give me those papers. 
 If they re worth anything, I ll take you into the Dis 
 trict-Attorney s room right away or, if there s some 
 body in there, I ll have him out here." 
 
 Rollins realized that Luke meant what he said. 
 He believed, moreover, that his inquisitor was merely 
 cautious. 
 
 " All right," he agreed, though with some reluc- 
 
102 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 tance. " This is a letter from my employer to a man 
 that always had to return such letters after he s read 
 them. The other letter is the letter from the rail 
 manufacturers that s referred to in the first one. I 
 got them both by " 
 
 " I can guess how," said Luke. 
 
 He put out his hand and into it Rollins placed 
 two sheets of paper, that were headed on top simply 
 by an embossed Wall Street address and dated almost 
 five years before. 
 
 Luke read: 
 
 " Confidential. 
 
 11 MR. ROBERT M. DOHAN, 
 "Delaware Avenue, 
 
 " Buffalo, N. Y. 
 " DEAR MR. DOHAN : 
 
 " I understand that the bill of which you have spoken to 
 me will be passed and become a law to-day. I have just 
 seen Messrs. Hallett and Rivington and have secured their 
 agreement to the plan outlined in my personal conversation 
 with you last week. In view of the favors that you have 
 done me in the past, I think it fair to tell you, for your own 
 use only, that my friends have decided that they and I ought 
 to do what you thought they might decide, viz. : unload at the 
 end of five years. Considering your contemplated resignation 
 next year, this will not affect you, except favorably in case 
 you care to manipulate your own holdings in accordance with 
 this news. 
 
 " I note what you say about the estimate submitted by the 
 construction-department; also the letter of the steel-rail manu 
 facturers which you inclosed, in which they say that the grade 
 I suggested might not wear well. I think their use of the 
 word * dangerous is absurdly exaggerated. We have used this 
 grade on several of our roads and feel sure from long experience 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 103 
 
 that, with proper repair-gangs, it will wear for five years as 
 well as the best. 
 
 " My desire and the desire of my associates is to protect the 
 interests of the stockholders. With that in mind, I should 
 state, what you have probably already gathered, that we feel 
 that the new line must be built and operated with all possible 
 economy." 
 
 The signature was the signature that Luke ex 
 pected. 
 
 " Those rails," said Rollins, " weren t replaced. 
 Dohan resigned, and these letters have been in our 
 office ever since. The crowd was planning to un 
 load in November." 
 
 " Yes," said Luke dryly. His face was immobile 
 and his voice calm, but his heart seemed to beat 
 against his ribs, demanding freedom. " Come on in 
 here to Mr. Leighton s office." 
 
 3. He had forgotten Seeley and Ellison, but 
 they were already gone, and Leighton was alone. Ap 
 parently the conference had been satisfactory, for the 
 District-Attorney s face was a little less careworn. 
 
 " Mr. Leighton," said Luke, closing the door, 
 " this man " he indicated Rollins by a lazy move 
 ment of his hand " is a secretary in the employ of 
 the person to whom these letters belong or be 
 longed." He held out the letters that Rollins had 
 given him. 
 
 Leighton s face clouded. 
 
104 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Office business? I thought I told you I had some 
 personal matters to think over." 
 
 Luke choked an impulse of resentment. 
 
 " If you ll look at these letters," he said, " I be- 
 lieve you ll find they apply to both sorts of duties." 
 
 Leighton took the papers with a gesture of an 
 noyance, but when he saw the signature to the more 
 important of them, his eyes shone, and he looked up 
 quickly. 
 
 " Where did you get these? " He flung the ques 
 tion at Rollins. 
 
 The informer had been standing behind Luke, as 
 if seeking his shelter. His breath came heavily. 
 
 " I found them in the office-files," he mumbled. 
 
 " He stole them," said Luke quietly. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Huber, if you re going to talk like 
 that " 
 
 " He stole them," Luke pursued " or so he says. 
 The only question in my mind is : are they genuine? " 
 
 Rollins showed signs of resenting this suggestion 
 more keenly than the declaration that he was a thief. 
 Leighton, however, interrupted: he was squinting 
 at the letter that Luke had read in full. 
 
 " No," he said, " this is real enough. I know the 
 signature." 
 
 " You know it? " Luke was surprised. 
 
 "Yes, yes." Leighton read the letter through; 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 105 
 
 then turned upon Rollins with a resumption of his 
 cross-examining manner. " How much d you want 
 for these? " 
 
 Rollins beat his hat upon his thigh. 
 
 " Well," he said, " they ought to be worth a good 
 deal to you, Mr. Leighton." 
 
 " I ll give you five hundred dollars." 
 
 " Mr. Leighton ! " Rollins was deprecating. 
 " Five hundred dollars ! " 
 
 "What do you want, then? Speak up." 
 
 " Five thousand would be nearer value, Mr. 
 Leighton." 
 
 Luke turned away. This was the part of the 
 business that he loathed. 
 
 " I ll give you two thousand and not a cent more," 
 said Leighton. 
 
 Rollins thought himself now in a commanding 
 position. 
 
 " I can t consider that," he said with the nearest 
 approach to firmness he had yet shown. 
 
 "All right," said Leighton. "Huber!" He 
 handed the letters to Luke. " Put these in your safe 
 while I telephone this fellow s employer." 
 
 " Mr. Leighton ! " Rollins bounded forward. 
 His fat face worked with rage, disappointment, and 
 fear. " You wouldn t do that. This is robbery. It s 
 blackmail ! For God s sake, Mr. Leighton " 
 
io6 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 "Two thousand dollars," said Leighton. 
 
 " But think a minute, Mr. Leighton ! I ve been 
 in my job for seven years worked up to it from 
 office-boy. I could any time have sold tips along the 
 street for twice that money, and yet this is the first 
 time I ve ever ever " 
 
 " Ever double-crossed your boss. Well, why d 
 you do it? " 
 
 " I don t know. It was because this wreck is so 
 awful." 
 
 " And what else?" 
 
 " Nothing else." 
 
 Leighton thrust a forefinger into the informer s 
 face. 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 Rollins jumped back. 
 
 " Well, he he didn t raise my pay. I ve got a 
 big family, and there s a mortgage on my little house 
 in Roseville, and a man in my position has to live 
 well, or people d talk." 
 
 Leighton relaxed. He swung back in his chair and 
 cocked his feet on the desk. 
 
 " I ll make it two thousand five hundred for your 
 family s sake. That s my last word." 
 
 Luke, who had again turned his back on the hag 
 glers, the letters safely buttoned in an inside pocket 
 of his coat, wondered how his chief could afford such 
 an outlay. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 307 
 
 "Is that really the best you can do?" whined 
 Rollins, 
 
 " It is the best I will do," said Leighton. With 
 out lowering his feet, he pulled toward him the tele 
 phone, which was attached to his desk by an arm 
 that could be lengthened or shortened at the user s 
 will. " Now, then, your boss has gone home long 
 ago; but I can get him at his house; do you want to 
 lose your job or make this money? " 
 
 Rollins surrendered. 
 
 " I guess I ll have to take your price," he said. 
 " But it s almost a charity I m doing." 
 
 "Right!" Leighton released the telephone, 
 quickly swung his legs from the desk and sat straight. 
 
 " And you ll promise nobody ll ever know where 
 you got these letters?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 Rollins looked toward Luke s significant back. 
 
 "And Mr. Huber, too?" 
 
 Luke turned. 
 
 " I ve already promised you that," he said. 
 
 Leighton smiled faintly as he said to Luke: 
 
 " I guess you don t happen to have two thousand 
 five hundred in loose change about you, do you, 
 Huber?" 
 
 " No," said Luke. He saw nothing humorous 
 anywhere in the situation. 
 
io8 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Well, this is no affair for checks, and my bank s 
 uptown," Leighton continued. " I don t suppose," he 
 said to Rollins, " you would care to give credit, my 
 dear sir? " 
 
 Rollins could smile, if Luke could not. He shook 
 his head. 
 
 " My bank," said Luke, anxious to end the scene, 
 " is just around the corner. It s closed, but the clerks 
 will still be there. They know me. I can get them 
 to let me in the side door, and I know they ll do me a 
 favor. I ve got just about that much on deposit." 
 He looked at Leighton. " Shall I take Rollins 
 along?" 
 
 "Rollins? Yes." Leighton s good-humor seemed 
 to have returned to stay. " Then hurry back here 
 alone. I ll want to talk this thing over with you." 
 
 4. Luke paid and dismissed Rollins. Return 
 ing, he found Leighton walking rapidly up and 
 down his office. 
 
 " Shut the door," said the District-Attorney. His 
 face was flushed; he spoke quickly. 
 
 Luke shut the door. 
 
 Leighton came forward and brought his hand 
 down on Luke s shoulder with a resounding smack. 
 
 " Do you know what this means? " he cried. His 
 mouth was wide with laughter; the whole man ex- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 109 
 
 ulted. " This re-elects me ! Nothing can keep us 
 out now, Huber not a thing on God s green foot 
 stool. All we ve got to do is use these letters and 
 then sit back and fold our arms and attend to office 
 business. Politics? These two pieces of paper will 
 play all the politics we need, and more besides. I 
 could shout, Huber; I could sing a regular Song of 
 Deborah. What about Mr. Timothy Heney, now? 
 And his Tammany? Gone the way of Sisera, my 
 boy. Tim Heney ! * At her feet he bowed, he fell, 
 he lay down ; at her feet he bowed, he fell : where he 
 bowed, there he fell down dead ! 
 
 Luke s old enthusiasm was rekindled. He thought 
 that he had been misjudging Leighton. Of course 
 the man had been discouraged: he had never before 
 been able to seize an efficient weapon with which to 
 shatter the forces of wrong; even at this time it was 
 only reasonable that his first thought should be of his 
 immediate political opponents; but the weapon was 
 put into his hand at last, the blow would be given 
 against both Tammany and Wall Street; it would 
 be the blow that Luke had hoped for when he read 
 the first accounts of the North Bridge wreck. 
 
 * There must be a special Grand Jury to investi 
 gate the disaster," said Luke, his words falling over 
 one another much as Leighton s had done. " We 
 must keep the letters dark till it s in session, and then. 
 
no THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 produce them. We can give them to the papers right 
 afterward. It will be jail for the lot of them. Big 
 as they are, it ll be that. It ll be the end of the whole 
 crowd!" 
 
 Leighton drew away. His face changed. His 
 entire attitude altered. 
 
 "What are you talking about?" he asked dryly. 
 
 " Why " Luke was amazed " about these let 
 ters, of course." 
 
 " Well, do you think I m green enough to waste 
 them on a jury? Not much! " 
 
 Luke began to comprehend. He felt unsteady. 
 He was standing close to Leighton s desk, and he put 
 out a hand and gripped the edge of its top shelf. 
 
 " Not give them to the jury? " But perhaps he 
 was wrong. Of course he was wrong. " Oh, I see," 
 he said; " maybe it s better not to risk any more lives 
 by waiting. You re going to force this crowd to 
 put down a decent road-bed? Only if you do 
 
 that Well, it s fine of you, but you ll not be any 
 
 better off politically." 
 
 Leighton turned his swivel-chair and sat down in 
 it. His manner became that of an employer trying 
 to be calm and to instill reason into an annoying 
 employee. 
 
 " Young man," said he, " just you listen to me for 
 about two minutes. Those fellows do control this 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB in 
 
 road, but they didn t operate it. In spite of Rollins s 
 blessed letters, you can t absolutely say they operate 
 it. But what they do operate, when they want to, 
 are the politics of this city, and if they tell Tam 
 many, yes, or me, to hold off and let an election go 
 the way they want it, why, hold off Tammany or 
 anybody else has to. Nobody could win if they 
 said * No. Now, then " Leighton punctuated his 
 words with the rise and fall of an index finger 
 " they re not actually morally responsible for the 
 conduct of the M. & N., but they ll know the publica 
 tion of these letters would make the public think 
 they were. They ll know the publication would 
 wreck the road they re still interested in, smash all 
 their other stocks and depreciate all their other in 
 terests, start a panic that might swamp even them, 
 and maybe begin a public row that would send them 
 close to jail, on general principles, legal evidence or 
 no legal evidence. To stop that, they d be willing 
 to have me elected, which they weren t yet quite cer 
 tain about being to-day. I ll go to them quietly, and 
 then I ll surrender these letters, when they ve kept 
 their part of the bargain I ll make. And don t you 
 worry about loss of life. That engineer was prob 
 ably green or drunk, or the signal man got rattled. 
 You ll see the coroner s jury says so. But, anyhow, 
 once I m safely re-elected, I ll take care the M. & N. 
 
ii2 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 is better regulated than it has been. There s no use 
 in a row: a little moral suasion will do the trick." 
 
 He tossed back, and clasped his hands behind his 
 head. 
 
 The explanation had been too long: it was long 
 enough to allow Luke to master the shock of what 
 it implied. He saw his last illusions concerning 
 Leighton fall under the impact of Leighton s own 
 words. He was aghast. He was ashamed of his 
 master; he was ashamed of himself for ever having 
 served such a master. But he was not crushed. As 
 his chief proceeded, Luke s soul rose through indig 
 nation to red revolt. By the time that Leighton 
 ceased speaking, Luke, except for two spots of crim 
 son on his cheeks, was captain of his rage. He 
 leaned against the desk-side indolently, his eyelids 
 lowered, and when he replied it was with an indif 
 ferent drawl. 
 
 u It doesn t much matter whether the engineer was 
 drunk or the signal man rattled," he said: " the rail 
 flattened, and the bridge fell. The rail was drunk 
 and the bridge was rattled." 
 
 Leighton shook himself peevishly. 
 
 " You re trying to be humorous," he said. 
 
 "No; oh, no," said Luke gently. "What I m 
 getting at is, it seems to me the men who directly con 
 trolled this road were directly responsible for its 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 113 
 
 operation. I mean that the men who authorized 
 that letter, and insisted on the policy it lays down, 
 are guilty. It strikes me they ought to be either re 
 formed or punished." 
 
 "Oh, hell!" said Leighton. Heretofore, Luke 
 had always appeared to be on his side, so that the 
 District-Attorney did not know the meaning of his 
 assistant s outward calm. " Those letters aren t 
 legal evidence enough." 
 
 " I think they are, Leighton. Besides, I think 
 there are times when moral evidence goes ahead <yf 
 legal evidence, and ought to and I think this is one 
 of those times." 
 
 " Well," said Leighton, " I don t. So that ends 
 
 it." 
 
 " Of course," Luke calmly pursued, " if you could 
 make these fellows re-lay the road, it might be worth 
 while to do no more than scare them, at least if you 
 don t consider the political ethics and consider only 
 the immediate protection of life." 
 
 " I told you I d take care of the regulation of the 
 road as soon as I was re-elected." 
 
 "Ye-es. But could you?" 
 
 " Certainly I could." 
 
 " I should say that once they d got their letters 
 back, you d be in their power." 
 
 Leighton got to his feet. He was angry. He 
 faced Luke, who did not shift his lazy pose. 
 
ii 4 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Look here," he said, " we ve been friends, and 
 you ve done good work for me, especially this after 
 
 noon " 
 
 Thanks," said Luke. 
 
 " But it looks as if the time had come when you d 
 better understand who s the head of this office." 
 
 " You are," Luke assured his chief; and then 
 added :" I m glad to say." 
 
 " Well, then, Huber, I ve got to tell you that if 
 you don t act accordingly, we must part company." 
 
 Luke raised his listless eyes. 
 
 " You ve quite made up your mind to do this thing, 
 Leighton?" 
 
 " Let you go? Not if you ll only be reasonable." 
 
 " I mean this thing about the letters." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You re going to make use of these fellows 
 money-power in politics? " 
 
 " It s already in politics. It always has been." 
 
 " But you are going to try to use it for yourself? " 
 
 11 Yes, I am. It s my own business." 
 
 " Is it? That money is blood-money, Leighton." 
 
 "You re a fool!" 
 
 " I know I am. But it s you that I m worried 
 about. You re quite determined?" 
 
 " Absolutely." 
 
 Luke shrugged his shoulders. He began to move 
 slowly toward the door. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 115 
 
 "Here!" said Leighton sharply. " Where re 
 you going? " 
 
 Luke scarcely looked at him. 
 
 " I m going to write my resignation." 
 
 Leighton was startled, but he tried not to show it. 
 
 " Very well," he said, " write it. But don t be 
 too fast: you may hand over those letters first." 
 
 "Letters?" Luke seemed never to have heard 
 the word before. " What letters? " 
 
 " Why do you try so hard to be an ass, Huber? " 
 The District-Attorney extended his hand for the 
 papers that he had given Luke during the interview 
 with Rollins. " Drop all this resignation rot. My 
 letters, of course." 
 
 Luke s face met Leighton s fairly. 
 
 " The only letters I have about me," he said with 
 quiet distinctness, " are two that are my property. I 
 bought them with the last two thousand five hundred 
 dollars of my own money." 
 
 As the words came home to him, Leighton s face 
 grew purple. His brows met in a knot. At his tem 
 ples two veins pulsed visibly. 
 
 " What s that? " he cried with a straining throat. 
 " What s that? You Give them here this min 
 ute; they re mine! They re mine. They re mine! 
 You know damned well they re mine ! " 
 
 He had not counted on this. The unexpected dis- 
 
n6 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 appointment tossed him from the summit of the 
 hopes to which, that afternoon, he had been so un 
 expectedly lifted. He made a blind dash at Huber. 
 
 Luke s two hands caught both of Leighton s 
 wrists. By the exertion of a superior strength that 
 scarcely showed itself, the assistant forced down the 
 master s arms and held them at his flanks. 
 
 " They are my letters," said Luke. 
 
 " Let go ! " Leighton wrenched at the imprison 
 ing grip; but he wrenched without effect "Let 
 me go ! " 
 
 " Certainly," said Luke. He freed the panting 
 man. " I merely wanted to protect myself and show 
 you it wouldn t help you to use force." 
 
 Leighton, his face still contorted, tried another 
 tone. 
 
 " It isn t fair of you, Huber. I m sorry I went at 
 you that way; but you know well enough those letters 
 belong to me." 
 
 " They belong," said Luke, " to the man that can 
 make the better use of them." 
 
 "What use can you make?" 
 
 " A better one than you say you will." 
 
 " They were brought here for me." 
 
 " By a thief." 
 
 " Well, you re not going to restore them to their 
 owner, are you? " 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 117 
 
 " Perhaps. 1 
 
 "What?" Leighton laughed cynically. "So 
 that s what your moral tone s for, is it?" 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Oh, come on, Huber, I didn t mean that. Any 
 how, you know, I only asked you to lend me the 
 money." 
 
 " The letters," said Luke again, " belong to the 
 man that can make the better use of them." 
 
 " I ll do the right thing by you, Huber, if you give 
 them back to me." 
 
 " Thank you. The real owner of the letters can 
 do more when I m for sale." 
 
 Leighton bent forward and began to whisper. 
 
 " I ll tell you what I ll do for you politically," he 
 began. " I ll " 
 
 " No thank you," said Luke. 
 
 " Well, then," Leighton, his face now white 
 from fear of loss, appeared to capitulate " give 
 them back and I ll use them the way you want them 
 used." 
 
 The two men s eyes probed one another. 
 
 " I don t believe you," said Luke. 
 
 It was final, and it drove Leighton back to his 
 purple rage. 
 
 "I ll ruin you!" he threatened. "And they ll 
 ruin you. Go ahead and resign. Resign? You 
 
nS THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 can t. You re fired! Do you hear that? You re 
 fired ! Now go and try to do something. You can t 
 do a thing but sell those letters to the people they 
 were stolen from. If you try that, I ll show you up, 
 and if you try anything else with those people, they ll 
 bury you so deep nobody ever can dig down far 
 enough to find you. Do you know who you re up 
 against when you buck that crowd? They won t let 
 you walk the same earth with them ! Go on. You ll 
 be killed, and I ll be damned glad of it. Fight them, 
 will you? You might as well draw a gun on God 
 Almighty! Now, then, get out of here. Get out, 
 or I ll have you kicked out ! " 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 To his office on the twentieth floor of a Wall 
 Street skyscraper that office with the mahogany 
 table at its center and the engraving of George 
 Washington between two windows the master 
 came at his usual time on the morning of the day 
 following the North Bridge wreck. He was dressed 
 neatly, as always, in a suit of russet brown. Breath 
 ing visibly, but noiselessly, he passed the resting ticker 
 and walked to one of the windows overlooking the 
 labyrinth. His near-sighted, beady eyes peered to 
 ward the web of streets below, on the cross-threads 
 of which the black dots that were hurrying men and 
 women bobbed like struggling flies. 
 
 The master rang for his secretary. 
 
 "Rollins," he said, " what s in the " He 
 
 stopped. He had not looked up, yet he asked-: 
 "What s the matter with you this morning?" 
 
 " Nothing," said Rollins. " I " He coughed 
 
 behind his hand. " I didn t sleep well last night." 
 
 " Take more exercise," said his master. " What s 
 in the mail? " 
 
 " Thirty letters that need your personal attention, 
 
 sir." 
 
 119 
 
120 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Nimbly the master ran them through his short 
 and stumpy fingers, the tips of which were delicately 
 rounded. He dictated his terse instructions. With 
 the daily routine again in motion, Rollins recaught 
 his employer s calm. 
 
 " Simpson has the begging letters? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. 7 
 
 " I guess," said the master in his most common 
 place tone, " there were more than the usual num 
 ber of anonymous threats." 
 
 " Only ten or twelve more." 
 
 " Burn them." 
 
 " Yes, sir. I always do." 
 
 " And, Rollins, draw up a letter to the cancer 
 hospital and tell the management I have decided to 
 give them a special ward for fibroid tumor cases. 
 Their lawyers may consult with Judge Stein; I gave 
 him the details last evening. Bring me the letter for 
 
 revision." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 The master proceeded through his customary 
 schedule. 
 
 " Rollins," he said, when it was at last completed 
 and the secretary had been recalled. " Mr. Hal- 
 lett and Mr. Rivington will be here " he consulted 
 his warrh " in five minutes. We are on no account 
 to be disturbed." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 121 
 
 Hallett and Rivington came in, five minutes later. 
 Hallett looked angry, and Rivington frightened. 
 Though the hour was early, Hallett s white waist 
 coat, fresh every morning, showed wrinkles, and its 
 wearer chewed hard at an unlighted cigar; there was 
 a deep perpendicular line over his short, thick nose. 
 Rivington, immaculate, pulled at his slightly gray 
 mustache. 
 
 " Good-morning," said their host. His voice was 
 as nearly cheerful as it was ever. " Sit down." 
 
 They took their places at the table, where there 
 was a pad of scribbling paper and a freshly sharp 
 ened pencil before each. Their host sat at the head 
 of the table, his hands flat upon the table-top, their 
 fingers extended, his elbows pointing ceilingward. 
 
 Rivington began at the midst of what worried 
 him. 
 
 " It s a terrible thing! " he groaned. " Think of 
 it; twenty-five people and the women too! " 
 
 Hallett s comment was almost a bark. 
 
 " As soon as the coroner s jury lets em down 
 easy," he said, " we ve got to see that everybody s 
 fired, from the division-superintendent to the presi 
 dent of the road; that s what we ve got to do. 
 There s one kind of carelessness that s not much bet 
 ter than murder." 
 
 " Twenty-five people ! " repeated Rivington. The 
 
122 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 numbers seemed to hypnotize him; he made a futile 
 
 gesture. " And the morning papers Their 
 
 tone I don t like it." 
 
 The man at the head of the table watched them 
 both, but said nothing. 
 
 " Oh, the newspapers never worry me," said Hal- 
 lett. " We can stop all but one or two, and nobody 
 cares what they say, anyhow. They ve been talkin 
 for years. They ve got to fill their columns." 
 
 " Then there s the Board meeting," said Riving- 
 
 ton. " Next Thursday I don t see Really 
 
 I don t." 
 
 " The Board of Directors of the M. & N. s all 
 right," Hallett reassured him. 
 
 " Perhaps. But then, too, there is this new re 
 form element in town. Talk of a fusion movement: 
 
 a fourth candidate for District-Attorney They 
 
 will be only too eager to get hold of something, and 
 
 this terrible accident It will give them just what 
 
 they want." 
 
 " They can t elect." 
 
 " I am not so sure. The people they aren t 
 what they used to be. Something I don t know 
 what has taken possession of them." 
 
 Hallett bobbed assent to that. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " nowadays as soon as a man gets 
 a vote he stops minding his own business. But we ve 
 still got our grip on the wires." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 123 
 
 " They may break." Rivington s fingers re 
 turned to their tugging at his mustache. " The 
 wires, I mean. It s ugly. Twenty-five dead and a 
 hundred hurt " 
 
 " We didn t hurt em." 
 
 Rivington looked toward the man at the head of 
 the table, but he sat crouched and silent. 
 
 u No," said Rivington; " but " His sentence 
 
 ended in a helpless waving of the hand. 
 
 "Then what are you worryin about?" Hallett 
 challenged. " We were only try in to keep up divi 
 dends. We had to choose between a little risk and 
 protecting the stockholders. Lots of the stockhold 
 ers are widows and orphans. Besides, it wasn t a 
 real risk; it was a recognized, legitimate business 
 risk. Lots of other roads do it right along. Our 
 own roads do." 
 
 " That bridge " said Rivington. 
 
 " The state inspectors passed it a month ago. 
 And they passed the rails, too. It s all up to them." 
 
 In his turn, Hallett glanced at the man at the 
 head of the table. He saw the man s hairy hands, 
 fat and white against the mahogany, begin to move 
 as they always began to move before he made a 
 verbal attack upon conversation ; but the man did not 
 speak. 
 
 " I know," Rivington was saying, " but with the 
 
124 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 four candidates for the district-attorneyship all look 
 ing for vote-getting material " 
 
 " Buy em," said Hallett. 
 
 "Four?" 
 
 "Who s the fourth?" 
 
 " They haven t chosen him yet; but " 
 
 " Buy em," repeated Hallett. 
 
 " Out of the four there might be one we 
 Couldn t " 
 
 " Anybody can buy anybody. There are more 
 ways than one. Anyhow, we re not even directors." 
 
 " We own the road. Practically " 
 
 " Nobody knows that." 
 
 " It seems to me " 
 
 "They don t!" Hallett spat to the floor a bit 
 of tobacco that, bitten from the end of his cigar, had 
 clung to his lips. " They only think they do. It d 
 be the hardest thing in the world to prove that was 
 ever tried." 
 
 "Would it?" Rivington questioned. "I really 
 believe " 
 
 The quick, cold voice of the third man flashed 
 across their talk. It was as if he leaped at them. 
 
 " We may own the road," he said; " but we don t 
 operate it. Not one of us has officially any adminis 
 trative power in the matter of its operation. You 
 gentlemen have forgotten that." He smiled: his 
 teeth were pointed. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 125 
 
 " Still," said Rivington, " if the fusion move 
 ment " 
 
 He stopped there, not because of his habit of 
 speaking in tangents, but because the door opened, 
 and an old man timidly paused at its threshold. 
 
 The master of the office turned his head slowly. 
 
 "Simpson?" he said. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the man at the door. 
 
 " What does this mean? Where s Rollins? " 
 
 " He was using my room to compose that letter 
 about the hospital, and so I took his place." 
 
 " Didn t he tell you we were not to be dis 
 turbed?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; but this man" Simpson held out an 
 envelope " got by everybody. He told me you 
 would see him at once if you only received his mes 
 sage." 
 
 The man at the head of the table reached for the 
 envelope. He read a card that it had contained. 
 
 " Show him in," he said. 
 
 He waited until Simpson had left to obey. Then, 
 without wasting a glance on his associates, he ex 
 plained: 
 
 " This is the card of a man called Luke Huber, 
 Assistant District- Attorney. He s written on it: 
 Five minutes in regard to the North Bridge wreck 
 and your letters about it. 
 
126 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Letters ? " said Hallett. " What letters ? " 
 
 As he replied, the strong jaw of the man at the 
 head of the table worked as if he were chewing. 
 
 " That s what I mean to find out." 
 
 "Here? Now?" Rivington gasped. 
 
 The man addressed nodded. When a nod could 
 save words, he saved words. 
 
 "Is that the careful thing?" asked Hallett. 
 " I ll bet his card s a bluff and he never expected to 
 get in at all." 
 
 " That is precisely why I am having him in." 
 
 " Mr. Huber," announced Simpson. 
 
 Huber was still a young man. He was so young, 
 and his youth was so ostentatious, that he immedi 
 ately courted the rebuke once administered to Pitt. 
 Moreover, he seemed to lack energy. He was thin; 
 his face, though pleasant, was white. The lids 
 dropped wearily over eyes that were at first veiled 
 from the three men who looked up, but did not rise, 
 at his entrance. His mouth, the lips of which were 
 only a pale pink, might have appeared firm, but 
 would certainly have given the impression of being 
 tired of firmness, and, when he bowed gravely to his 
 host, his bristling head inclined itself so slowly and 
 so slightly that the effort of the inclination, whether 
 mental or physical, was insultingly apparent. 
 
 There was no form of presentation. Instead, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 127 
 
 there was a pause that only Huber seemed not to 
 notice. Rivington drummed on the table with his 
 long fingers. Hallett chewed his cigar. The other 
 man smiled so enigmatically that it was impossible 
 to say whether he intended to welcome or was amused 
 by his friends discomfiture. 
 
 " Bring a chair for Mr. Huber." 
 
 Simpson did as he was bid. 
 
 Luke deposited a carefully brushed hat on the 
 table. Then he sank into the proffered chair oppo 
 site the leader of the trio and extended his long legs 
 under the mahogany. His feet touched Rivington s, 
 and Rivington jumped. 
 
 " Well? " asked the man at the head of the table. 
 
 Huber did not raise his heavy lids. 
 
 " I am glad I found you three together," he said 
 slowly in a low and extremely gentle voice, " be 
 cause you are the three men that control the rail 
 road." 
 
 Hallett grinned a broad grin. This young fel 
 low talked as if there were but one railroad in which 
 the group was interested. 
 
 "What railroad?" he asked. 
 
 Luke slowly drew in his legs. He regarded the 
 figure of the Persian rug that happened to be between 
 the points of his patent-leather boots. 
 
 " The railroad," said he, " that I suppose you have 
 been talking most about this morning." 
 
128 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 "The Manhattan & Niagara ?" blurted Riving- 
 ton. 
 
 " We re not directors of that road," said Hallett 
 hurriedly. 
 
 " No," agreed Rivington. 
 
 " No," said Luke, quite as heartily, " you aren t 
 directors, but you direct it." 
 
 " We don t," snapped Rivington. 
 
 The man at the head of the table raised a soothing 
 hand. He was still smiling. 
 
 " Come, come," he said, with an air of good 
 nature that his friends had seldom seen him assume 
 during business hours. " We re all gentlemen, I m 
 sure. Anything that Mr. Huber wants to say to us 
 in confidence " 
 
 Huber interrupted. 
 
 " I never talk in confidence," said he; "and I 
 don t want anybody to say anything to me that he 
 would be ashamed to say in public." 
 
 His eyes were still hidden, and he still spoke 
 slowly and gently; but the mere import of his words 
 brought up short even the leader of the trio before 
 him. That one s manner changed. He was curt. 
 
 " We are busy men, Mr. Huber," he said. 
 " There are not many people in New York that we 
 would have allowed to take up our time this morning. 
 What do you want? " 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 129 
 
 Luke studied the figure on the rug. 
 
 " I want you three," he said in a tone not to be 
 quickened, " to tear up every mile of rails on the 
 M. & N. and replace those pieces of scrap-iron with 
 rails of a grade fit to bear the traffic they have to 
 carry." 
 
 Rivington s drumming fingers closed into his 
 palms. Hallett let out an ugly laugh. Only the man 
 at the head of the table, again changing his manner, 
 equaled Luke in tranquillity. 
 
 " Really, Mr. Huber," he said pleasantly, " with 
 out admitting for a moment that we have the power 
 to do what you suggest, don t you think your request 
 is a rather large one?" He had the air of indul 
 gently correcting a mistaken child. 
 
 The young man, gazing at the rug, shook his round 
 head. 
 
 11 No," he said, " not so large for you as its al 
 ternative." 
 
 "And that? It is " 
 
 Rivington had put the question, but it was toward 
 the man at the head of the table that Luke as he 
 shot out his sudden reply, raised his eyes. 
 
 " Jail," said Luke. 
 
 " Do you mean to threaten us? " cried Rivington 
 angrily. 
 
 Hallett laughed. 
 
130 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 The man at the head of the table only smiled. 
 
 u Not at all," said Luke. " I am merely stating 
 a fact. In coming here, the only thing I hesitated 
 about was whether it would be better for the people 
 to have safe transportation immediately guaranteed 
 or to have you three in jail." 
 
 You seem to forget, young man," said Hallett, 
 " who it was elected the man that made you assistant 
 district-attorney." 
 
 Luke gave him the briefest of glances. 
 
 " It was because I found out who elected him that 
 I resigned the job," he answered. " I have just been 
 offered the Municipal League s nomination for Dis 
 trict-Attorney. When / am elected, it will be by the 
 people." 
 
 "That will be about 2000 A.D.," sneered Hallett. 
 
 Luke shrugged his thin shoulders and returned his 
 gaze toward the leader of the trio. 
 
 " A bridge falls on one of your roads in this 
 county," he said. " It kills twenty-five people and 
 wounds a hundred all passengers in one of your 
 trains. You will say the state inspectors declared 
 the bridge O. K. Maybe they did, though they ought 
 to go to the electric chair for it. That doesn t mat 
 ter. What I can prove by thirty witnesses is that 
 the train left the bridge before the bridge fell. A 
 rail flattened and threw the train. Instead of send- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 131 
 
 ing you men to jail and only because I think this is 
 better for the safety of the public I will give you 
 one month to begin laying decent rails on this road 
 actually get bona fide work under way. If you 
 don t do that, I ll make public the whole truth, get 
 you indicted, go into court as a witness and produce 
 two letters, one forwarded to you and the other 
 signed by you. The first of these is a letter to the 
 president of the road written by the steel manufac 
 turers; it warns him that the cheap rails he s ordered 
 are dangerous : that letter he sent to you. The sec 
 ond is a letter from you to the president of the road 
 in which you say you want the poor-grade rails used 
 because you don t want to increase the running ex 
 penses, and you order a general keeping-down of the 
 road s expenses because of a plan for you three to 
 unload your stock along about this December." 
 
 Luke rose. He relapsed into the weary young 
 man of ten minutes before. 
 
 " You have one month," he said. 
 
 He picked up his hat, rubbed it with a caressing 
 hand, and left the room. 
 
 The three that he left stared at one another. Then 
 both Hallett and Rivington looked at their leader. 
 
 " It s an infamous it must be an infamous lie ! " 
 cried Rivington. " Letters like that men don t 
 write them ! " 
 
132 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Without moving a muscle of his face, the man at 
 the head of the table looked at Rivington. 
 
 " All men say they don t," he corrected, " and all 
 men do." 
 
 "What?" asked Hallett. " You re joking, and 
 this fellow can t ever make it good. It s a bluff." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the man at the head of the 
 table, " it s the truth." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 i. When Luke, on the afternoon preceding his 
 Wall Street interview, had walked out of Leighton s 
 office and the city s employ, it was with no certain 
 plan for further action. His years of experience as 
 an assistant prosecutor had demonstrated to him that 
 something was drastically wrong with the modern 
 administration of justice and practice of the law; his 
 life in New York had shown him the evil influence of 
 the money-power that seemed to be set in motion by 
 the author of the Rollins letter and certainly cor 
 rupted the entire body of the nation, and his political 
 work had discovered to him what he came to con 
 sider the inherent rottenness of the organized politi 
 cal parties. The effect of all this was made acute by 
 the horror at the North Bridge wreck and the cul 
 mination of his mistrust in Leighton. Luke s sole 
 immediate sensation was that of a man who finds him 
 self in a bog: he did not think of draining the bog 
 for the benefit of future pedestrians; he thought only 
 of extricating himself from the mire. 
 
 That night at his club, however, he began to con 
 sider the larger aspects of the case. He was in the 
 
 133 
 
i 3 4 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 writing-room, intent on composing for the next even 
 ing s papers a statement of his reasons for parting 
 company with Leighton. In formulating these, he 
 found his charges to be precisely the charges recently 
 formulated by the group of municipal reformers who 
 were clamoring for a fusion of the best elements of 
 all parties to elect, by honest methods, honest men 
 that would purge New York of its civic shame. He 
 recalled how this Municipal Reform League, growing 
 steadily, had worried Leighton, and how its pro 
 moters prophesied that, if successful in the place of 
 its origin, it might well spread throughout the coun 
 try. When he first heard of it, Luke had been too 
 deep in the affairs of his chief to be warmed by it; 
 but to-night his vision was cleared. 
 
 He telephoned to two of the League s leaders. 
 They came to his club and talked with him until long 
 past midnight, themselves telephoning inquiries and 
 instructions to friends and lieutenants, and summon 
 ing other leaders to join them. 
 
 Luke told them much. He betrayed no secrets of 
 his recent employer, but he could honorably tell 
 enough to make it clear to them that their belief 
 in the necessity of reform was correct, enough to 
 have weight with the voters should he speak to them 
 in the new cause. His public record, it appeared, 
 had long impressed the reformers; the firmness 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 135 
 
 underlying his slow habit of talk, and the determina 
 tion imperfectly covered by his lazy manner, im 
 pressed them now. He moved and fired them. 
 
 The Rollins letter he did not mention. He was 
 more than once tempted, but he had resolved upon 
 provisional silence before ever he sent for these lead 
 ers. He weighed carefully the merits of the courses 
 open to him and decided that, large as would be 
 the benefit of a public airing of his charges, and 
 excellent as might prove the salutary example of a 
 prison term for America s chief financiers, the air 
 ing might be lessened by those financiers subtle influ 
 ences upon popular opinion, the prison term might 
 be escaped through similar influences, and all good 
 results would in any case be long delayed. On the 
 other hand, it was evident to him, in his present 
 frame of mind, that the immediate safety of the M. 
 & N. s patrons was paramount, and that this safety 
 could probably be secured by threatening those 
 morally responsible for it. Such a threat, with a 
 rigid time-limit, he therefore elected to admin 
 ister. 
 
 The first result of his conference with the reform 
 ers was unexpected. At eight o clock next morning, 
 three of their most prominent men, who had not been 
 with him on the night before, came to his apart 
 ments at the Arapahoe in Thirty-ninth Street. They 
 
136 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 had been in all-night consultation, and they told him 
 that their organization had determined to put a full 
 ticket in the field at the coming municipal election, 
 but to center efforts in a struggle for the district- 
 attorneyship : they had chosen him for their candi 
 date. 
 
 Luke, in dressing-gown and pajamas, his un- 
 brushed hair more than ever erect, looked from one 
 of his callers to the other. There was Venable, a 
 man of small but independent means, who had grown 
 gray in the long war for civic betterment, meeting 
 defeat at the polls and, what is harder to bear, dis 
 appointment in elected candidates, and again and 
 again emerging to hope and fight on; Nelson, a 
 successful wholesale druggist, whose business seemed 
 divorced from politics, and whose hobby was the 
 improvement of political conditions; and Yeates, a 
 young man of family and fortune who belonged to 
 Luke s club. Luke was flattered and confident, but 
 did not show it. 
 
 " Do you really think I can do it?" he asked 
 slowly. " Do you think I am the best man for the 
 job?" 
 
 Each of the committee assured him he was. They 
 said he had given a good account of himself as 
 assistant district-attorney, won influential friends in 
 his daily life, and secured, through his political 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 137 
 
 speech-making for Leighton, a strong following 
 among the voters. 
 
 " Of course," persisted Luke, " it s unnecessary to 
 ask men of your standing that there shan t be any 
 thing but clean politics in our campaign." 
 
 Venable tossed his head proudly. 
 
 " My record is a guarantee of that," he said. 
 
 " No undue influence?" asked Luke. "No out 
 side interests coming in to boss us or affect us in any 
 way?" 
 
 "Rot!" said Yeates. 
 
 " And I am to have an absolutely free hand?" 
 
 They assured him of that. 
 
 Luke s lowered lids hid his eyes, but his eyes 
 gleamed. Here, at last, was his Great Chance. 
 Here was what he had lived and hoped for. He 
 wanted to shout his war-cry, to go out and fight at 
 once. Would he be worthy? The wing of that 
 doubt brushed the farthest edges of his conscience, 
 but he was young, and he did not heed it. He 
 thought of all that he could do with this oppor 
 tunity; and he thought, too, of Betty Forbes. 
 
 He had not seen much of Betty for some weeks. 
 The lethargy that the slow process of his recent dis 
 illusionment flung over him, had left him despairing 
 of her, kept her beyond his reach. But now he 
 saw the way saw that the way to win his ideals 
 
138 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 of honorable victory was also the way to win 
 her. 
 
 He asked again a hundred questions, some that 
 he had asked of his other counselors the night be 
 fore and more that he had not : questions about pur 
 pose, ways-and-means, finances, organization, head 
 quarters, district leaders, probable support, the tem 
 per of the public mind. To all of them he received 
 sanguine answers. 
 
 " And your other candidates?" asked Luke. 
 "The Mayor? Comptroller? President of the 
 Board of Aldermen and the Borough Presidents? " 
 
 They gave him the names of known and honest 
 men. 
 
 Luke stood up, but his air was the languid air 
 that had become part of him. 
 
 " Good," he said, " of course, I m pleased that 
 you think of me as you do, and I accept." 
 
 2. He would be a busy man now, but he must 
 have that morning and afternoon to himself. How 
 ever much he might want to start his campaign, he 
 must make that visit to Wall Street, and after 
 luncheon he intended to go to Betty. 
 
 The Wall Street interview seemed to him as suc 
 cessful as he could have expected. He was unterri- 
 fied by the strength of the fortress to be attacked, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 139 
 
 but he had not looked forward to speedy surrender, 
 so he was satisfied with the conviction that he af 
 fected the three financiers more than they cared to 
 show. If they did not obey him, he would make the 
 Rollins letters a part of his appeal to the electors; but 
 he felt that, in the end, he would be offered obedi 
 ence. 
 
 He lunched leisurely in the cafe attached to his 
 apartment house, and then went to his own room to 
 change his clothes before seeking Betty. He had 
 completed the change and was about to leave when 
 the telephone rang and the voice of the clerk below 
 stairs announced a visitor: 
 
 " Judge Marcus F. Stein." 
 
 It had begun already. Luke knew who Stein was, 
 though the two had never met. The man s title had 
 been earned by a political appointment to fill the un- 
 expired term of a judge that died while on the bench. 
 Stein had begun his career as a young lawyer who 
 specialized in damage suits against the N. Y. & N. J. 
 railway. He was once charged, before the Bar As 
 sociation though the charges were never proved 
 with being a " hospital runner " : that is, with em 
 ploying men to hurry to the hospital, or the scenes 
 of accidents, and induce victims to retain Stein to 
 press their claims for damages against the railroad 
 on which they had been injured. By devoting his 
 
140 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 best efforts against the N. Y. & N. J., he tried to 
 make the corporation realize that it would be cheaper 
 to employ him than to fight him, and he was, indeed, 
 at last given a place on the legal staff of the com 
 pany s claim department. There was an ugly story 
 to the effect that, for a brief time before this charge 
 was openly announced, he received a salary from the 
 road while apparently acting for claimants against it 
 and inducing them to compromise their claims for 
 trivial sums. 
 
 It was a subject of common rumor at the New 
 York Bar. Stein soon worked his way to the head 
 of the claim department and thoroughly reorganized 
 it. He used old tactics for his new employers: he 
 had the news of all accidents immediately communi 
 cated to him, whereupon he would despatch his 
 agents, with no loss of time, to the hospital, there 
 to persuade the wounded, half stupefied by pain or 
 drugs, to sign releases in return for pittances in 
 ready money. It was said he built up a secret service, 
 composed of men and women from private detective 
 agencies, whose duty it was to discover discreditable 
 secrets in the lives of such claimants as refused to 
 compromise, or, failing in discovery, to manufacture 
 or invent such incidents. One married woman from 
 Syracuse, who had been injured in a wreck in New 
 York and came there to press her suit, was in- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 141 
 
 veigled into a friendship with a woman detective 
 commissioned to engage a neighboring room in the 
 house where the plaintiff took temporary lodgings. 
 The detective succeeded in getting the claimant 
 drunk and brought her, in this condition, with two 
 of the road s employees, to a house in which, when 
 the four were partially unclothed, another detective 
 took a flashlight photograph of them. Then when 
 the victim s case was called for trial, she was told 
 that, unless she dropped her suit, the picture would 
 be shown to her husband. By methods of this sort, 
 Stein was said to have reduced his road s expenses 
 for damages by two-thirds in three years. 
 
 Directly from his desk in the offices of the N. Y. 
 & N. J., Stein was appointed to the bench, where he 
 did not cease his usefulness to his employers. When 
 his brief judicial term had ended, he took offices of 
 his own, and cultivated the higher branches of cor 
 poration law. The men controlling the N. Y. & 
 N. J. controlled many other corporations and saw to 
 it that Stein received a regular annual retainer as a 
 consulting lawyer from each of these. His business 
 was not to win cases, but so to aid in directing his 
 clients plans that they would avoid litigation; he, 
 therefore, rarely nowadays appeared in court and, 
 though not one of the most learned men so engaged 
 by his principals, he was one of the most serviceable, 
 
142 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 because to his merely crafty skill in the law he added 
 a deep knowledge of practical politics and a wide in 
 timacy with politicians. 
 
 Luke s first impulse was to deny himself to this 
 caller, for he wanted to hurry to Betty and he thought 
 there might be a strategic value in refusing to nego 
 tiate with any emissary. Curiosity, however, proved 
 strong, and he reflected that the emissary might just 
 possibly come with a word of complete capitulation. 
 
 " Show him up," said Luke into the telephone. 
 
 The ex- Judge was an imposing figure. He was big 
 and broad and frock-coated, and he moved with be 
 fitting gravity. His hair was plentiful and white, his 
 face clean-shaven. He had a strong nose and a wide, 
 firm mouth, and his eyes were large and benevolent. 
 His air was that of a man who has dealt with great 
 interests for so many years that they have become the 
 weighty commonplaces of his existence. 
 
 Luke had resolved not to shake hands with his 
 visitor, but the Judge gave him no opportunity for 
 refusal. He bowed courteously, smiled politely, and 
 settled into the most comfortable of Luke s chairs, 
 which he deliberately turned so that the light from 
 the windows fell full on his own face, thus leaving 
 Luke to front him from the shadow. 
 
 Luke, who had been prepared for the contrary 
 move, managed to show no surprise. He sat down, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 143 
 
 extended his legs, and lowered his eyes. He made 
 no inquiry concerning the reason of the Judge s call : 
 he wanted the Judge to begin the talk. 
 
 Stein required no urging. 
 
 " I have never had the pleasure of meeting you be 
 fore, Mr. Huber," he said, speaking with what was 
 evidently no more than characteristic deliberation, 
 " but I have watched your career with a great deal 
 of interest a very great deal. It reminded me so 
 much of my own early struggles." He was looking 
 steadily at Luke, whose eyes remained lowered. 
 " You will forgive an old man who is a scarred 
 veteran of the law for speaking frankly with you 
 and for taking such an interest, I m sure." 
 
 " Very kind of you, indeed," Luke murmured. 
 
 " I thought," said the Judge, " that you handled 
 that Maretti case excellently, and the Dow trial, too ; 
 you showed an original cleverness there. More than 
 that, Mr. Huber, you showed promise. There has 
 been a great deal of promise in your professional 
 work, and I thought I detected the same promise in 
 the reports of your political speeches. With influ 
 ential friends for, of course, everybody needs in 
 fluential friends in these days: people of real and 
 solid standing you ought to go far." 
 
 " Thank you," said Luke. 
 
 " Now," the Judge pursued, " I see by the early 
 
144 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 evening papers you may be offered the candidacy 
 for District-Attorney on the Municipal League 
 ticket." 
 
 " I believe there is some talk of that, Judge." 
 
 " Well, we need such a movement as this reform 
 movement: we need it badly. With proper backing, 
 you ought to win. With proper backing, of course." 
 
 Luke gave no sign of hearing this. Quite out of 
 the air he drawled: 
 
 " I suppose you came about those letters, Judge 
 Stein?" 
 
 For all the disturbance that he produced, he might 
 as well have said that it was a pleasant day, or that 
 he expected rain. When his eyes at this question 
 were raised to meet the Judge s, the benevolent eyes 
 of the Judge did not quiver: like his voice, they were 
 steady and deliberate. 
 
 " Yes," said the Judge, " and I had them in mind 
 when I spoke of your career. Now, Mr. Huber, my 
 friends think, and I think, that you have been a little 
 hasty and unreasonable because and remember, it is 
 an old man who tells you so you are still rather 
 young. But because I know you are an able young 
 man, I have told them I was sure you would see your 
 haste and unreasonableness when you came to con 
 sider the matter. As their friend and as a lawyer 
 who has watched your career and remembers his own 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 145 
 
 start in life, I undertook to say so to you and to 
 offer my advice." 
 
 Luke s eyelids were again lowered. His hands 
 were clasped in his lap. To a less astute man than 
 Stein, he might have seemed asleep. 
 
 " I shall be glad," continued Stein, " if I can help 
 you out of your embarrassing position." 
 
 " Who are your friends, Judge? " asked Luke. 
 
 The Judge smiled tolerantly. 
 
 " Come, come, Mr. Huber," he said; "you don t 
 expect me to mention names, I know. All I will say 
 on that point all you can justly ask me to say is 
 that I don t come from them in my professional 
 capacity. They haven t retained me to do this. They 
 haven t even asked me to do it. I am acting entirely 
 of my own volition, and on my own initiative, out of 
 good will for all the parties concerned and not least 
 of all for you." 
 
 " Yet you seem prepared to plead their case." 
 
 " I am on my own initiative, I am, because their 
 case is the right one, as I am sure you will end by 
 seeing. In the first place, these letters are their prop 
 erty." 
 
 " I doubt," said Luke, " whether they would go 
 into court to prove property." 
 
 " I do not think," said the unruffled Judge, " that 
 they will go into court for any purpose unless their 
 
146 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 burden of good nature is rendered intolerable. They 
 can afford to appeal to their own conscience, because 
 they are morally clear." 
 
 "Of the North Bridge wreck?" 
 
 " Of the North Bridge wreck, Mr. Huber. Grant 
 ing that those letters are admissible evidence which 
 I shouldn t grant, if I were in the case the one is 
 not an expert declaration; it is merely an expression 
 of opinion from persons with many grades of rails to 
 sell and naturally anxious to sell their most expen 
 sive and most profitable grade. As for the other 
 letter, it is informed by the knowledge of what 
 prompted the rail-makers opinion, and in itself offers 
 only a counter-opinion based on the writer s long and 
 successful experience with the cheaper rails." 
 
 " Yes but the accident happened." 
 
 " Exactly: it merely happened and it was an acci 
 dent. In other words, it was something unforeseen 
 and contrary to the experience of the writer of the 
 second letter." 
 
 The Judge waited a moment for a reply but, as 
 Luke gave none, presently continued: 
 
 " Now, the course I propose quite personally, 
 you will understand is honorable, harmless, and in 
 the best interests of all concerned: you, us, and even 
 the public." 
 
 "What is it?" asked Luke. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 147 
 
 " All that I would grant my friends is the return 
 of those letters, which are their own property, and 
 are not admissible evidence in a court of law. That 
 is all I would grant them. On their part, I should 
 exact a pledge from them to have better rails laid 
 throughout the suspected sections of the M. & N. 
 road." 
 
 Luke s eyes opened. 
 
 " That s all / asked them to do," he said. 
 
 " Ah, yes; but to do it at once would be taken as 
 a public confession of guilt and my friends are not 
 guilty. You will see that the coroner s jury says 
 
 so." 
 
 Luke relapsed. 
 
 11 It will," he said. " I m sure of it." 
 
 " Therefore, the thing must be done slowly and 
 discreetly, and meanwhile we must protect the public 
 by an increase of track-walkers and road-inspectors." 
 
 " Would your friends," inquired Luke, " instruct 
 the road not to fight the damage claims growing out 
 of the wreck?" 
 
 " Of course not," chuckled Stein. " You are too 
 good a lawyer to expect that, Mr. Huber, and too 
 good a lawyer not to know how the sorrow or 
 wounds of the claimants yes, and the big appetites 
 of their attorneys, too, I m afraid exaggerate their 
 losses on the one hand and the riches of the company 
 
148 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 on the other. No, no; the most we could get for 
 them would be liberal settlements. We mustn t 
 bankrupt the road. There are more widows own 
 ing stock in it than there are widows caused by this 
 wreck." 
 
 " Well," said Luke, " I m afraid you don t con 
 vince me, Judge." 
 
 "Not if I could promise all this?" 
 
 " No. You see, there was a smaller wreck some 
 months ago, and the additional track-walkers and 
 inspectors were promised the public then." 
 
 Undisturbed, the Judge repeated all his argu 
 ments. " I really think you must see this as I do," 
 
 he concluded. " And all we want is the letters . 
 
 By the way, Mr. Huber, I congratulate you on get 
 ting hold of them. That was a clever piece of work. 
 How did you manage it?" 
 
 Luke grinned. 
 
 " I found them growing on an apple tree in Madi 
 son Square," he said. 
 
 The Judge nodded a smiling approval. 
 
 " At any rate," he submitted, " you will not mind 
 telling me if any other person knows of their exist 
 ence?" 
 
 " No, I don t mind. Except you and your friends 
 and me and the apple tree, there is only one other 
 person that knows as yet, and he s in no position to 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 149 
 
 mention them." Luke rose as if to end the inter 
 view. " I ve told nobody because I keep my bar 
 gains, Judge. But I do keep my bargains to the let 
 ter. You haven t convinced me, and you can t. I ve 
 given your clients " 
 
 " My friends," Stein suavely corrected. 
 
 " Your friends, then; I ve given them one month. 
 If they don t do as I ve suggested " 
 
 The judge raised a hand gravely. 
 
 " I think you mean ordered, Mr. Huber," 
 said he. 
 
 " Thank you. Yes, of course, I meant * ordered/ 
 If they don t begin to do as I ve ordered by one 
 month from to-day, and do it in a way that con 
 vinces everybody of their intention to finish the job 
 yes, and their consciousness of guilt I ll make those 
 letters public." 
 
 The Judge remained seated. He looked at Luke 
 sadly, and his voice rang true as he said: 
 
 " I wonder if you have fully considered, I shall 
 not say the dangers, but the difficulties and annoyances 
 your course may expose you to may very well ex 
 pose you to? " 
 
 " No," said Luke shortly. " I m too busy." 
 
 " A great many men have tried what you are try 
 ing," the Judge went on, " and they have all failed. 
 I tried it once myself. None has succeeded; not 
 
150 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 one. Some of them, of course, entirely through their 
 own faults, were ruined by it, Mr. Huber." 
 
 " 1 dare say," said Luke, unmoved. 
 
 " And you," warned the Judge, " have the success 
 of a new and valuable political movement in your 
 hands. You are responsible for it and to it. This 
 might end by losing you the nomination." 
 
 " I can stand that." 
 
 " It might even hurt the men in the movement that 
 have trusted you." 
 
 " I sha n t blame myself for it, if it does." 
 
 " And if it did not do these things, it would surely 
 wreck the faction at the polls a faction that you be 
 lieve in and that, if successful, could do such a wide 
 public good." 
 
 Luke was standing above his caller, his hands deep 
 in his pockets. 
 
 " Look here, Judge," he drawled, " are you by any 
 chance threatening me? " 
 
 The Judge was not at all threatening him. " I 
 am only telling you," he frankly explained, " what a 
 long life in New York has shown me. I like you, 
 Mr. Huber; I believe you could make a great success 
 in life if you were less hot-headed; but I believe 
 your hot-headedness can ruin you at the bar, can ruin 
 you socially and financially, and can put a stop to 
 your political career forever. I knew one man that 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 151 
 
 attempted something such as you are attempting and 
 never had another client afterward. I knew another 
 that people heard a nasty story about and shut all 
 their doors against. I knew a dozen that became 
 political corpses, and I knew more that went bank 
 rupt." 
 
 Luke smiled. 
 
 " And some," he suggested, " disappeared alto 
 gether, I dare say? " 
 
 The Judge looked him full in the eyes. 
 
 " I have heard so," said he. Then he brightened 
 somewhat. " But you will not defy the lightning," 
 he continued. " You are too practical. I am q-uite 
 sure you must see how very right I am and how very 
 well disposed my friends are toward you, Mr. Huber. 
 Think what they could do for you, socially, finan 
 cially, politically. Think what they could do for you 
 personally and for this reform movement." 
 
 Luke s smile broke into a laugh. 
 
 " Help the reform ? " he exploded. " Oh, Lord I " 
 Then, as quickly, the laugh ended. " In plain terms," 
 he said, "what have you been telling me?" His 
 languor had disappeared, and a sharp rage succeeded 
 it. His words cracked like a whip. " You ve been 
 telling me that if I handed the safety of the M. & N. 
 patrons over to the men that hire you, and let those 
 men go free on the strength of a promise already 
 
152 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 broken, they would make me rich, elect me District- 
 Attorney to do their work for them, advance me in 
 their own social set and maybe, if I kept on doing all 
 they asked, turn me into a Judge or a Governor or a 
 millionaire ! And you ve been saying if I don t do it, 
 they ll have me forced out of politics, out of the 
 practice of the law, out of decent people s houses 
 and maybe knocked over the head or shot in the back 
 at a dark corner. Well, here s my answer: I don t 
 believe they would help me, I don t believe they can 
 hurt me, and I don t care a damn, one way or the 
 other!" 
 
 The Judge bowed. He rose. He knew the world 
 too well to give way to anger : he never lost his tem 
 per; he only sometimes advisedly loosed it. 
 
 " Is this," he asked, " your final decision, Mr. 
 Huber?" 
 
 " Yes," raged Luke; " and you may bet your last 
 cent on that. It s my final decision, and it s a plain 
 4 No. If these fellows don t do what I ve ordered, 
 I ll show them up the whole bunch of them. I ll 
 do it why, I d do it if they were the seraphim and 
 cherubim, and all the Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, 
 Powers, Principalities, and Archangels rolled into 
 one ! " 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 i. Ex- Judge Marcus Stein had mastered, in com 
 mon with most truly dignified men, the art of acting 
 quickly without hurrying. Upon leaving Luke s 
 apartments, he exercised this art. 
 
 His motor-car was waiting for him at the door. 
 He climbed into it with a judicial deliberation and 
 gave his order to the chauffeur. The car started 
 noiselessly. By proceeding with an even speed that 
 avoided blind dashes into the back-waters of the 
 traffic-stream, it made better time than its more im 
 petuous peers and, without jolt or pause, bore its 
 occupant quickly to the building in which the firm 
 of Stein, Falconridge, Falconridge & Perry had their 
 offices. 
 
 As Judge Stein passed through the outer room of 
 the suite, he spoke to the girl who was seated at 
 the firm s telephone switchboard: 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Miss Weston." 
 
 The girl s neurasthenic face lighted with pleasure : 
 Marcus Stein was liked and respected by his office- 
 force. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Judge Stein," she said. 
 153 
 
154 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " I think," said the Judge, " that you might see if 
 you can get Mr. Hallett on his private wire, and 
 connect him with my telephone. Will you, please? " 
 
 Miss Weston always felt that the Judge conferred 
 a favor when he asked one. Consequently, she made 
 a practice of giving his calls precedence over those 
 of anybody else connected with the firm. 
 
 " Right away," she said. " And if he s left his 
 office, shall I try his house or his club? " 
 
 " Both, please, Miss Weston. But I have an idea 
 that he will be at his office." 
 
 The Judge passed on to his own handsome room 
 overlooking the turmoil of lower Broadway. He had 
 scarcely reached his desk, and was just bending to 
 smell of the two Abel Chatney roses that stood in a 
 vase there, when the soft bell of his telephone tinkled. 
 
 " Stein? " asked Hallett s voice through the black 
 receiver that the Judge placed to his ear. 
 
 u Yes. This is Mr. Hallett?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I was about to telephone you, and I have just 
 been to see our young friend." 
 
 " Well well?" 
 
 " It is no use, Mr. Hallett." 
 
 Hallett s voice was incredulous : " The fool won t 
 give up? " 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 1155 
 
 " How much does he want? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Well, but didn t you throw the fear of God into 
 him?" 
 
 " We can t purchase and we can t coerce at least 
 not by mere threats." 
 
 " Then, we ve got to frighten him by something 
 else, Stein. How d he get those things that he s 
 got?" 
 
 " He wouldn t say. I scarcely expected that he 
 would." 
 
 " Did you put on the political screws? " 
 
 " I put on all, as far as was wise. He is a clever 
 young man, and he knows we can t hurt him so long 
 as he has certain things in his possession." 
 
 The situation apparently passed Hallett s compre 
 hension: it was outside of his experience. 
 
 " But what does he want? He must want some 
 thing." 
 
 " I m afraid not," the Judge sighed. 
 
 " Hell ! Of course, he must. Everybody does." 
 
 " If he does, I couldn t find it out." 
 
 "Well, then," asked Hallett, "what s he goin 
 to do?" 
 
 " Nothing for a month." 
 
 " You don t think he ll keep his word? " 
 
 " I m sure of it." 
 
156 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 "Wait a minute," said Hallett 
 
 The Judge waited fifteen minutes. At the end 
 of that time, Hallett s voice, regretful, but firm, 
 sounded again in the telephone: 
 
 " Well," he said, " we ve got to get those things 
 he s got. We re all agreed on that. Understand? " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 u Yes and it s up to you, Judge." 
 
 " Have you any course to suggest? " 
 
 " No, we haven t, and we don t want to know any 
 thing about courses. That s your job." 
 
 As if Hallett were in the room, Stein bowed his 
 white head to him. 
 
 " Very well," he said, and hung up the receiver. 
 
 He bent to the pink roses again, and again inhaled 
 their cultivated fragrance. His face was not per 
 plexed, but it was sad. 
 
 " I am sorry," he seemed to be saying. " A nice 
 young man. I am very sorry, indeed." 
 
 He returned the telephone-receiver to his ear. 
 
 "Miss Weston?" 
 
 "Yes, Judge Stein?" 
 
 " Thank you for getting that call so promptly. 
 Now, will you please get me Mr. Titus?" 
 
 " Mr. William Titus, or Titus & Titherington, 
 the mercantile agency? " 
 
 " Mr. Alexander Titus, of Titus & Titherington: 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 157 
 
 the one that I was speaking to before I went out 
 to luncheon." 
 
 " Yes, Judge Stein. Just a minute." 
 
 There was no long wait before Titus, who owed 
 half of his business as a financial-agent to Stein and 
 Stein s chief employer, was in conversation with the 
 Judge. 
 
 " Have you secured that report yet? " asked Stein. 
 
 "Which one, Judge?" 
 
 " The one I asked you for at lunch-time." 
 
 " It s being typed now. I ll send it over as soon 
 as it s finished." 
 
 " I wish you would. Meantime, get the chief 
 points from the man that looked into the matter and 
 phone them to me." 
 
 " All right, Judge." 
 
 " Call me up. I have somebody to talk to while 
 I m waiting." 
 
 The Judge rang off and then another time spoke 
 to Miss Weston. 
 
 " Is Mr. Irwin in his office? " 
 
 Miss Weston said he was. 
 
 " Then, please ask him to step in to see me for: 
 a moment." 
 
 Mr. Irwin was a member of the Judge s firm whose 
 name did not appear upon its letter-heads, although 
 he had been attached to it for more years than Mr. 
 
158 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Perry or even the younger Mr. Falconridge. He 
 was a little man with a gray Vandyck beard, pink 
 cheeks, and twinkling blue eyes. 
 
 In the fewest possible words, Stein gave him a 
 description of the letters that were in Luke Huber s 
 possession. He did not say who wanted these letters, 
 or why they were wanted, but he left no doubt about 
 the urgency of the commission he was delivering. 
 
 " It is rather a difficult assignment," he concluded, 
 " but it must be done. There are great interests at 
 stake." 
 
 " I think I can manage it," said Irwin cheer 
 fully. 
 
 " I am afraid you will have to manage it," said 
 the Judge. 
 
 " I ll simply tell my friend " 
 
 The Judge raised his hand and smiled. 
 
 " No details, please," said he. 
 
 Very well," Irwin, still cheerful, agreed. 
 
 " All that I need add," said the Judge, " is this: 
 we must take only one step at a time. If we can suc 
 ceed by persuasion, there is no need to use other 
 measures. I do not want to use other measures unless 
 he forces us to use them. Remember that. The first 
 thing to do is to convince him that we are too strong 
 for him. For instance, he has this reform nomina 
 tion for the district-attorneyship. If he could be 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 159 
 
 made to see that we could take that nomination away 
 from him, he might listen to reason." 
 
 " I see. 5 
 
 " You will report results to me. Not methods, 
 Irwin: only the results, but please report the results 
 step by step. And understand that whoever under 
 takes this matter must not know too much to be dan 
 gerous, but must know enough to make no error." 
 
 " How soon do you want the letters, Judge? " 
 
 " As soon as I can get them." 
 
 "And the outside limit?" 
 
 " The first step must be immediate. We must not 
 run so fast that we stumble; but for the completion 
 it will be impossible to wait long. Say twenty-eight 
 days from date." 
 
 " Right," said Irwin, and walked briskly from the 
 room. 
 
 Irwin had a manner of telephoning that was more 
 hurried than the Judge s, and Miss Weston treated 
 him with greater deliberation. However, he had 
 soon called up the office of Anson Quirk and learned 
 that Quirk was there. 
 
 " Then, stay there for twenty minutes, will you? " 
 asked Irwin. u I m coming right around to see you." 
 
 Anson Quirk was a lawyer who had a small office 
 and a large reputation on the East Side. His round, 
 smiling face shone in every important case where 
 
160 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 was endangered the liberty or life of minor politicians 
 or major thugs; the number of acquittals to his credit 
 was surpassed only by the number of clients whom he 
 had saved from ever appearing in court. He called 
 every patrolman, magistrate, and tipstaff in the City 
 and County of New York by his first name. He was 
 successful before a judge, but he was magnificent be 
 fore a magistrate, and with a police-officer he was a 
 worker of miracles. In his own world, Quirk, whom 
 Stein would have refused to shake hands with, 
 was what Stein was upon a somewhat higher 
 plane. 
 
 He talked with the bright-eyed Irwin for less than 
 half an hour. Then he showed his visitor from his 
 dusty office full of law-books that were never con 
 sulted. 
 
 "Easy?" he chuckled as he bowed Irwin out. 
 " It s a hundred-to-one shot. I ll tell you what I ll 
 do: I ll " 
 
 " No, you won t tell me," laughed Irwin. " The 
 less I know, the better for me. All I want to be sure 
 of is that I can count on you." 
 
 " Sure, you can." 
 
 " And don t do everything at once." 
 
 " Not me. The frame-up comes first." 
 
 " Let me know as soon as it s tried. Then we ll 
 talk about the next move if one s needed." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 161 
 
 " I understand. And whatever s needed, I ll de 
 liver the goods inside of three weeks." 
 
 Irwin said he hoped nothing more would be needed 
 and that a few days would suffice, and Quirk, screw 
 ing a derby-hat on one side of his head, walked 
 around the corner to the police-station to see his 
 friend, the red-faced, genial Hugh Donovan, lieu 
 tenant of police. 
 
 2. Ex- Judge Stein, in the handsome room over 
 looking Broadway, had been having another tele 
 phone-conversation with the head of the Titus & 
 Titherington Mercantile Agency while Mr. Irwin 
 was consulting with Mr. Quirk. 
 
 " That man has saved a bit," Alexander Titus was 
 reporting; "but outside of his salary he has really 
 only a hundred thousand dollars, and it s all invested 
 in the R. H. Forbes & Son clothing firm over in 
 Brooklyn." 
 
 The Judge made a note of this on a desk-pad. 
 
 " I see," he said. " Who is the head of that firm, 
 now?" 
 
 "Wallace K. Forbes; I think he s a grandson of 
 old R. H." 
 
 The Judge made another note. 
 
 " How do they stand? Oddly enough, I have a 
 client interested in their affairs, too." 
 
1 62 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " The Forbes people? Pretty well. I had to get 
 a report on them last week." 
 
 "Have they any heavy loans?" 
 
 "Only one that might hurt them: two hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars at call with the East 
 County National." 
 
 The Judge s pencil was still busy. 
 
 " I want to be quite clear about this," he said 
 " quite clear: my client in this Forbes matter is con 
 sidering an investment. Am I to understand that if 
 the East County National should call this loan, if 
 it could not be renewed elsewhere, the firm would 
 become insolvent?" 
 
 " Oh, there s no doubt about that. But then, 
 there s no doubt about its not being called, either. 
 The company s quite sound, Judge." 
 
 " Thank you," said Stein. " You will have that 
 other full report sent over? " 
 
 " It s on its way now." 
 
 " Thank you again. You had better follow it with 
 a copy of the Forbes report. If that bears out all you 
 say, I shall instruct my client to go ahead." 
 
 " He ll be safe if he does, Judge." 
 
 " Very well. Good-afternoon," said Stein. 
 
 He called Miss Weston again. 
 
 " Miss Weston," he said, " please get me City 
 Chamberlain Kilgour, and, while I am speaking to 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 163] 
 
 him, call up the East County National and ask 
 where you can find president Osserman. He will 
 have left the bank, but I should like to reach him 
 before I go home to-day." 
 
 Miss Weston obeyed with her usual readiness to 
 serve this one of her employers. 
 
 3. Police Lieutenant Donovan had not listened 
 to half a dozen of Quirk s words before he rose 
 quickly and closed the door of his private room. 
 His was one of those voices that cannot whisper, but 
 it descended now to a hoarse muttering. 
 
 "How much is there in this for me?" he de 
 manded. 
 
 " NothinV grinned Quirk. 
 
 Donovan s broad palm banged the table at which 
 he sat. 
 
 " Then good-night," said he. 
 
 Quirk was undisturbed. 
 
 " Could you do the trick?" he inquired. 
 
 " You mean if it was worth my while?" 
 
 "I mean what I say: could you do it?" 
 
 "Could I do it? Of course, I could. It d be 
 like takin pennies from a blind man." 
 
 * Then," said Quirk, rattling some coins in a 
 pocket beneath his round abdomen, " I guess you d 
 better get busy." 
 
1 64 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Donovan s eyes narrowed. 
 
 " What s your game, Quirk?" he asked. 
 
 " It s not my game, Hughie," smiled the lawyer. 
 
 " Well, you re not in it for your health, I know 
 that damn well. If it ain t your game, whose is 
 it?" 
 
 " I don t know for sure," said Quirk. 
 
 " Oh, come on. You know me: you ve got to 
 cough up if you want me to help." 
 
 Quirk did know the police-lieutenant. He had ex 
 pected all along to be forced into an admission; but 
 he was aware that by letting Donovan suspect reluc 
 tance he could the more speedily gain his point. 
 
 " Well," he said, " it didn t come to me straight, 
 but I ll tell you how it did." 
 
 He embarked upon a narrative brief and abound 
 ing in gaps that Donovan s imagination was not, how 
 ever, slow to fill as Quirk intended it should. 
 
 The officer nodded comprehendingly. " Then 
 who s at the back of it? " he asked. 
 
 Quirk walked quietly to the door. He opened it 
 suddenly: nobody had been listening at the keyhole; 
 so he turned to Donovan and said a certain name. 
 
 The police-lieutenant s red face grew redder. He 
 opened and shut his mouth twice before he 
 spoke. 
 
 "Again?" he muttered. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 165 
 
 Quirk nodded. 
 
 " That s all I know about it," he said. 
 
 " Well, why in hell didn t you tell me this right 
 off at first? " asked the querulous Donovan. 
 
 " Because I didn t think I d have to," pleaded 
 Quirk. 
 
 " Have to? Looks to me like the have-to business 
 all came on to me ! How long ve I got to put this 
 across? " 
 
 Quirk appeared to consider. 
 
 " You d have to begin with the first thing right 
 away," he said, " and let me know about that. If it 
 didn t work, I d get my party to give me fuller in 
 structions, and then I guess you d have eighteen 
 days." 
 
 " I m gettin sick of the whole game," said Dono 
 van. 
 
 " So am I," said the lawyer blithely. " But what 
 are we going to do about it? We ve got to make a 
 living, don t we? " 
 
 " I ain t so sure of that." 
 
 " Anyhow, we ve got to buy shoes for our kids, 
 Hughie." 
 
 " Oh, come on," muttered Donovan, " let s talk 
 business." 
 
 They talked business until Quirk remembered an 
 other appointment and had to leave. When the law- 
 
166 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 yer had gone, Donovan put his head into the large 
 room next his own and called to a sleepy officer 
 seated at a desk. 
 
 " Anderson," he asked, " where s Patrolman 
 Guth?" 
 
 Anderson yawned. 
 
 " Just come in, Lieutenant," he vouchsafed: 
 " him and Mitchell. He s in the locker-room." 
 
 " Send him in here." 
 
 Donovan closed the door and sat at his table, 
 frowning at its surface, until Guth entered. 
 
 " Hello, Bill," said the Lieutenant. 
 
 Guth was as big as the Lieutenant and more power 
 ful. He would have been handsome, but his mouth 
 had been torn in some obscure street-fight, and the 
 scar from this wound carried the line of his lips to 
 the left corner of his jaw-bone. 
 
 " How re you, Lieutenant?" he replied. 
 
 Donovan resumed his study of the table. 
 
 44 What s Reddy Rawn doin these days?" he 
 presently continued. 
 
 Guth shifted his weight from one leg to the other. 
 As much as that scar would permit, he smiled, the 
 right corner of his mouth shooting upward and the 
 left turning down. 
 
 " Well," he said, " you know how it is. I warned 
 him he d got to keep in the quiet ever since that night 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 167 
 
 him and the Kid shot-up Crab Rotello for tryin to 
 steal Reddy s girl. * 
 
 "RotelloV still in Bellevue, ain t he?" 
 
 " Won t be out for near a month yet." 
 
 "He hasn t squealed?" 
 
 " Naw. You know these here guys : wouldn t tell 
 if they was dyin rather leave it to their own gang 
 to square things. Crab ll wait till he gets well, an 
 then he ll fix Reddy s feet for himself." 
 
 " Still, you told Reddy what I said you should? " 
 
 " Tol him we was on." 
 
 " Find him to-night." 
 
 "All right, Lieutenant." 
 
 "Tell him Rotello s squealed: he ll believe it be 
 cause he hates him. Tell him the Dago s goin to 
 croak an s give me an ante-mortem statement 
 see?" 
 
 The patrolman stolidly bowed assent. 
 
 " Tell him the only way for him to square me s to 
 do me a good turn," continued Donovan. 
 
 Guth nodded again. 
 
 " Same s we worked on the Crab himself ten or 
 twelve weeks ago," he said. " I got you." 
 
 " That s it. Remember, I don t know much, an 
 you know a lot less, an this guy s got to know less 
 than you do. He s got to pull it off inside of two 
 weeks. Now, sit down here, an I ll tell you what 
 
1 68 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 he s got to do. There maybe ll be more later, but 
 this is the start." 
 
 4. The last talk that Judge Stein had that day 
 was one with a brisk, bald-headed man, whose close- 
 cropped mustache only accentuated the heavy mouth 
 below it. This man called in person at the offices 
 of Stein, Falconridge, Falconridge & Perry; he 
 seemed to have come in a hurry, and he handed Miss 
 Weston a card bearing the legend: 
 
 B. FRANK OSSERMAN 
 
 PRESIDENT 
 EAST COUNTY NATIONAL BANK 
 
 With him the Judge began by being as deliberate 
 as he had been with Luke Huber. He mentioned 
 the names of the three men upon whom Huber had 
 that morning paid so unusual a visit to Wall Street; 
 but this time Stein frankly declared that these three 
 men empowered him to speak. 
 
 At the mention of their names, Osserman s fingers 
 played with a thin gold watch-chain that ran taut 
 through a buttonhole of his waistcoat, from one 
 pocket to another. 
 
 " I dare say that you will remember," pursued 
 the Judge, " that I have acted with you for these 
 gentlemen on one or two previous occasions." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 169 
 
 Osserman cleared his throat. " I hope there is no 
 trouble," he said. 
 
 " No. Oh, no ; there need be no trouble," said the 
 Judge. Then he sat and watched Osserman move 
 uneasily in his chair. 
 
 The bank-president by saying nothing tried to 
 force Stein to explain; Stein, by the same means, tried 
 to force Osserman to make a confession of weak 
 ness. At last Stein won. 
 
 " Of course," said Osserman, " I know the favors 
 they ve done us." 
 
 " Exactly," said the Judge; but he said only that. 
 
 " And so," continued Osserman, as one who can 
 not turn back, " our bank will be glad to do anything 
 we can for them." He paused and looked at Stein; 
 but Stein only looked pityingly at him. " Indeed," 
 the banker ruefully resumed, " their connection with 
 our investments and securities is such that we would 
 have to." 
 
 " Exactly," repeated the Judge, bending his face 
 toward the pink roses at his elbow. But he was a 
 little sorry for Osserman, and so he added: " Not 
 that the East County is in a position very different, 
 in that respect, from most of the other banks." 
 
 Osserman took a deep breath. 
 
 "Well," he said, " what is it?" 
 
 " You are carrying," said the Judge, " a call-loan 
 
1 7 o THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 at two hundred and fifty thousand to R. H. Forbes 
 & Son." 
 
 The banker showed his relief. It was clear that 
 he had expected something more important. 
 
 " Are we? " he asked. " I dare say we are." 
 
 " Mr. Osserman," said the Judge, " the finances 
 of the R. H. Forbes company are not long going 
 to be what they should be. In the interest of your 
 depositors, I should advise you to stand ready to 
 call that loan when I give you the word." 
 
 The banker looked at the Judge and knew that, 
 before this loan would be called, the Judge s clients 
 would see to it that no other bank would take it 
 up. That, however, was no affair of Osserman s : he 
 considered that he was escaping by means of a small 
 service. 
 
 " If there s any danger of the Forbes people fail 
 ing," he said, " it would be only good business to do 
 as you say." 
 
 " Yes," the Judge assented. " The fact of the 
 matter is this, Mr. Osserman: that young man named 
 Huber, who has been backing Leighton, is leaving 
 Leighton and will be the candidate for the reform 
 people to succeed him." 
 
 " I saw something about it in the afternoon 
 papers." 
 
 " Yes. Now, my clients have no objection to those 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 171 
 
 reformers; we see that they may do a great deal of 
 good, if they put a temperate man at the head of 
 their ticket. But we happen to know that this Huber 
 is a young, hot-headed demagogue. He is the kind 
 of man that attracts the crowd. He might be elected. 
 If he was not, he would hurt credit by his wild 
 speeches; if he was, he would undoubtedly upset 
 it by trying to put his impossible promises into ac 
 tion. The safest thing for Business is to take the 
 nomination away from him before he gets started: 
 then nobody is hurt. What money he has (it is not 
 much) is invested in this Forbes concern. My advice 
 to you is to see Mr. Forbes to-morrow; make him 
 appreciate how your bank feels about the unsettling 
 nature of this candidacy, and tell him that you will 
 have to call his loan if the candidacy continues." 
 
 5. That was a busy night for the president and 
 cashier of more than one bank in New York City, and 
 for certain gentlemen whose business it is to negotiate 
 for loans from banks in other cities. Judge Stein s 
 telephonic talk with City Chamberlain Kilgour was 
 as effective as the conversation with president Osser- 
 man. It is in the chamberlain s official province to 
 deposit municipal funds with almost whatsoever 
 institution he chooses, and to withdraw such funds as 
 he may elect: the thin, energetic figure of Kilgour, 
 
172 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 long familiar to the tents of Tammany, was this even 
 ing hurrying from private houses to Madison Square 
 Clubs and from clubs to Broadway cafes. The swift, 
 quiet motor-car of ex-Judge Stein was busy, too. 
 
 6. Somebody else was busy : Patrolman Guth. 
 Patrolman Guth, in citizen s garb, was standing al 
 most invisible in the shadowy alley behind a saloon 
 near Forty-third Street and Third Avenue, and was 
 muttering to the darkness. And at last the darkness 
 answered. 
 
 " I m on/ said the darkness. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 i. "No, sir; she s gone out," said the servant 
 that answered Luke s ring at the door of the Forbes 
 house and his inquiry for Betty on the afternoon of 
 his interview with Judge Stein. 
 
 "To town?" asked Luke. 
 
 " Yes, sir; I think so. I think she s gone over to 
 Mr. Nicholson s Hester Street mission." 
 
 Luke had frequently met the Rev. Pinkney Nichol 
 son ; he liked him. The young clergyman was a friend 
 of both Forbes and Forbes s daughter. The latter 
 often helped in Nicholson s slum-missionary work; 
 an attendance at Nicholson s church of St. Atha- 
 nasius was the only occupation that brought Forbes 
 and Betty even slightly into touch with the world 
 of the Ruysdaels. With Betty, Luke often went to 
 the Sunday morning services. Indeed, he had re 
 cently become a consistent member of the congrega 
 tion, partly because Betty liked the church and partly 
 because Luke himself admired Nicholson s simple and 
 forcible eloquence and believed enough in Nichol 
 son s philanthropy to forgive a ritualism that in itself 
 had only a superficial appeal for him. 
 
 173 
 
174 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " She didn t say when she would be back? " Luke 
 inquired. Until this moment he had not known how 
 badly he wanted to see her. 
 
 " No, sir. By dinner-time, I guess. Would you 
 like to leave any message, Mr. Huber?" 
 
 " Only that if she isn t going out this evening, 
 I ll call." 
 
 " Very well, sir." 
 
 Luke had hurried to the Forbes house in Brooklyn 
 as soon as Stein left him, for he knew that Betty 
 was usually at home from three o clock in the after 
 noon until five; but the Judge had consumed some 
 time; there was a block in the subway and another 
 block on the surface-line at the subway s end: Luke 
 had missed Betty. There was nothing to be done but 
 to return to town, where he should have remained 
 in order to be in touch with the new friends that 
 were announcing him as their certain chance for the 
 district-attorneyship. 
 
 He considered himself ready for the fight. He 
 knew that Stein, although checked in the engagement 
 at the Thirty-ninth Street apartments, would not be 
 defeated and would resume the offensive from some 
 other quarter at some later date; but Luke looked for 
 no serious oppilation by these secret enemies before 
 the end of the month that he had given them in which 
 to come to terms. He underestimated, in short, both 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 175 
 
 the power and the unencumbered license of his foes. 
 He would not realize the handicap that his grant of a 
 four weeks armistice placed on his own movements, 
 he would not believe that his antagonists might vio 
 late the truce, and he refused to credit them with the 
 vast influence and free conscience which were at their 
 command. 
 
 The open war, the war that the reformers and the 
 public saw, was, however, waging. The Municipal 
 Reform League had taken city headquarters in an 
 office-building in Broadway below Madison Square 
 weeks ago, before they began their search for a candi 
 date. At that time divisional headquarters were 
 opened in every ward in New York, and the remnants 
 of an older reform organization, left from a defeat 
 ten years old, were gathered and cemented for present 
 use. Nelson, Venable, and Yeates were working day 
 and night with their lieutenants, and when Luke re 
 turned to his apartments, the loneliness that he was 
 beginning to feel because of the sudden end of his 
 duties under Leighton, was banished by the news 
 that the League headquarters had been telephoning 
 madly for him. 
 
 He bought a newspaper on his way downtown and 
 discovered what was one of the things that his asso 
 ciates wanted to see him about : Leighton had issued 
 a statement saying that he had forced Luke s resigna- 
 
176 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 tion from the District-Attorney s staff because of 
 Luke s inefficiency. 
 
 " You must nail that lie immediately ! " cried Ven- 
 able as soon as Luke entered the offices of the League. 
 The old man was standing at a desk with Yeates and 
 Nelson beside him. 
 
 "Why did he fire you, anyway?" asked Yeates. 
 " I always thought Leighton was a rather decent 
 kind of fellow." 
 
 " Jealousy," suggested Nelson. " He was afraid 
 of him." 
 
 Luke sat on a table and dangled his long legs. He 
 did not like the necessity that Leighton had put upon 
 him. 
 
 " Of course, he didn t discharge you at all," said 
 Venable. " We all know that. But we have called 
 the committee for the day after to-morrow, and you 
 must make the public see the matter as we do." 
 
 " I m not so sure that he didn t fire me," said 
 Luke. He chose to be blind to his hearers astonish 
 ment. " It was a race to see whether he d chuck 
 me or me him, and I think it ended in a dead- 
 heat." 
 
 " Oh, come off ! " said Yeates. 
 
 Venable stroked his white hair. 
 
 " But the reason? " he commanded. " You must 
 give the full story to the public. We stand for ab- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 177 
 
 solute honesty in politics, and we can t begin with 
 any suppression of facts in public office." 
 
 " Well," said Luke, " I think I gave Leighton, 
 in a general way, to understand I believed he was 
 willing to use the Money Power in politics, if he 
 could get it to use." He smiled at them. " Does 
 sound rather vague, doesn t it? " 
 
 Nelson puffed out his cheeks. " Men don t break 
 up a partnership for such things," said he. 
 
 " Leighton and I did." 
 
 " Perhaps you did, but people won t think 
 
 so." 
 
 Venable cut in : 
 
 " We don t want to pry into your private affairs, 
 and, of course, we don t expect you to violate any 
 personal confidences that you naturally had with Mr. 
 Leighton; but a broad statement of the basic facts 
 has to go to the papers at once. The charge would 
 n t be so serious if it was specific and vulgar, because 
 then you would have no trouble in disproving it; but 
 Mr. Leighton is a thorough politician; he knows the 
 value of vagueness, and he gives the impression that 
 he could tell a great deal if he wasn t so much of a 
 gentleman as to want to spare your feelings." 
 
 Luke slowly got down from the table. 
 
 " I will say this much," he replied; " I will answer 
 Leighton in his own language: I will say he tried to 
 
178 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 get hold of some documents that would make trouble 
 for a group of unscrupulous and influential men, and 
 he wasn t going to use those documents in court or 
 out of it to stop those men in a wrong they were do 
 ing, but only as a means to force them to give him 
 their political support." 
 
 Venable reflected. 
 
 " I think it would suit if you published that," he 
 said. 
 
 " Did he get the documents? " asked Nelson. 
 
 " No," said Luke, " he didn t. Now, send me in 
 a stenographer, and I ll dictate a statement along 
 those lines." 
 
 2. The headquarters of the Municipal Reform 
 League occupied a half of the second floor. They 
 were accessible by either the stairs, or any of the three 
 elevators that all day long shot down and up narrow 
 shafts from the roof to the hall opening on Broad 
 way. Entering the offices, one came first to a recep 
 tion-room; beyond that, one passed along the cleared 
 side of a railing in the large apartment, behind which 
 sat the company of stenographers and typewriters, 
 and so came to a series of offices with ground-glass 
 doors and windows giving upon the street. It was 
 one of these offices which was permanently assigned 
 to Luke. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 179 
 
 Here, pacing the floor between the roll-top desk 
 at one side and the small safe for private papers on 
 the other, Luke dictated his public letter. He tried to 
 word it in such a way that its facts would not sound 
 incredible to the uninitiated reader, would not seem 
 so vague as to excite suspicion, and would yet convey 
 to both Leighton and Stein the threat of complete 
 publicity to be fulfilled if the writer were pushed too 
 far. It was a hard task, but Luke, after several 
 revisions, was satisfied with it. 
 
 " Yes," said Venable, " I think that will do. The 
 reporters are waiting outside; I sent for them. I 
 have only one addition to suggest." 
 
 " What s that?" asked Luke. 
 
 " You deal exclusively with your resignation, and 
 yet you are issuing this statement from the League s 
 headquarters. Don t you think you had better say 
 something about your candidacy?" 
 
 " Hadn t I better wait till I get it? " 
 
 " You will have it as soon as the committee meets. 
 Everybody knows that. I don t propose that you 
 should anticipate all the good points of your letter 
 of acceptance, but merely that you should state what 
 you will stand for. You could say that your name 
 has been mentioned for the nomination and that, if 
 nominated, you will make your campaign on such and 
 such issues." 
 
180 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " All right." Luke shrugged his lean shoulders. 
 He turned to the waiting stenographer. " Take 
 this, 1 he said: 
 
 " In conclusion, I wish to say that my recent experience in the 
 service of the city has convinced me of the crying need of a 
 new movement for civic improvement : a non-partisan movement 
 in which the one object shall be the purification of municipal 
 government and the fearless administration of the law, all of its 
 supporters working together not for any man or party, but for 
 the good of New York. Such a movement is that now started 
 by the conscientious men who compose the Municipal Reform 
 League. 
 
 " My name has been mentioned as a candidate for office on the 
 ticket of this league, and I shall feel honored, indeed, if I re 
 ceive my nomination under such happy auspices. In that event, 
 I shall go before the people with a frank appeal to them to drive 
 the money-changers out of the Temple of Justice, the grafters 
 out of the police-force, vice and crime from the streets; and, 
 if elected, I should attempt to do these things, as the will of 
 the people who placed me in power, with favor to no persons, or 
 combination of persons, in Greater New York. But whether I 
 am nominated or not, I shall take my coat off and roll up my 
 sleeves and go to work for the Municipal Reform League as for 
 the only present hope of this city s moral regeneration." 
 
 Luke turned to Venable. 
 
 "How s that?" he inquired. 
 
 Venable agreed that it ought to do. 
 
 "I think it s stodgy enough," said Luke. 
 
 Venable visibly winced, but passed the comment by. 
 
 " I am not quite sure," he said, " about that ex 
 pression concerning taking off your coat and so on. 
 Our first appeal has to be made to the cultivated 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 181 
 
 voters, you see, and we don t want to sound too 
 well, too agricultural." 
 
 Luke smiled his weary smile. No doubt Venable 
 was right. 
 
 " Change that," said Luke to the stenographer 
 " change it to : * I shall put on my armor and take 
 up my broadsword to go into this battle. " 
 
 3. "Miss Forbes got back?" Luke asked that 
 evening when he again rang the bell at the Forbes 
 house. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the servant, " she s in the parlor. 
 Mr. Forbes is in the library. Shall I " 
 
 " I think I can make out with only Miss Forbes 
 for a while," Luke interrupted. He started to 
 walk past the servant. 
 
 " Mr. Nicholson is there, too," the careful serv 
 ant warned him. " He stayed to dinner." 
 
 " Oh, that s good," said Luke. " Well, I ll be 
 glad to see him." But his tone was not so enthusi 
 astic as it had been, and his step hesitated half-way to 
 the parlor door. 
 
 The door was open. Through it Betty heard him, 
 and through it she now hurried into the hall to meet 
 him, her hands outstretched. 
 
 " How splendid of you ! " she was saying. 
 " We ve just been reading your letter in the paper. 
 
1 82 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 The papers are full of you, and you don t know how 
 proud we are to know you, and how proud that you 
 come here to see us at such a busy time." 
 
 Her cheeks were flushed, her brown eyes shone. 
 Luke noted a little curl that escaped from the mass 
 of golden hair, so like a saint s glory to her head, and 
 seemed to caress one coral ear. 
 
 " It s all nothing but my good luck," he said as 
 he took both her hands in his and thought not half 
 so much of her words as of the woman that uttered 
 them. " But I didn t expect your father s approval." 
 
 " You have it, anyway," she assured him. " Of 
 course, he s a Progressive, and he thinks you would 
 have done better to come into his party; but he does 
 admire your courage, and so does Mr. Nichol 
 
 son." 
 
 " Does he?" said Luke dryly. " I hope not: it 
 might go to my head." He remembered that Nichol 
 son believed in celibacy for the clergy, and he was 
 glad of it. 
 
 The young priest rose as his hostess and her new 
 guest came into the Eighteen-Sixty parlor. He was a 
 handsome man and his eyes were kindly, yet he had 
 the face of an ascetic. 
 
 " Miss Forbes is right," he said. " New York 
 needs men with high convictions and the courage of 
 them." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 183 
 
 " So does the Church," replied Luke heartily 
 " and she is getting them now." 
 
 They sat down. 
 
 " The Church," said Nicholson, " has always had 
 them. What she lacked was the co-operation of such 
 men in the practical world. If all of our millionaires 
 were like some few of them, our work would be 
 easy; but now we scarcely know which is more 
 dangerous: the evil tyrant or the evil dema 
 gogue." 
 
 He talked for some time in this strain, not to 
 weariness, but with the completeness of the zealot. 
 Nicholson regarded wealth as a sacred trust, a gift 
 from God given to the great intellects of the world 
 only that it might be administered for the benefit 
 of the lesser of God s creatures. He mentioned no 
 specific instance, but he saw in many of the country s 
 rich men souls that were proving worthy of their 
 trust and others that were using their money selfishly 
 and even cruelly. For the former he had the highest 
 regard, for the latter the severest condemnation; the 
 spiritual and physical welfare of the poor he con 
 sidered as the especial care of the more fortunate, 
 and charity was not only the right of penury: it was 
 the salvation of the rich. 
 
 Betty listened to him with a rapt face; Luke hon 
 ored him, but sincerely hoped that he would go. 
 
1 84 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Fearing that this desire was becoming too patent, 
 Luke said: 
 
 " The Manhattan and Niagara people don t seem 
 to share your views." 
 
 " Ah," said Nicholson, " there you touch a vexed 
 problem, because there you have to do with a corpo 
 ration, and it is almost a fact that corporations have 
 no souls." 
 
 " If that corporation ever had any, it is damned," 
 said Luke; " but what I m driving at is that the in 
 dividuals composing a corporation have moral re 
 sponsibilities." 
 
 The clergyman agreed, but in corporations, he 
 thought, responsibility was so intricately subdivided 
 and so sinuously delegated that no one man had much 
 left to him or could incur much guilt for his indi 
 vidual errors. In connection with most such accidents 
 as a railway wreck, there was really an ethical basis 
 for the legal phrase " an act of God." 
 
 " Not in the North Bridge wreck," said Luke. 
 " It s been shown that the company used cheap ma 
 terial, didn t have any proper system for checking 
 its work-reports so as to tell whether ordered repairs 
 were made, and didn t hire competent men. The 
 company can t get out of this mess by saying its ex 
 perts were forced on it by the unions: it hasn t any 
 legal right to delegate its choice of experts to a union. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 185; 
 
 It s a common carrier and, if it can t do its work 
 properly, then it ought to stop work." 
 
 Nicholson saw this much as Luke did, and said so 
 at a good deal of length. It was some time before 
 his part of the conversation lagged and he rose to go. 
 
 4. Luke waited only until he heard the door 
 close upon the departing clergyman. Then he turned 
 to Betty with a relieved sigh. 
 
 " Phew! " he said. " I m glad that s over." 
 
 She was sitting opposite him in the full glare of 
 light from an old-fashioned, crystal-hung chandelier. 
 Betty could bear strong lights. 
 
 u Why?" she asked. Her brow was puckered, 
 but her lips smiled. " I like him. He s very good, 
 and he s doing a really great work. I like him ever 
 so much." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Luke. " Nicholson s all right. 
 He has what he admires in other men : high convic 
 tions and the courage of them. Most of us always 
 admire in others what we don t have ourselves; but 
 not Nicholson. He is doing a big work, too. But 
 I m glad he s gone, just the same." 
 
 " Why?" repeated Betty. 
 
 Luke rose. He came over to Betty and stood 
 looking down at her, his arms folded across his chest. 
 
 " Because," he said, " I wanted to talk to you." 
 
1 86 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " It didn t look so. It looked as if you wanted to 
 talk to Mr. Nicholson." 
 
 " I wanted to talk to you and about you." 
 
 She stopped fencing. She gave him her full, frank 
 gaze. 
 
 "Well?" she asked. 
 
 " You know what I want to say, Betty," he an 
 swered. You ve seen for a long time what I was 
 coming to. I held off. I held off because I hadn t 
 anything to offer you. Even now I haven t much. 
 I haven t half enough. If I win this fight I m in, it 
 won t give me anything that would make me deserve 
 you. I ve not been a bit better than I should be." 
 His voice grew tense. " When I come down to brass 
 tacks, when I I beg your pardon; but what I mean 
 is that when I get to the point of telling you I love 
 you, I see how far I ve been from being what I should 
 
 be. I Oh, hang it all, Betty ! " He put out his 
 
 hands. " I love you. I ve never really loved any 
 body else and never can. If I win this confounded 
 blessed fight, will you marry me?" 
 
 She got slowly to her feet: it seemed to Luke min 
 utes before she had stood up and begun her answer. 
 Then she took both his hands. 
 
 You don t have to win the fight to win me, 
 Luke," she said. 
 
 The realization swept over him. He took her in 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 187 
 
 his arms. He looked in her upturned face the eyes 
 wide, the sweet, fresh cheeks hot, the lips parted, 
 breathing quickly and then he felt the blood rush 
 to his head, felt it hammer at his temples. It got 
 into his eyes and blinded him. He ground his lips 
 upon hers. 
 
 The dull despair of his last months under Leighton 
 commanded a reaction. The rushing changes of the 
 last two days had set his nerves to a speed that would 
 not now cease in whatever physical activities he en 
 gaged himself. These things flung him along a new 
 road; they raced him down a way of which he had 
 known but little. As he felt the warmth of her 
 gracious young body next his, he was hurled with such 
 violence down a course so unfamiliar to him that only 
 the thought of losing his race by running it too 
 swiftly could serve to lessen his straining speed. Like 
 a quarter-mile runner stopping himself short in the 
 last hundred yards before the tape, he almost fell as 
 he forced himself to release her. 
 
 " Your father," he panted. He looked away from 
 her: " I must see him now." 
 
 Betty did not understand. She was only exalted 
 by this new thing; she was only happy. 
 
 "Now?" she whispered. 
 
 " Yes." He looked back at her and, with a white 
 face, smiled. " He has a right to know." He caught 
 
1 88 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 her hand, pressed it only as tightly as he dared. 
 " I ll go to him in the library. Wait for me." 
 
 5. Forbes was seated at a round table, engaged 
 in his regular nightly task of reading the editorial- 
 page of the Evening Star, nodding his head when he 
 agreed with its generalities and muttering maledic 
 tions upon it when it specifically ridiculed the Pro 
 gressive Party. As Luke came in, Forbes was in 
 the midst of one of the paper s attacks on progres- 
 sivism, and his frown seemed to drive his beaked nose 
 into his mustache. 
 
 " Oh, Huber," he said, without at once relaxing 
 his scowl; " I didn t know you were here. Come in. 
 Been here long? " 
 
 Luke could not have guessed how long he had been 
 in the house. 
 
 " Not very," he ventured. 
 
 " Sit down," said Forbes. He had not risen. He 
 indicated an easy-chair near his own. 
 
 " Thanks," said Luke; but he did not sit 
 down. 
 
 Forbes at last noticed his visitor s nervousness. 
 
 " I suppose you ve had a hard day," he said. 
 " Pardon me for not congratulating you sooner on 
 your success. This sheet " he brandished the Even- 
 Ing Star " doesn t want anything but to be against 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 189 
 
 everything. It upsets me every evening. But you ve 
 done a big thing. I think you should have come 
 clear over to our side, but I dare say you will do that 
 in time. Meanwhile, I m sincerely glad for your 
 good fortune. You deserve it." 
 
 " You re very good," said Luke. His eyes 
 twinkled a little. " I wonder if you know about it 
 all." 
 
 " Only what this mealy-mouthed sheet says. It s 
 absolutely inexplicable to me, Huber, how a paper 
 written by such able men can be so narrow-minded 
 on broad subjects. However, I think they re going 
 to support your party, if they may be said ever to 
 support anything." 
 
 " I m afraid they are rather reticent about the real 
 news," said Luke. 
 
 " They never tell anything that weighs against their 
 theories." 
 
 " They haven t had a chance to tell this." 
 
 Forbes looked puzzled. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 " It s only just happened." Luke breathed deeply. 
 " I m engaged to be married," he said. He spoke 
 with an unusual rapidity. " Engaged to be married, 
 and I d like it to come off the wedding, I mean > 
 right after the election." 
 
 Forbes scrambled up. He wrung Luke s hand. 
 
190 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Well, well," he said, " you are to be congratu 
 lated!" 
 
 " I am glad you think so," said Luke, " for you 
 know the girl better than I do." 
 
 "The girl? I know her better " Forbes s 
 
 voice rose. " You don t mean You don t mean 
 
 to say " 
 
 " Yes," Luke nodded. " It is luck, isn t it? It s 
 Betty." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " Forbes brought his left hand 
 down on Luke s right shoulder. "Bless my soul! 
 My little girl! Huber, you you rather knock the 
 wind out of me." 
 
 He said all the conventional things; his manner 
 showed all the proper surprise; and both men under 
 stood that he had been expecting this news for a 
 long time and wanting it. 
 
 " Huber," he said, " of course this is sudden, and 
 of course I m an old fool not to have got over con 
 sidering Betty a child a mere baby but, now 
 you re here with the announcement, I m quite cer 
 tain that, out of all the men who ve been tagging 
 after her, you re the one that I d want for a son- 
 in-law." 
 
 Luke again mumbled his thanks. 
 
 "You re not standing still," pursued Forbes: 
 " you re going ahead. You have a great deal to you, 
 

 THE GIRL NODDED COMPREHENDINGLY 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 191 
 
 and Betty s the very girl to make you make the best 
 of yourself " Forbes s voice abandoned the com 
 monplace note and fell to the note of genuine feel 
 ing " then there s your interest in the Business. 
 Huber, I ve always regretted that I didn t have a 
 son to leave the Business to, as my father left it to 
 me and his father to him. If you d married some 
 body else, and Betty had married some chap that had 
 no interest in it, the Business might have gone over 
 to you eventually, and so on to children of another 
 stock than mine; whereas, now " he looked around 
 Luke to the doorway " Betty! " he said. 
 
 She had not obeyed Luke; she was standing at 
 the door. 
 
 " I couldn t wait," she confessed; but she said it 
 with an allegiance that was now all for Luke. 
 
 " Come here," her father ordered. 
 
 He released Luke s hand and shoulder. The girl 
 ran to him and put her arms about his neck. 
 
 " Please be nice, daddy," she whispered. " Please 
 be nice." 
 
 Forbes managed to draw a handkerchief and blow 
 his nose. 
 
 " I am a fool," he said. " I Betty, you re look 
 ing so much to-night the way your mother By 
 George, I am a fool ! I think I must be getting old, 
 Huber." 
 
192 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 6. In the room at the end of the hall marked 
 " Family Entrance " to a saloon in Fifty-second 
 Street, near Eighth Avenue, a red-headed man 
 dressed in cheap clothes of fashionable cut, was lean 
 ing across a table at which he was drinking raw 
 whisky with a girl who, had she not been too heavily 
 painted, would have had a face like that popularly 
 ascribed to Joan of Arc. 
 
 " I ve got him showed to me," the man was say 
 ing. " He lives at the Arapahoe on Thirty-ninth 
 Street. I ll play lighthouse. All you gotta do s put 
 on them glad clothes an get him into Pearl s Six* 
 Av nue place. He s in wrong, anyhow. Then I ll 
 tip off Charley Guth, an he ll put Donovan wise an 
 pinch the joint. See?" 
 
 The girl that looked like Joan of Arc nodded com- 
 prehendingly. 
 
 " But the clothes has got to be real swell," she 
 said. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 i. As Luke left the Forbes house that night, his 
 step kept time with the beat of his pulses, and he 
 walked fast. At last he thought that he saw hap 
 piness within reach. 
 
 He was not yet happy; he was quite clear about 
 this. One half of him, perhaps the nobler half, was 
 engaged in a political battle with the forces of cor 
 ruption, but it was so engaged that those forces af 
 fected it; they invaded his individuality and, there 
 fore, curtailed his freedom and curtailed complete 
 ness. Happiness, if it was to be found at all, was 
 to be found only in the perfect development of self, 
 and such a development was impossible so long as 
 self, seeking expression in politics, found expression 
 thwarted by an evil opposition in the political field. 
 
 Nevertheless, this opposition, Luke was sure, could 
 be crushed and swept away; his ideal for the good of 
 the city, which had become his own good, could be 
 attained; and then, he told himself, that other part 
 of him, the part that loved Betty and that Betty 
 loved, could enjoy Betty as the reward of the whole 
 man. It was as if he were one of two runners. 
 
 193 
 
i 9 4 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Betty he saw not as the goal, but as the prize to be 
 given him for leading at the goal; not a prize that 
 any other runner could win by worsting him in the 
 race, but a prize that he himself could deserve only 
 if he were to lead at the finish. 
 
 He was thinking of this when he left the Subway 
 station and walked toward the Arapahoe, but under 
 his conscious thoughts the subconscious self was still 
 tingling with the emotions that had flamed up in him 
 when he took Betty in his arms and felt her lips on 
 his. He quivered with the physical recollection, and 
 though the flame had burned, his flesh found the pain 
 of it sweet. 
 
 At the corner nearest the apartment house in which 
 he lived, he became aware of a woman. The street 
 was nearly empty, but until she was close beside him 
 he did not notice her. How she came to be at his 
 elbow he did not appreciate, nor did he at first realize 
 whether she were young or old, beautiful or ugly. 
 
 "Will you tell me the time, please?" she asked. 
 
 Luke s experience in Leighton s office had long ago 
 taught him that such a request was the commonest 
 form of watch-stealing, but he was not afraid of 
 losing his watch. He stopped under a lamp-post. 
 
 " Certainly," he said. 
 
 " I know it s late," pursued the woman, " but 
 I don t know how late." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 The words were thick. The voice was the voice 
 of all the phantoms of the street, low in pitch and 
 hoarse, but luring because of all that it connoted: 
 because of the mystery, the adventure which, after 
 all knowledge of her sordidness and all understand 
 ing of her frigidity, the woman who most reveals 
 her body has maintained by that revelation s forced 
 screening of her soul. 
 
 Luke consulted his watch. 
 
 " It s a quarter to eleven," he said. 
 
 He looked at her, and he was glad to look. That 
 she was well-dressed, but overdressed and wore her 
 clothes with the defiance of one unhabituated to them, 
 did not impress him. What impressed him was the 
 face that, in spite of its tokens of much evil done and 
 more evil suffered, retained the fragile beauty which 
 men associate with innocence. The calm, broad brow, 
 the gray eyes wide and steady, the underlip timidly 
 drawn back, the delicate chin upturned above a slim 
 white throat, reminded him of the pictures of Joan 
 of Arc on trial and foredoomed by her English ac 
 cusers. 
 
 " It is late, isn t it? " she said. 
 
 Yes," said Luke. He had forgotten about his 
 watch ; he was holding it loosely in his hand. 
 
 " I wonder," said the woman, " if it s too late for 
 you to take a little walk with me." 
 
196 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Her eyes had narrowed coldly; a smile that was 
 a trade grimace distorted her mouth. 
 
 The change in her wakened Luke. He restored 
 his watch to his pocket. He felt a slight chill at his 
 heart and a self-accusation. 
 
 "No," he said brusquely; and started to walk 
 away. 
 
 The woman followed. 
 
 " Aw, come on," she urged. Her tone coarsened 
 under his refusal. 
 
 " No," said Luke. 
 
 " Please? " her voice whined. She put her hand 
 on his arm. 
 
 Luke shook off the hand. He was too angry with 
 himself to have pity for her. 
 
 " Stop this," he ordered. 
 
 " But won t you listen? " The woman s hand re 
 turned persistently; it clutched. "I got somethin 
 to " 
 
 Luke saw that they were at the door of the 
 Arapahoe. 
 
 " I m sorry," he said, " but I can t stop to listen 
 to you." 
 
 He went into the apartment house. 
 
 2. He really was sorry. Once inside the door of 
 the Arapahoe, he said to himself that the woman 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 197 
 
 Had only been plying her trade, and that what he 
 had visited upon her was a portion of the wrath 
 against his own momentary weakness. He could 
 never have given way to her, because he was so firm 
 in his resolve to live worthily for Betty that he could 
 not enough want to give way to offset the efficacy of 
 his resolve; only the portion of him subject to his 
 will without being a part of his will had momentarily 
 weakened; it could not have rebelled victoriously, 
 and although it merited punishment, the exterior 
 cause of its weakness did not deserve censure. Alto 
 gether, Luke concluded, he had behaved in a rather 
 contemptible fashion. 
 
 His mind was immediately diverted. As he passed 
 the clerk s desk in the hall, the clerk beckoned darkly 
 to him. 
 
 There are some reporters looking for you here," 
 he whispered. " I sent them into the waiting-room 
 so s you could get by them when you came in, if you 
 wanted to. Do you? " 
 
 Luke almost laughed as he reflected upon the 
 figure he would have presented to the representatives 
 of the press, had they been waiting for him at the 
 door. 
 
 " Yes, I ll see them," he said. 
 
 They came to him in a body, seven of them. They 
 worked for the morning papers and, because the 
 
I 9 8 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 evening papers had printed Luke s letter about his 
 resignation from the District-Attorney s staff, they 
 wanted a fresh sensation for their journals. 
 
 Luke leaned against a pillar in the lobby and 
 talked to them. Most of them he had met while in 
 Leighton s office. Personally, he was popular with 
 them, and he liked them. 
 
 " I ll say anything you want," he agreed. " But 
 what is there to say?" 
 
 The spokesman was a keen man with curling 
 black hair. 
 
 " You might develop the last part of your letter," 
 he suggested: " the part about the big financiers that 
 you re going gunning for." 
 
 " I haven t got the gun yet," objected Luke. " Bet 
 ter wait and see if I m nominated, boys." 
 
 " Oh, you ll be nominated, all right. Come on, 
 Mr. Huber." 
 
 " You re going to support the League, anyhow," 
 said a stout little fellow, whose paper opposed all re 
 formers. " You can tell us how the League will go 
 for the men at the top." 
 
 To this Luke agreed. He began to speak and, as 
 he saw the busy pencils noting his best phrases upon 
 sheets of roughly-folded copy-paper, he fell into 
 stride with his subject. He declared that the League 
 meant to put an end to the influence of Big Business 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 199 
 
 in municipal politics, and, although he mentioned no 
 names, it was evident what big business men he had 
 in mind. 
 
 The reporters tried to make him mention names, 
 but their efforts only seemed to restore his caution. 
 They urged him to be specific in his charges against 
 the present administration of the District-Attorney s 
 office; but here again they encountered the impassive 
 side of Luke with which they were more familiar. 
 
 " No, no," said Luke; " there may be a time for 
 all that, but this isn t the time. Just wind up by 
 saying we mean, once and for all, to put Wall Street 
 out of politics and graft out of the administration 
 of justice in New York City and to keep them out, 
 if we have to send every financier and every police 
 man to jail. 1 * 
 
 3. The reporters made all that they could of 
 what Luke gave them, and the next morning s papers 
 were full of it. Leighton, on his way downtown, 
 read them with anger against Luke and annoyance 
 with himself for losing a man that might have been 
 so valuable to him. 
 
 He began to be afraid of the effect of Huber s 
 implications regarding the District-Attorney s office. 
 Remembering that his party was in no position to 
 risk putting up a weak candidate, he telephoned to 
 
200 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 George J. Hallett and was granted an interview: he 
 said he knew of the letters in Luke s possession and 
 knew how Luke came by them. 
 
 Hallett, whose office was almost the counterpart 
 of that in which he consulted with his master and 
 Rivington, sprawled in a deeply upholstered chair. 
 He smoked steadily at a cigar, and when the letters 
 were mentioned, he accepted the mention with com 
 plete composure. 
 
 Who else knows about em?" he frankly in 
 quired. 
 
 " Nobody," said Leighton u unless Huber s been 
 talking." 
 
 "He s got em, hasn t he?" 
 
 " Had them the last time I saw him." 
 
 "Anyway, you haven t em?" 
 
 " No, of course, I haven t." 
 
 Hallett took his cigar from his mouth; he looked 
 at the cigar, and from it to Leighton. 
 
 " I don t see what use you are to us, then," he 
 said. 
 
 Leighton understood that the only satisfactory 
 way to deal with this man was the direct way. 
 
 " I can t be any use to you except to tell you where 
 the leak is these letters came through." 
 1 What do you want us to do for you? " 
 
 " I want your support at election time." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 2or 
 
 " Can t promise it. The other side has just as good 
 a claim on us." 
 
 "Heney?" 
 
 " An the whole Democratic organization, yes." 
 
 " Would you promise not to interfere on either 
 side?" 
 
 " Can t do it. You see, you haven t got much to 
 sell." 
 
 Leighton ran his fingers through his black hair. 
 
 " Look here, Mr. Hallett," he began again, " we 
 don t know each other personally " 
 
 " That s all right," said Hallett. 
 
 " Well, then, if I can t count on your influence for 
 the election, may I count on it for the nomination? " 
 
 a Who stole those letters?" said Hallett. 
 
 " I can count on you people in the matter of the 
 nomination? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " A man named Rollins." 
 
 Late that afternoon it was found that Rollins had 
 made an overcharge for postage-stamps in the course 
 of his secretarial work. He was arrested and " rail 
 roaded " to jail. 
 
 4. It was somewhat later when the Republicans 
 nominated Leighton and then, to the amazement of 
 the public, the Democrats and Progressives each op- 
 
202 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 posed him with candidates so weak that every poli 
 tician understood this as a surrender to Leighton in 
 order to defeat the candidate of the Municipal Re 
 form League. In advance of their occurrence, how 
 ever, all these things were gossiped about by the 
 leaders of every faction and so confidently expected 
 that plans were shaped in accordance with them. 
 Somehow, they sent word ahead to the Reform head 
 quarters even on the day of the happening that set 
 them in motion, and Venable and Nelson, together 
 with the other executives of the M. R. L. bestirred 
 themselves. 
 
 "Where s Yeates?" asked Nelson, as he came 
 into Luke s room, where Venable and Luke were 
 busy. " That young fellow s never around when he s 
 wanted." 
 
 " He sent in word he had some other engage 
 ments," said Venable. 
 
 " Had to play golf with Hallett s son, I guess, if 
 it wasn t L. Bergen Rivington," Nelson sneered. 
 " There s too much society in that boy for any politi 
 cal usefulness." 
 
 Luke looked up from the notes he was preparing 
 for his formal letter accepting the nomination that 
 the League was next day to offer him : 
 
 " Is Yeates a friend of those people? " he asked. 
 " I knew he knew some of them, but is he a friend? " 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 203 
 
 Venable was soothing. 
 
 " Only socially," he said. " Yeates was born to it, 
 but politically he is all right. He has high ideals and 
 a really fine enthusiasm." 
 
 " Hum," said Luke. " What do you think of this 
 paragraph, Nelson?" 
 
 He read from his notes: 
 
 "During the past few years, those persons in a position to 
 observe the inner workings of our politics, both in national and 
 municipal affairs, have been alarmed to see the steady encroach 
 ment made upon them by High Finance. There is no longer any 
 room left for doubt. The purpose of this invading power is 
 clear : its purpose is conquest. Unless the free voters act, and act 
 quickly, the true government of the United States in general, and 
 of New York in particular, will not rest in the President or Con 
 gress, in Mayors and Boards of Aldermen, in the Constitution, 
 the charter, or the courts : it will rest in a combination of Big 
 Business interests that will control the men elected as representa 
 tives of the people." 
 
 Nelson slapped his thigh. 
 
 " That s it!" he said. "That s the talk. We 
 ought to have had some of that kind of medicine 
 long ago. Look at all this recent drug-legislation, 
 for instance. You can t imagine what my firm s been 
 up against. They re getting an appetite for the 
 wholesale drug-trade now, these big fellows are, and 
 they re paving their way by lobbies at Washington 
 and Albany and half a dozen state capitals! " 
 
 The three worked over the letter for the rest of 
 
204 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 that day, having a scanty luncheon brought into the 
 office from a nearby restaurant, and talking plans 
 while they ate. All the time callers were sending in 
 their names with requests for interviews, workers 
 were reporting, men at the telephone were ringing 
 up to ask instructions, and clerks and stenographers 
 were running in and out to deliver telegrams and 
 special-delivery letters and to receive replies. 
 
 Luke s only appreciable pause was to read two 
 notes of congratulation from his mother and Jane, 
 the former commending him for adopting a course 
 that the writer was sure her husband would have 
 adopted had he lived, the latter full of pride in his 
 approaching success, but ending with the postscript: 
 " Jesse [Jesse Kinzer was Jane s husband, the new 
 Congressman] says that conditions in New York are 
 purely local, whatever that means." Altogether, 
 Luke had a busy day. He was a tired man when, at 
 nine o clock, he again rang the bell of the Forbes 
 house in Brooklyn. 
 
 5. To Luke s surprise, it was Forbes himself that 
 opened the door. 
 
 " I ve been looking for you," he said seriously. 
 " Can you come into the library? I want to see you 
 for a few minutes. It s important." 
 
 The concluding words were unnecessary. The 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 205 
 
 tone of the words that preceded them would alone 
 have been sufficient to warn Luke of trouble : Forbes s 
 voice was husky, tense, uncertain. 
 
 " Of course," Luke assented. 
 
 He followed Forbes into the library, and there, as 
 the host closed the door, Luke saw in the face that 
 confronted him an expression which conformed with 
 the tone and import of Forbes s first words. The 
 elder man s face was haggard. 
 
 " I shall have to tell you something," he was say 
 ing " something that I ought to have told you long 
 ago, or as much of it as had happened then. But, 
 you see, I had no idea it could be so important ever 
 be so important." He broke off with a remembrance 
 of his accustomed courtesy: "I beg your pardon. 
 Won t you sit down, Huber? I quite forgot to ask 
 you. For my part, I couldn t sit still if my life de 
 pended on it." 
 
 Luke stood by the center-table. 
 
 " No, no," he said. " Don t bother and don t 
 worry." He thought that Forbes looked as if death 
 were in the house. " Is anything wrong with 
 Betty? " he suddenly asked. 
 
 " No, it s not that. It s what I say. Of course 
 I never supposed your going in for the Municipal Re 
 form League movement could have any business sig 
 nificance " 
 
206 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Luke, relieved about Betty, was unable to follow 
 Forbes s disjointed sentences. 
 
 " It hasn t/ he said. " It hasn t any business sig 
 nificance whatever." 
 
 " Ah " Forbes shook his head " that s what I 
 thought, too. But it has. Huber, this may mean the 
 end of R. H. Forbes & Son. Think of it: it may 
 mean the end of the Business a business that has 
 been honorably conducted by my family for three 
 generations." 
 
 What such a catastrophe would mean to Forbes no 
 body knew better than Luke, but how the Municipal 
 Reform League could be concerned in it was beyond 
 guessing. 
 
 " Won t you try to begin at the beginning? " said 
 Luke. He was used to getting coherent stories in 
 preliminary interviews with incoherent witnesses, and 
 he fell into his professional manner. 
 
 " It s this way." Forbes turned his gray eyes 
 away and fumbled with an ornament on the mantel- 
 tree. " When you came into the Business, I had 
 several loans outstanding the Business had. They 
 were all well secured, and you know how solid the 
 concern s always been. With the money you put in 
 and the earnings, I was able to take up some of them, 
 but there were the improvements and extensions made 
 necessary by fresh competition and the new inven- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 207 
 
 tions and the machine-trust s raise of prices. Well, 
 I had to leave a loan outstanding at the East County 
 National." 
 
 " Yes," said Luke encouragingly. " How much 
 was it?" 
 
 " Two hundred and fifty thousand. It was a good 
 deal, I know, but, you see, when I negotiated it " 
 
 " Never mind the reasons now. What were its 
 terms?" 
 
 " It was a call-loan," said Forbes in a shaken 
 voice. 
 
 Luke s amazement conquered his reserve. 
 
 "What? And for two hundred and fifty thou 
 sand?" 
 
 " Yes. There was the competition. It was grow 
 ing hot. The Business " 
 
 " How did you ever arrange it? " 
 
 " I was surprised myself at the time to find it so 
 easy, but I was too glad to get it to ask questions. 
 Now, I wish I had. I believe the bank was influ 
 enced by some people that wanted to get us into trou 
 ble want to form a ready-made clothing trust." 
 
 " It s incredible ! " cried Luke. " Not one of the 
 agents that I had look into your business for me men 
 tioned this." 
 
 " I didn t know that, Huber." Forbes looked his 
 appeal. " I ask you to believe me." 
 
208 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " All right. It was my own fault. I should have 
 asked you more questions. What puzzles me is how 
 this loan was concealed." 
 
 " It was at the request of the bank. They said 
 it was so unusual that they didn t want it more widely 
 known than was absolutely necessary, and I agreed 
 because of the credit of the Business. Now I believe 
 it was all a trap set by the men that want to form the 
 trust." 
 
 Luke did not pause to waste reproaches over either 
 his own stupid blindness or Forbes s culpable rash 
 ness. He pressed forward: 
 
 "And now they re going to call the loan?" 
 
 Forbes bowed his head. 
 
 " And we can t meet it? " 
 
 " If if we tried, we could do it only by wreck 
 ing the Business." 
 
 " But we can go somewhere else. The East 
 County isn t the only bank in New York." 
 
 "That is what I thought. It s what I said." 
 Forbes was swallowing a sob. " I said it to Osser- 
 man that s the president I said it to him himself." 
 
 "Well?" persisted Luke. 
 
 Well "Forbes s eyes met Huber s " it wasn t 
 any use." 
 
 " Now, look here," said Luke. He put into his 
 voice a calm that he did not feel. " Try to tell me 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 209 
 
 just what happened. I can t advise you till I know 
 that, even if I m not the business-fool I seem to have 
 proved myself to be. First of all, Osserman sent 
 you some sort of word, didn t he? " 
 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 " It was a letter just a personal letter." 
 
 "When did you get it?" 
 
 " About eleven this morning." 
 
 " So then you went over to the bank? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And asked to see this man Osserman? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 u And what did he say?" 
 
 "Well," he said " I can t tell you exactly; he 
 was careful not to use definite words; but careful 
 to make his meaning clear." 
 
 "What was his meaning, then?" 
 
 " He said in effect that he understood you were 
 interested in our Business." 
 
 "What of it? That s what I want to know, 
 Forbes, What s my interest in your firm got to do 
 with your standing at the East County National?" 
 
 " Oh, he didn t say at first. At first he said he 
 understood we were not sound." 
 
 " So you told him he was mistaken and offered to 
 show the books? " 
 
210 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Of course I did." Forbes s chin shot upward. 
 " I told him that the Forbes firm was one of the old 
 est and " 
 
 " Yes, yes. And then he mentioned me. How did 
 I hurt the firm s standing?" 
 
 " He was really very plausible about that. I 
 must say, Huber, that he rather opened my eyes to a 
 phase of your political activities I hadn t before 
 thought of." 
 
 " What phase?" 
 
 " To be quite frank, he called your public utter 
 ances wild. He said they attacked credit and might 
 shake it. He even intimated that if you were elected, 
 you d go in for a course of action you had pledged 
 yourself to go in for one that would upset credit alto 
 gether. And that s true, Huber." Forbes gained a 
 certain confidence. " When you come to think of it, 
 the business interests of the city I mean the sound 
 conservative business interests ought not to be made 
 to suffer for the sins of the big financiers." 
 
 Luke recaptured his composure. His face re 
 laxed; he looked lazy and uninterested. 
 
 u So I suppose," he said, " that this banker asked 
 you to tell me to get out of the fight." 
 
 " Yes, but of course " 
 
 " Really, that s the highest testimony to the 
 League s strength that we ve had yet." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 211 
 
 " Yes, but, of course, I told him I couldn t do 
 that." 
 
 "What did he say then?" 
 
 " He said he was afraid the City Chamberlain 
 would withdraw all the city funds on deposit at the 
 East County if the bank kept on carrying a loan you 
 were interested in." 
 
 " And you took all this like a child? " 
 
 " I didn t. You ought to know me better than 
 that." 
 
 "What did you do?" 
 
 " I was indignant. I told you I was. I said I 
 would not have a loan from a concern that inter 
 fered with the political convictions of its creditors. 
 I said I would go somewhere else." 
 
 "Did you go?" 
 
 The sob returned to Forbes s throat. 
 
 "Yes, I did," he said; "and it was the most 
 humiliating experience of my career. When I 
 thought of the firm of R. H. Forbes & Son begging 
 credit, I could hardly bear it. But I went to the 
 Lexington National." 
 
 " They turned you down? " 
 
 " They listened very politely and said they would 
 consider the proposition." 
 
 " Well, then," said Luke, " you re crossing a 
 bridge before you come to it." 
 
212 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " No, I am not; for presently they sent over a 
 messenger with a note that was no more than an 
 insulting refusal." 
 
 " You gave up then? " 
 
 "No, I tried again. I tried Clement & Co." 
 Forbes seemed unable to conclude. 
 
 "And they?" urged Luke. 
 
 " They wouldn t consider it for a moment, 
 Huber." 
 
 Luke did not like to look at Forbes s suffering, but 
 he had to hear the end. 
 
 "Well?" he said. 
 
 Forbes flung out his hands. 
 
 " What more could I do? " he demanded. " If 
 it became known that the firm was going begging 
 yes, begging from bank to bank, what would hap 
 pen to our credit? I didn t dare to go anywhere 
 else. I Huber, I went back to Osserman and asked 
 him for time." 
 
 Luke sat down. He picked up a paper and made a 
 transparent pretense of glancing at it. 
 
 " Did he give you time? " 
 
 " He said he d give me a week." 
 
 " A whole week? " Luke tried to appear encour 
 aged. " That s six good working days. You can get 
 the money together in that time." 
 
 " Huber " Forbes came over to Luke and stood 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 213 
 
 above the newspaper " I ve told you what it would 
 do to our credit to try. But I ve come to the con 
 clusion that we could not get this money from any 
 bank in America." 
 
 " What do you mean? Not if we have security? " 
 
 " Not if we could offer the Metropolitan Life 
 Building for security. Not from any bank in 
 America." 
 
 Luke put down the paper. 
 
 " But that " He stopped a moment, 
 
 and then went on : " But there s only one group 
 of men in the country that could put up such a 
 wall." 
 
 " That," said Forbes simply, " is the group I 
 
 mean." 
 
 Luke s eyes were veiled. He rose and walked 
 across the room. Presently, over his shoulder, he 
 inquired sharply: 
 
 "What makes you think this?" 
 
 Forbes was frank: 
 
 " I don t know. I can t tell you. A hundred little 
 things. But I am sure." 
 
 " I thought you said something about a clothing 
 trust." 
 
 " I did. It was the same crowd. Now they have 
 some additional reason. Oh, I couldn t doubt it. 
 It was behind every word Osserman said. It was 
 
2i 4 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 standing back of his words, but it was on tiptoe, 
 looking over them." 
 
 Luke turned and came up to Forbes. He was 
 quite calm again. 
 
 " I know what you want me to do," he said. 
 
 " Yes," said Forbes: it was his way of saying: 
 1 You have read my meaning, and I will stand by 
 
 it." 
 
 Well, I can t do it." 
 
 Luke spoke quietly. It hurt him to have to say 
 this thing. 
 
 " I was afraid that was the way you d take it," 
 said Forbes. 
 
 " How else could I take it? " 
 
 " You know what it means to me, Huber? " 
 
 1 Yes. I know what the firm means to you, but 
 I can t do what you ask. You want me to give up 
 what I think is right for the sake of saving your firm. 
 I can t do it." 
 
 " It s your firm, too, Huber." 
 
 " Then I ve got a right to hurt it." 
 
 " I m not asking you to do anything wrong; I m 
 only asking you to wait." 
 
 " That s just what I can t do," said Luke. 
 
 Forbes would hear no more. He twitched with 
 a spasm of weak rage. His voice rang high. 
 
 " You re a fool ! " he cried. " You talk as if I 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 215 
 
 were trying to compound a felony with you. What 
 am I asking? I m only asking you to hold off for 
 this campaign. I m only asking you to stand by the 
 man that took you into his business my Business, the 
 one that my grandfather founded and my father 
 handed down to me. Haven t / stood by you? 
 Didn t I trust you? I ve kept out of all these big 
 combinations, but I know how they work nobody 
 can help knowing these days and when I took you 
 in, how was I to be sure you weren t a dummy repre 
 senting somebody else, and so on, higher and higher 
 up, till the trail ended with just these same men? 
 
 But no, I trusted you. I trusted you, and now 
 
 You ve no right to humiliate me ! You ve no right 
 to wreck my Business! Do you know what you re 
 doing? You re making a beggar out of my daughter 
 out of the girl you told me last night you wanted 
 to be your wife ! " 
 
 Luke had been expecting this. The muscles 
 about his mouth tightened, but all that he said 
 was: 
 
 " I suppose you have spoken to her? " 
 
 " Yes, I have. Of course I have ! " cried Forbes. 
 
 " And what does she say? " 
 
 Forbes tried to take Luke s hand. 
 
 " Why do you act this way ? " he pleaded. " Why 
 can t you wait? They haven t nominated you yet. 
 
216 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Withdraw your name. That won t hurt the League, 
 and it will only make you all the stronger for the 
 next time; and by the next time we ll be ready to meet 
 all opposition. This time you can t be elected even if 
 you are nominated. Why do you want to jump into 
 the fire?" 
 
 "What," insisted Luke, "does Betty say?" 
 She was at the door. She came in as he asked 
 the question. She looked from her lover to her 
 father, and then she ran to her father and put her 
 head on his shoulder. 
 
 6. Luke took a short breath. He wanted to 
 leave them. He felt that he could not face much 
 more. He wondered what Forbes had said to her 
 and how much she had heard of what Forbes and he 
 were saying. 
 
 " Betty! " said her father. He patted her head. 
 Luke thought that the caressing hand looked old. 
 "Betty!" 
 
 She spoke with her face hidden : 
 "Oh, Luke, you wouldn t hurt father?" 
 " It isn t that, Betty." Luke was angry. The girl 
 was behaving as he thought that a girl placed as she 
 was ought to behave, and he loved her no less for 
 that, but he was angry at her father s weakness in 
 putting her in such a position. " It isn t that, Betty. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 217 
 
 IVe got to do it. You don t understand these things. 
 You can t understand them." 
 
 " She knows that / understand them," Forbes in 
 terposed. 
 
 "What of it?" challenged Luke. "Betty, I ve 
 got to do what I think s right. You wouldn t have 
 me go against everything I believe, would you ? You 
 wouldn t have me do something I thought was 
 wrong? " 
 
 Betty half raised her head: 
 
 " But it can t be wrong not to ruin us! " 
 
 Luke turned his words on Forbes. 
 
 " I ll withdraw from the company," he said. 
 
 " I couldn t buy you out," Forbes answered. He 
 bit his lip; shame colored his cheeks. " And if you 
 sold to anybody else it would be sure to be letting in 
 our enemies. Even the mere report that you wanted 
 to sell would wreck us, coming on top of those bank 
 interviews." 
 
 Luke knew Forbes was right. 
 
 " Betty," he said, " a lot of men that believe in me 
 are going to offer me this nomination. It s a nomina 
 tion to a place that makes its holder an officer of the 
 court, an officer of justice, yet the plain truth is your 
 father wants me to let these other men s money, or the 
 power of their money, buy me off from doing justice 
 to them." 
 
2i 8 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Nonsense ! " Forbes was strengthened by his 
 daughter s meed of comfort. " You won t be elected 
 if you are nominated." 
 
 " They seem to think I will," said Luke. 
 
 " And somebody else," urged Betty, " could do 
 just as well against them, Luke." 
 
 li That s not the point, Betty. It s a personal ques 
 tion, a question of personal morals; it s a matter of 
 my own conscience." 
 
 She turned until she stood no longer between the 
 two men. She stood at her father s side. Her cheeks 
 were damp from weeping, but her eyes shone. 
 
 " But think, Luke," she said. " You are young. 
 Father s twice as old, and he must know more. He 
 must be right. He wouldn t ask you to do anything 
 that was wrong, would you, father? " 
 
 Forbes shook his head. 
 
 " I know it s a lot for you to have to give up," she 
 went on; " but you ought to be willing to give up a 
 lot if if you " 
 
 " If I love you?" asked Luke. 
 
 She met him. 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 " She s right, Luke," nodded her father. 
 
 * Then," pursued Luke the tone was his laziest 
 " what about her love for me? Isn t it to " 
 
 Betty interrupted. She had taken Forbes s hand: 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 219 
 
 " You re not going to make me choose between 
 you and father, are you?" she pleaded. 
 
 " I tell you," said Luke, " it isn t anything of that 
 sort, Betty. I ve got to do what I m going to do. 
 You haven t any choice, and neither have I. You 
 might almost say it s a religious question. It s like 
 saving my soul. I ve got to do it; I ve just got to; 
 just because it s the one right thing, I ve got to do it. 
 Why " his manner grew tense " you don t know; 
 even your father doesn t know. This North Bridge 
 wreck, with all those people killed and wounded: 
 that s what these men did, these men that are trying 
 to keep me out of the district-attorneyship." 
 
 "The North Bridge wreck?" snapped Forbes. 
 " That was on the M. & N. What are you talking 
 about, Huber?" 
 
 Luke realized that he had gone further than the 
 limits of his promise of temporary silence concern 
 ing the letters, but he was too bitterly tried not to go 
 still further. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I mean just that. Everybody 
 knows the N. Y. & N. J. crowd own the majority of 
 the stock in the M. & N., and you know it, too. 
 What s more, this wreck was their direct fault. I 
 can prove that and I mean to. That s why they re 
 after me: I mean to prove it if they don t square 
 things. And so they re afraid of me." 
 
220 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Ridiculous ! " said Forbes. " That s just the 
 trouble with you, Huber: you re going about making 
 wild, unfounded statements like this." 
 
 " I ought not to tell even you two," Luke an 
 swered; u but the fact is, I have letters written by 
 one of these men that will substantiate every word 
 I say." 
 
 " You mean they ll show these people owned the 
 road?" 
 
 " Practically, and ordered the poor rails that caused 
 that wreck." 
 
 "Absurd: they couldn t do that. They didn t 
 operate the road. This sort of thing is what is up 
 setting legitimate business: a few men going on the 
 way you are. I don t think these people at the 
 top are any better than they should be I ve often 
 said so to you but you can t go around calling them 
 murderers. That s ridiculous." 
 
 Before Luke could reply, Betty again shifted the 
 issue. 
 
 " Luke, you won t do it? " she appealed. " You ll 
 give it up for father s sake?" 
 
 He started to speak, but she dropped her father s 
 hand and came to him with hers upraised. 
 
 " No," she said; " don t tell me now. Don t say 
 anything now. Don t speak. You ll only be sorry. 
 You re hurt and angry. Of course, you are. Go 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 221 
 
 away. Wait. Go away just for to-night and think 
 it over, and come back to-morrow." Her hand 
 crept into his. " I know it s awfully hard for you 
 to give it all up, even for a few years. I know what 
 it means to you. Don t think I don t know, Luke. 
 
 But " She looked into his face. " Please, 
 
 dear?" 
 
 His face was set. 
 
 " Good-by," he said. 
 
 " You ll be back to-morrow? " 
 
 He freed himself. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " Good-night." 
 
 7. It was simply that he could not stay any 
 longer. He left the house with his mind made up; 
 he would not withdraw from the fight for the district- 
 attorneyship. To keep his word, he would go back 
 to see her next day, but he would go back only to 
 end what he had not the heart to end to-night. 
 
 The thing had ended itself. This was the con 
 clusion of all his chances for Betty. They were over. 
 
 He loved her. He went away from her with the 
 certainty that nothing which life might henceforth 
 rob him of could be the equal of this loss. 
 
 Yet he did not blame her. Brought up as he had 
 been, he believed that her attitude was the inevitable 
 one and the right. He had ventured that single 
 
222 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 question about the test of her love for him, but he 
 felt that it was an unfair question. Until a girl mar 
 ried, her first duty was toward her parents. His own 
 duty and Betty s duty clashed. There was no pos 
 sibility of compromise. Forbes was a weakling, but, 
 in cleaving to Forbes, Betty, Luke felt, did the only 
 thing that she rightly could do. 
 
 He wondered what would come of that side of his 
 life which she had gone out of. As much as might 
 be, he would crowd its borders with the activities 
 of his professional and political work, but some 
 thing of the space would remain: it belonged. He 
 was still black with the despair of his loss when he 
 turned into Thirty-ninth Street and saw, standing 
 there as if waiting for him, the girl that looked like 
 Joan of Arc. 
 
 " I ve been waitin for you," she said. 
 
 Her cheeks and mouth were not painted to-night, 
 and their lines were softer; they spoke only of what 
 she had suffered and not of what she had inflicted. 
 Her eyes were wet with tears; her underlip quivered. 
 
 " I thought I told you last night," began Luke. 
 
 " I know," she said. " An then I wanted what 
 you thought. But not now, not to-night." She spoke 
 rapidly as if determined that he should hear her out 
 before he could escape. " Don t mind the way I 
 talk. I just kind of talk that way because it gets 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 223 
 
 like a habit. What I want s help. I m in trouble. 
 Honest to God I am." 
 
 She was surely in trouble, and she was beautiful. 
 
 " You mean " His hand went to his pocket. 
 
 " No, not money," she said. u It ain t that. It s 
 about my sister. They ve got her; my fellow has. 
 Listen." She seized his wrist. " Will you listen a 
 minute, please? Here, if you don t want no one to 
 see you in this here apartment house, come on over 
 here toward Six Av nue. They ve got her: my kid 
 sister I " 
 
 Luke looked at the woman. He could see nothing 
 but sincerity. He was not afraid of an attempt at 
 robbery, and he could think of no other reason for 
 her request except the one she gave. 
 
 " Yes, I ll go with you," he said. 
 
 She hurried him into the darker street. 
 
 "Listen," she said: "I m in the business. You 
 know that. I don t let on to be nothin much. But 
 I ve got a kid sister that lives home ; an she s straight, 
 Jenny is. Well, I was talkin to her to-night when 
 my fellow came up, an he sent me on an errand we 
 was all standin right over on that corner an when 
 I come back, they was gone, both of them an I 
 know he s got her in here in Pearl s Six Av nue 
 place." 
 
 " How do you know that? " 
 
224 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " I guessed it, an then I rang the bell an one o 
 the girls told me I was on, an then Pearl came 
 down an yelled for the bouncer an they throwed 
 me out." 
 
 In the lamplight of the street her face looked like 
 the face of an innocent girl. 
 
 " Why didn t you call a policeman?" asked 
 Luke. 
 
 u Aw, you know them. Pearl stands in." 
 
 " But they d have got your sister, anyhow." 
 
 " Not the cop on this beat. I wouldn t give up 
 to him the other night, and he run me in." 
 
 They stopped at a narrow door. There was a 
 shop on one side of it and a saloon on the other. 
 
 " This is the place," said the girl. " Pearl s joint s 
 over the store." 
 
 u You want me," asked Luke, " to go in and bring 
 your sister out? " 
 
 The girl assented. " She s only a kid. I know 
 what I am all right; but she s only a kid, an she s 
 straight; she s always been straight. You won t have 
 no trouble. They re always scared of anybody like 
 you. You ll do it, won t you? " She leaned toward 
 him. " You ain t afraid?" 
 
 The infamy burned him. 
 
 " Afraid ? " he said slowly. " No, I m not afraid." 
 He rang the bell. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 225 
 
 The girl wrung her hands. 
 
 " You re good. You re awful good. Mamie ll 
 owe just everything to you." 
 
 "Who will?" asked Luke. 
 
 " Mamie. That s my sister s name. She ll " 
 
 " I see," said Luke. 
 
 The door opened. A negro servant stood in the 
 darkened hallway before them. Luke and the girl 
 stepped inside. 
 
 Wait a minute," said Luke quietly. 
 
 He brushed the servant s hand from the knob. He 
 saw the two women standing open-mouthed, but be 
 fore words came to them, he stepped back into the 
 street, closing the door behind him. The girl s slip 
 about her sister s name had saved him. 
 
 8. He was glad to be in the light. He hurried 
 across the street with no purpose but that of getting 
 as quickly and as far from the house as possible. He 
 was escaping. 
 
 For a minute or more he did not know what it 
 was that he was escaping from. Then he glanced 
 back toward the doorway. 
 
 Three policemen were entering the doorway. As 
 Luke reached the corner, a gong clanged and a 
 patrol-wagon turned into Sixth Avenue. 
 
 A messenger-boy, who had been standing on the 
 
226 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 corner, began to trot after the wagon. Luke stopped 
 him. 
 
 "What s the matter?" asked Luke. 
 The boy turned to him a leering face : 
 " It s a raid, I guess. I knovved there was some- 
 thin doin when I seen that patrol standin over on 
 Thirty-nint Street." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 i. Luke wanted to dismiss the episode of the raid 
 as a coincidence. He tried to argue that the girl had 
 been a stool-pigeon employed to get him into the 
 Sixth Avenue house solely for the purpose of robbery 
 by confederates waiting for her there. Schemes of 
 that sort were common enough in New York and 
 succeeded in spite of their clumsiness; the more often 
 one was reported in the papers and brought to the 
 attention of the papers, the readier a certain portion 
 of the public was to succumb to the next attempts. 
 Luke wanted to believe that the appearance of the 
 police might have proved welcome enough for him. 
 
 It was the news Forbes had given him that weighed 
 against any such supposition. If his enemies were 
 at work to ruin him financially, they might well be 
 at work to break him and bring him to terms by means 
 of a scandal in the police courts. It was all very well 
 to say that the attack on the Forbes company ought 
 to suffice them: Luke began to feel that these foes 
 were the kind who want certainty enough to use more 
 than one method of securing it. He had heard of a 
 
 227 
 
228 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 rebellious city official thus captured in a raid on a 
 gambling-house. That man, he had been told, was 
 released from the police station only upon signing a 
 compromising paper, which was thereafter held by his 
 political superiors as a bond to assure his future 
 obedience to their wishes. Luke saw how a similar 
 course could have been followed in regard to him 
 self. 
 
 What worried him most, however, was, of course, 
 the break with Betty and the difficulties in which he 
 had innocently entangled her father. He was sin 
 cerely sorry for Forbes, whose shortcomings were 
 forgivable because of worship of tradition, and the 
 loss of Betty meant a descent into the pit of despair. 
 
 It was early morning before a sudden hope came 
 to Luke. He had lain sleepless for hours, not trying 
 to solve his financial riddle, but only contemplating 
 its apparent impossibility of solution, and he had 
 turned from that to the machinations of his enemies 
 with genuine relief. This time the change must have 
 rested his resourcefulness, for, in the midst of tearing 
 at the sticky strands in which Stein and the men behind 
 Stein had enmeshed him, the name of Ruysdael shot 
 into his mind as the name of one who could and might 
 advance the money to save Forbes and bring back 
 Betty. He would go to Ruysdael at the earliest pos 
 sible moment. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 229 
 
 With that thought, he could dismiss all memory 
 of the raid in Sixth Avenue. Almost immediately he 
 fell asleep. 
 
 2. The next day was not without its fresh warn 
 ings from the powers that opposed him, and the first 
 of these came from the headquarters of the Municipal 
 Reform League itself. Luke thought it better taste 
 for him to remain away from the headquarters while 
 the formalities of the nomination were gone through 
 with by the committee that was then to make its ticket 
 regular by means of petition. But it was too early in 
 the day to call on Ruysdael, so he remained in his 
 rooms at the Arapahoe, and here, at eleven o clock, 
 Venable telephoned him. 
 
 " The meeting is over, 7 said Venable. 
 
 " Good," said Luke. " The ticket is the one agreed 
 on?" 
 
 " Yes. You have my congratulations, Mr. 
 Huber." 
 
 " Thank you." Luke thought that the tone of his 
 supporter was somewhat strained. " I hope every 
 thing went off smoothly," he added. 
 
 " Well, no," said Venable, " it didn t. It is all 
 right now, but I am bound to tell you that a little 
 opposition had developed against you. We overcame 
 it, but it was there and from some men that we had 
 
230 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 every reason to believe would support you. I don t 
 understand it, Mr. Huber; it was mysterious." 
 
 " I m coming right down," said Luke. 
 
 At headquarters he learned little more. The com 
 mittee had met with no indication of approaching 
 trouble. Save for two or three persons whose means 
 of livelihood were the practical organization of re 
 form political movements, nearly all the members 
 were business men, in small but sound industries, each 
 of unquestioned probity. The candidates slated for 
 every other post were accepted as a matter of course; 
 but when Luke s name was brought up by Venable for 
 the district-attorneyship, one of the politicians and 
 several of the business men opposed acceptance. 
 They were dogged, but vague. The politician at last 
 spoke of Luke as having courted too much animosity 
 from the upper regions of finance. 
 
 " He has talked too wild," said this one. " He 
 oughtn t to have threatened till after election. Of 
 course, I know what he s got to do if he s elected, 
 but he needn t have begun it beforehand. I haven t 
 got anything against him, but he s shown his hand too 
 soon, and so he won t make a good candidate." 
 
 The business men spoke much as Forbes had 
 spoken. The Municipal Reform League was a radi 
 cal organization, but it ought to be radical within rea 
 son. Huber s public utterances had been too sweep- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 231 
 
 ingly radical. They feared him; they thought him 
 too hot-headed. He was still too young. In pursu 
 ing Big Business, he was sure to trample smaller, 
 legitimate business; he would upset credit. 
 
 The majority of the committee was loyal to Luke 
 and had its way. Luke received the nomination, but 
 such dissenters as were converted came to him half 
 heartedly, and two of the timorous business men 
 withdrew from the organization. 
 
 " Then, there is Yeates, too," said Venable. " He 
 wasn t at the meeting, but he telephoned he was com 
 ing here to see you about this time, and I gathered 
 that he isn t in a particularly pleasant frame of mind." 
 
 Luke thought of Venable s long years of battle for 
 reform. 
 
 " You know what s at the back of all this? " he 
 said. 
 
 " I think I do," said Venable. 
 
 " I mean : you know who s back of it? " 
 
 " I can guess. Your published attack was rather 
 clear, Mr. Huber." 
 
 Then, are you and the League prepared to go 
 right ahead?" 
 
 " Yes, we are." 
 
 "You, too? You individually?" 
 
 Venable s old eyes glittered. 
 
 " I always suspected these people," he said. " I 
 
232 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 always felt sure they were against us. They were 
 never so strongly against us as they are now, but their 
 being so much more against us now only makes 
 me the more certain that what we are doing is 
 right." 
 
 " They have a good deal of power, Mr. Venable." 
 
 " I know that better than you do, my boy; but they 
 can t hurt me personally, if that is what you mean. 
 What little money I have comes from the rents of an 
 uptown apartment house. It s in a good neighbor 
 hood and full of steady people. Nobody can take 
 that away from me. It isn t as if I drew my income 
 from bonds, but if I did, and if these people could 
 ruin me " he took Luke s hand " I should go right 
 ahead." 
 
 They had been talking in Luke s office. Shortly 
 after Venable left it, Yeates was shown in. The 
 young man was excited. 
 
 u Look here, Huber," he said. U A little bit s 
 good, but you re going pretty damned far." 
 
 He dragged a chair toward Luke s desk, turned it 
 about, and sat down astride of it with his arms folded 
 across its back. 
 
 A smile twitched at Luke s mouth. 
 
 "What way-station do you want to get off at?" 
 he inquired. 
 
 " I don t want you to make a monkey out of the 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 233 
 
 League," said Yeates. " I ve been reading over your 
 letters and interviews and things, and I think you 
 ought to realize that this is a reform organization 
 and not a bunch of Anarchists." 
 
 " You re a slow reader, Yeates. Haven t you been 
 hearing these things talked over, too?" 
 
 Yeates blushed, but he did not flinch. 
 
 "Well, what if I have? The people I ve heard 
 talking are the people you ve been slamming, and I 
 want to tell you that those people are the backbone 
 of this country." 
 
 " I haven t mentioned any names." 
 
 " Oh, don t think I m a fool, Huber, and don t 
 think these people are fools, either. Everybody 
 knows. What do you do it for? It won t catch any 
 votes, if that s what you want." 
 
 " I rather wanted to do some good." 
 
 " Good? Good?" Yeates laughed angrily. 
 " What are you talking about? You re talking as if 
 these men were pirates. You re talking like one of 
 those fellows that make speeches on a soap-box on 
 the corner. It s all right to fight police-graft, and 
 it s all right to run the crooks out of town that s 
 what the League s for and why I m for the League 
 but I m not going to keep on with an organization 
 that s mixing up the biggest men in America with 
 that sort of cattle. I won t stand for having my per- 
 
234 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 sonal friends called thieves. I can t stand for it, 
 and I won t! " 
 
 Luke looked at his watch. He rose. 
 
 " I have to be uptown in half a hour," he 
 said. 
 
 " But see here " Yeates s chair clattered to 
 
 the floor as Yeates sprang up. 
 
 " When this nomination was offered to me," said 
 Luke, " you were present. Do you remember some 
 thing you said something about outside influences 
 and so on? " 
 
 "Oh, rot! Who s talking about outside influ 
 ences?" 
 
 " I am. The nomination was given me along with 
 certain promises. I ve accepted it. I mean to act on 
 the strength of those promises." 
 
 " You mean you re going crazy." 
 
 " Then, the League s going crazy, too. As the 
 only sane man in it, I m afraid you won t find your 
 self in congenial company, Yeates. You d better get 
 out." 
 
 " Get out? " Yeates could scarcely credit his ears. 
 
 " Get out," Luke repeated. 
 
 " I like that! " shouted Yeates. " This is a nice 
 reform party, this is ! Anti-boss ! Why, you re more 
 of a boss than Tim Heney ever dreamed of being." 
 
 Luke had not looked at the matter that way. He 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 235 
 
 saw now that he was indeed using boss-methods, 
 but he also saw that boss-methods were unavoid 
 able. 
 
 " This League," he said, " is pledged to a course 
 of action you don t agree with, so you can t con 
 sistently remain in it." 
 
 "I will! I will get out!" cried Yeates. "I d 
 like to know who had more to do with this League : 
 you or me. Why, you only came in the other day, 
 and it was me and my friends got you in. But I ll 
 get out all right : you needn t worry about that. I m 
 through." 
 
 He left the room. It was a few weeks later when 
 Luke heard of Yeates s engagement to the girl whose 
 diamond pendant Luke had admired the first time 
 that he went to the Ruysdaels house. That, Huber 
 knew, was indeed coincidence, but the previous con 
 nection of Yeates with the Municipal Reform League 
 served the more to shake Luke s confidence in the 
 radicalism of some of its remaining members. 
 
 3. His mission to Ruysdael was far more satis 
 factory than his talk with Yeates. Luke did not tell 
 the millionaire the circumstances that made it neces 
 sary for R. H. Forbes & Son to borrow money, nor, 
 as things fell out, did he have to explain why the 
 Puysdael estate, and not a bank, was wanted as a 
 
236 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 creditor. He went into details only concerning the 
 nature of the securities that Forbes could offer; he 
 was honest about the chances of the business, which 
 he believed to be good, and he was no more pressing 
 in his request than he thought it wise to be. 
 
 " So," said Ruysdael, smiling, " you find some use 
 for predatory wealth, after all?" 
 
 Luke remembered Jack Porcellis s assertion that 
 the Ruysdaels were in some way connected with the 
 forces now opposed to the loan, but the connection, 
 if it existed, must be slight. The Ruysdael money 
 was not in a form that could well be hurt by Luke s 
 enemies; and Ruysdael, though subsequent pressure 
 might well stop him from further aid, was the sort 
 of man who, having gone into such a venture as the 
 present one, would not undo anything he had already 
 done. 
 
 " I don t consider you one of the pirates," said 
 Luke. 
 
 u No? Well, I m not active, perhaps," Ruysdael 
 reassured him. " I was just thinking you rather 
 strong in some of your public utterances. There s no 
 use in attacks unless they can win, you know." 
 
 The swarthy man was interested in Huber s re 
 quest, though solely on Huber s own account. Ruys 
 dael felt that he had been in a measure responsible 
 for Luke s investment, and he was anxious to protect 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 237 
 
 that investment so long as the protection was real 
 and not a mere tossing of good money after bad. 
 He took Luke at once to the offices of the Ruysdael 
 estate. 
 
 There it was clear that, whatever influence Luke s 
 enemies might have, they had issued no orders against 
 him. Perhaps they had not thought of the possibility 
 of his turning in this direction, perhaps they had 
 meant to do no more than frighten him by their 
 show of power with the banks. In any case, old 
 Herbert Croy, the manager of the estate, was amiable 
 and suggested that Forbes be sent for without delay. 
 
 It was a moment of triumph for Luke. He met 
 Forbes in one of the outer offices of the suite used for 
 the administration of the Ruysdael estate, and he was 
 not entirely sorry to find Forbes contrite. 
 
 " Is it it s really true? " asked Forbes. 
 
 He had been having a bad time. His face was 
 drawn, and the feverish hand that grasped Luke s was 
 trembling. 
 
 " Yes," said Luke. " I think I ve induced Ruys 
 dael to advance the money." 
 
 Forbes looked away. 
 
 u I m sorry very sorry for my attitude last night, 
 Huber; and yet, you must have seen " 
 
 " That s all right. Forget it." 
 
 " I know. You re good. But I do want you to 
 
238 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 understand. And you have turned out to be the real 
 business man of the pair of us, after all! " 
 
 " So it seems," said Luke dryly. 
 
 Forbes missed the reflection on his own ability. 
 
 " Oh, but you have ! Huber, you ve you ve saved 
 the Business ! " 
 
 " No; that s up to you. I ve only made it possible 
 for you to get the money. You have to finish con 
 vincing these people; so buck up." 
 
 " I will, I will." 
 
 " And they ll probably turn in and fight us in the 
 market." 
 
 " We ll see about that." All of Forbes s courage 
 had come back to him. " Let them try. Huber, I 
 can t thank you enough. I never can." 
 
 " Then don t try to." Luke took Forbes by the 
 arm and led him to the door behind which Ruysdael 
 and Croy were waiting. 
 
 But Forbes felt that there was more to be said. 
 " It was splendid of you," he continued, as Luke 
 drew him forward. 
 
 " Was it? You overlook the fact that I stood to 
 lose a little money of my own if nothing else ! " 
 
 " I did. I actually did! By Jove, I don t see how 
 you can forgive me, Huber." 
 
 Luke s answer was to push open the door. Within 
 half an hour the interview was concluded. Forbes 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 239 
 
 had deposited his securities and received a certified 
 check. It was all so simple that, while Luke was 
 wondering why he had not thought of it twelve hours 
 before, Forbes was saying to himself: 
 
 " How was it / didn t think of it last night? " 
 
 4. Luke intended to go from the Ruysdael offices 
 to those of the League, but as he parted from Forbes 
 on the street after the loan had been secured, some 
 thing happened that changed his plans. At the foot 
 of the elevator-shaft of the building, he noticed a 
 little man leaning against the marble-paneled wall : 
 the man was an unostentatious fellow, commonplace 
 as to both face and clothes, but Luke thought he had 
 seen the figure before. 
 
 He passed with Forbes through the revolving 
 doors of the office-building and walked to the curb. 
 He glanced back and saw the commonplace man com 
 ing through the doorway behind him. Then he re 
 membered : when he left the Arapahoe that morning, 
 he saw this man walking down the other side of 
 Thirty-ninth Street. He had thought nothing of it at 
 the time, but now his experience of detectives told 
 him that this man bore the marks of the 
 detective. 
 
 Luke called a taxicab. The man, he saw, prepared 
 to call another. 
 
2 4 o THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " I ll try to keep my promise to see Betty to-night, 7 
 said Luke to Forbes. 
 
 " You must," said Forbes. His gratitude, though 
 not so hot as it had been, was still warm. 
 
 " I ll try. There s a lot to be done politically, 
 you know. But I ll try." 
 
 They shook hands. Forbes started away. Luke 
 gave his chauffeur that address in Wall Street at 
 which he had issued his orders to the men who were 
 now fighting him. 
 
 He was disappointed; the person whom he sought 
 was not there. Luke doubted the statement of the 
 doorkeeper, but could get no other. He went to the 
 offices of Hallett and to those of Rivington, but with 
 no better luck. At each descent from his taxi, he 
 caught sight of the detective and knew that the detec 
 tive meant to be seen. Then he sought the quarters 
 of Stein, Falconridge, Falconridge & Perry, and was 
 immediately admitted to the presence of the head of 
 that firm. 
 
 The Judge sat at his handsome desk, a telephone 
 at one elbow and a vase of Abel Chatney roses at the 
 other. His plentiful white hair and his smooth frock- 
 coat still potent, still spread around him the aura of 
 dignity. He rose slowly as Luke came in and bowed 
 with magisterial calm. 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Huber?" he said pleas- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 241 
 
 antly. " I am glad to see you very glad, in 
 deed. 1 
 
 He resumed his chair. Luke took a chair close by. 
 
 " The papers," pursued the Judge, " tell me that 
 you are open to congratulations. You have mine." 
 
 " Thank you," said Luke. He stretched his legs. 
 " Yes, I got the nomination. There was a little oppo 
 sition, but I got it." 
 
 " Opposition? " The Judge raised his white eye 
 brows. " Hum ! Well, of course, Mr. Huber, you 
 had to expect that in the circumstances." 
 
 " What were the circumstances, Judge? " 
 
 Stein shook his head and smiled benignantly. 
 
 " There you go," he said. " You will insist on 
 flattering me with your assumptions of my omnis 
 
 cience." 
 
 " But not of your omnipotence, Judge; for I did 
 get the nomination. What were the circumstances? " 
 
 The Judge still smiled: 
 
 " You can t expect to hurt the more important 
 business interests without hurting the lesser ones; and 
 the lesser dislike being hurt even more than the 
 greater, Mr. Huber." 
 
 " I gathered that you might think so." 
 
 This time the Judge s smile was a song without 
 words. 
 
 " Very well," said the younger man. " As I say, 
 
242 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 I overcame the opposition inside the League. I be 
 lieve I can overcome the same opposition at the 
 polls." 
 
 " I hope so," Stein answered. " But it is a pity 
 that you have not more powerful backing." 
 
 " I have a very active following at any rate." 
 
 " It will require a great deal of activity to over 
 come the prejudices of the majority." 
 
 " Yes, but I m not talking about the activity of the 
 voters. I am talking about the active following I 
 am having from my apartments to my office, and 
 from my office wherever else I go." 
 
 Judge Stein leaned over to smell the roses on his 
 desk. When he looked up, his firm mouth seemed 
 innocent. He offered the vase to Luke. 
 
 " Aren t they beautiful? " he asked. 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 " I often think it is such a pity that they haven t 
 more perfume. What they have is good, but it is not 
 a great deal. What we gain in form, we lose in 
 scent. The law of compensation, I suppose." 
 
 " I know this detective had orders to let me see he 
 was following me." 
 
 The Judge put down the vase. 
 
 " I am sorry you don t care for roses," he said. 
 " Yes, Mr. Huber, I dare say you are followed. 
 You are fighting the Democratic police force and 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 243 
 
 the Republican District- Attorney s office; they both 
 have detectives attached to them, and I have heard 
 that they frequently use their detectives to watch their 
 political rivals. You are fighting the Progressive or 
 ganization, too, and they could use private detectives. 
 I quite agree with you that it isn t pleasant." 
 
 " This fellow isn t on the job to watch me. He s 
 only used to frighten me. I m not easily frightened, 
 Judge." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 " No. If I had been, I d have turned tail when your 
 friends tried to ruin a business I am interested in, or 
 when they tried to have me caught in a police-raid." 
 Luke spoke as if he were mentioning incidents in the 
 lives of people dead these thousand years. " The 
 raiders didn t find me, as you, of course, know. 
 What you don t know is that the business move has 
 failed just as badly." 
 
 If he had not known it, the Judge s face betrayed 
 no surprise. 
 
 " Really, Mr. Huber, I told you at our last inter 
 view that I had no professional interest in this mat 
 ter." 
 
 " You admitted that the people back of all this 
 were your friends." 
 
 " I said that I was a friend of certain persons." 
 
 " Then, you might as well say now that your 
 
244 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 friends intend to prevent my election and that they ll 
 use any means to do it." 
 
 " Don t get excited, Mr. Huber." The Judge s 
 right hand waved a deliberate protest against Luke s 
 violent language. " Of course, I say nothing of the 
 sort. What I do say is that you must understand that 
 your own plan of action is bound to alienate the vot 
 ers. There are more people interested in this election 
 than you and me more even than my friends. A 
 great many people don t want to see you elected 
 District- Attorney. There are the business men, there 
 are the police, and there are the people of the under 
 world. You have been reckless enough to make no 
 ethical distinctions. You lump the good with the 
 bad, and attack everybody. Well, you must not be 
 surprised at the result." 
 
 Luke kept to his low key. 
 
 " I only came here to tell you that I couldn t be 
 scared." 
 
 "Why to me?" 
 
 " Perhaps just because I like to talk to you, Judge." 
 
 The Judge bowed a sincere acknowledgment. 
 
 " I have already told you," he said, " that I think 
 you could go far if you were cooler. Now you are 
 confusing possible legitimate influence I say pos 
 sible, not certain with physical attack." 
 
 " They ve both seemed probable, Judge." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 245 
 
 " The former may be. As to the latter well, like 
 most young enthusiasts, you have forgotten that elec 
 tions go by majorities, and that the majorities are 
 controlled by the lower forces of society. That is the 
 one flaw in our republican system, and nothing but so 
 cial evolution, generations of free education, will 
 cure it. You have not only very wrongly assailed 
 legitimate business; you have quite properly threat 
 ened to close to the criminal classes their chief sources 
 of revenue. It is their livelihood against yours. My 
 friends can have nothing in common with these peo 
 ple. We cannot control them. You must know 
 that." 
 
 Luke shrugged his shoulders. Stein continued: 
 
 " As a politician and a lawyer, you must have 
 counted on the opposition of the criminal classes when 
 you began your campaign. If you did not " the 
 Judge bent his head to the roses " well, I don t want 
 to alarm you, but if I were in your place, I should 
 leave the fight." 
 
 Luke got up. 
 
 "The alternative?" he inquired. 
 
 The Judge did not answer. He merely looked at 
 Luke. 
 
 " I won t take it," said Luke. 
 
 " I tell you again, that we have nothing to do with 
 the forces that seem to worry you most." 
 
246 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " I know you say so. Well, we haven t got mucH 
 further than at our last talk, have we?" 
 
 " At that talk, Mr. Huber, I said to you that you 
 could help yourself, your party, the public good " 
 
 " If I d do what you wanted? I won t. I merely 
 thought that if I told you you d failed so far, you 
 might do what / asked." 
 
 The Judge sadly shook his head. 
 
 " If you would only listen to reason! " 
 
 " I ll wait for the month and not a day longer. 
 Meanwhile, I m not the kind that s easy scared. 
 Nothing you can do you, and your friends, or any 
 body hired by your friends will stop me." 
 
 The Judge stood up. 
 
 " I am afraid you will be stopped," he said. 
 
 " Try it," said Luke. " Good-by." 
 
 11 Good-day, Mr. Huber," Stein replied. " I shall 
 always be glad to have a call from you. I am inter 
 ested in your career more genuinely interested than 
 you suppose." 
 
 5. That night it was Betty who came to the door 
 when Luke rang the bell. She ran to it. 
 
 " Luke," she cried, u father told me ! I knew you 
 would find a way out. And, oh, Luke, I don t believe, 
 in the end, I could have given you up, even if you 
 hadn t found one ! " 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Luke had been lied to at the offices of Hallett and 
 at those of Rivington, but at the first office at which 
 he had called, he was told the truth : the stout man, 
 with the bright, short-sighted eyes and the pointed 
 teeth was not at work that day. He was not at work 
 for several days, and breaths of rumors, tremulous, 
 expectant, began to shake the threads which centered 
 at his working-place. 
 
 The business of that place proceeded with its usual 
 regularity and speed. Conover, promoted to the post 
 of confidential clerk, went back and forth from Wall 
 Street to his master s house in one of his master s 
 motor-cars. Atwood and the other brokers tele 
 phoned hourly for orders to the house uptown. 
 Simpson saw callers. But in the inner room, Wash 
 ington wasted his stupid solemnity on emptiness, the 
 ticker spun its yards and yards of tape for none to 
 see, and nobody looked from the high windows down 
 the maze of streets on which the people buzzed like 
 flies. 
 
 All this had been thus before, and more frequently 
 thus during the past few years ; the man with the hairy 
 
 247 
 
248 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 hands and crooked arms often suffered attacks from 
 some malady that the newspapers did not name. His 
 world, therefore, should not have taken the present 
 seizure too seriously; but it always leaped to the be 
 lief that each seizure was the last. Rumor never 
 learned from precedence, and on each occasion ex 
 pected the worst. Now official bulletins and author 
 ized announcements of a slight cold and a catarrhal 
 affection of the mucous membrane of the throat did 
 not check rumor. The doctors said no more than that, 
 the papers printed no more; but news of another sort 
 spread with a stronger conviction than the doctors 
 could secure and a wider circulation than the circula 
 tion of all the newspapers combined. 
 
 Rumor said that the sick man had always been a 
 glutton, and that now, at last, his digestion had given 
 way. Rumor said that he had been in the habit of 
 rising early and working late, in the dawn and 
 through the night, planning the crowded actions of 
 the too brief business day; and rumor added that the 
 price of these exertions must, at last, be paid. Rumor 
 said that the man overworked his brain and nerves, 
 and that, at last, the brain was working no more and 
 the nerves strained to breaking-point. Rumor whis 
 pered of a projected sea-voyage and a change of 
 scene to Biskra or the Riviera, and rumor sagely 
 shook its many heads. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 249 
 
 The luxurious house in which the sick man lived 
 among the best things that his money had bought 
 him, and from which he used to dart out each morn 
 ing to his office in the maze, was closed to the re 
 porters and to most of the acquaintances who called 
 there. L. Bergen Rivington went in and came out. 
 worried and elliptical. George J. Hallett went and 
 came out with loud, but brief, denials. The news 
 paper men, from the steps of a house directly across 
 the street, watched in relays and, every hour, 
 rang the muffled bell of the sick man s house and 
 asked the same questions, and were given the 
 same answers, from the servant who came to the 
 door. 
 
 Then, one morning, at its old-accustomed hour, the 
 motor-car that the sick man had most affected purred 
 up to the house. The door opened. The sick man, 
 apparently no longer a sick man, came out, neat and 
 trim in a suit of russet brown, stepped into the car 
 and was started for his office before the quickest re 
 porter could get a word with him. 
 
 " He has quite recovered," said the doctors, when 
 the newspaper men overhauled them, and, although 
 they swathed the answer in long phrases, they would 
 say no more than that. 
 
 " He s quite well again and will not leave New 
 York," said Simpson to the representatives of the 
 
250 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 press when they reached his Wall Street offices; and 
 Simpson would add nothing save that his employer 
 was too busy with accumulated work to have time for 
 press interviewers. 
 
 Simpson, however, and Conover too, and all the 
 office-force and all the brokers, knew something more. 
 They knew that, whereas their master was generally 
 not quick of temper, he had returned to work in an 
 ugly mood. 
 
 There was, indeed, a great deal of work for 
 him to do : enough to ruffle the temper of any man. 
 He did it all grimly, speedily, with no waste of 
 words. He attended to each detail with as much 
 energy and care as he gave to every other detail, and 
 one detail that he dealt with in a necessarily long 
 talk with Hallett he dealt with thus: 
 
 "What about that Huber matter?" he asked. 
 
 Rivington was not in the room, but the master of 
 the room was seated at the head of the table just as he 
 always seated himself when both Hallett and Riving 
 ton were there. He crouched with his large hands on 
 the mahogany surface, the thick fingers extended, his 
 elbows raised at right angles to his torso and pointing 
 ceilingward. 
 
 Hallett was as near to nervousness as he could be 
 brought. 
 
 " Nothin yet," he said. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 251 
 
 "Hasn t any action been taken?" snapped the 
 man at the head of the table. 
 
 "A lot of action s been taken, but nothings come 
 of it yet." 
 
 "He hasn t been bought?" 
 
 " Stein says " 
 
 " I know that. He hasn t been stopped? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Stop him. He s got to be stopped. Don t 
 you know that he really might hurt us? Stop him." 
 
 " All right," said Hallett. 
 
 " And now what about this Memphis & New Or 
 leans deal?" the man in russet brown went on. 
 His beady eyes glittered, and the tips of his stumpy 
 fingers caressed the shining surface of the table. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 i. Luke was no longer inclined to doubt the wide 
 extent and the unscrupulous power of the influences 
 opposing him. When he had first come to acknowl 
 edge their evil, he thought it latent rather than 
 active. Disillusioned in this respect, he then mini 
 mized its activity, maintaining that there was a vast 
 dfference between merely questionable moves in the 
 game of business and the hiring of criminal violence. 
 He assumed a tolerant skepticism toward the vague 
 stories of how his enemies, long before they became 
 his personal enemies, employed the basest tactics to 
 crush rivals or gain ends, and even when he narrowly 
 escaped arrest in the raid on the house in Sixth Ave 
 nue, he tried to tell himself that these enemies were 
 only endeavoring to frighten him. Now his second 
 interview with Stein convinced him of the truth. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, he stubbornly persevered. 
 He no more belittled the puissance of the wrong 
 against which he had arrayed himself, but he believed 
 too firmly in the strength of his own right. Had he 
 accurately perceived relative values, he might have 
 broken his promise and tried to make the Rollins let- 
 
 252 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 253 
 
 ters public; but he was sure that he could evade harm 
 until the month was past, and so he kept his word and 
 went about his hurrying and harrowing political 
 work with the letters scornfully bestowed in an in 
 side pocket among a collection of trivial memo 
 randa. 
 
 Events moved rapidly. The Ruysdael loan served 
 its turn, but its turn soon gave evidence of being 
 brief. As if from plans matured at least a year be 
 fore, the ready-made clothing trust that Forbes had 
 feared sprang into full being. It issued from the 
 offices of Hallett, but it originated, almost as frankly, 
 from the brain of the man whose lieutenant Hallett 
 was. It threatened the life of the Forbes firm. Con 
 trolling nearly all the other large firms of the coun 
 try, it could dictate to the retail trade, and secure 
 favors from the railways. It so combined its mills 
 as to reduce running-expenses as a whole while lower 
 ing prices on the one hand and, on the other, raising 
 wages in its consolidated factories. 
 
 Luke had no doubt that this trust had been long 
 prepared; he also had no doubt that its birth had 
 been hurried as a new move in the war against him. 
 He knew that the combination was contrary to the 
 most rudimentary business ethics, and he hastened to 
 inquire into its charter and organization, in the hope 
 of finding some chink in its armor through which the 
 
254 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 blade of the Sherman anti-trust law might be thrust. 
 He overhauled the law-reports in the libraries, he 
 consulted the most eminent corporation authorities in 
 his profession; but he discovered nothing to his lik 
 ing. The trust was built upon the statute itself; the 
 weakness of the latter was the firm rock on which 
 the former was founded. Its strength lay in its 
 iniquity. 
 
 " It is absurd for us to suppose," the greatest law 
 yer in New York told him, " that we can end the 
 trust by passing laws. The trusts are a step in social 
 evolution, and you can t successfully legislate against 
 evolution. When the trusts can t hire the law s mak 
 ers, they will still be able to hire better lawyers to 
 build new trusts within the law than such lawyers as 
 the voters can afford to elect to Congress to frame 
 new anti-trust laws. The laws against the trusts are 
 of no more practical use than the laws in favor of 
 the unions." 
 
 Luke returned to Forbes with this dictum. 
 
 " Can t we get some of the outside firms to join 
 us? " asked Luke. 
 
 Forbes did not approve the idea. 
 
 " I have had several offers of the kind," he said, 
 " and I am suspicious of them. I think the firms that 
 made them weren t really independent. I think it was 
 a move to let the trust into our concern. Besides, this 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 255 
 
 house has always been a Forbes house, and it must 
 remain that or go down honorably." 
 
 " There ll be trouble," Luke prophesied. 
 
 "I think I know something about the trade," 
 Forbes said: he had moments when he did not wholly 
 like the superior ability shown by Luke in securing 
 the Ruysdael loan. " This is my part of the Busi 
 
 ness." 
 
 Luke was too much occupied by the political cam 
 paign not to acknowledge that, weak or strong, 
 Forbes must be left in control of the firm. The battle 
 for votes was four-cornered without being square; 
 it was hot and bitter. On the issue of the district- 
 attorneyship, the Democrats and Progressives were 
 helping Leighton and the Republicans by directing 
 all their energies against Luke and the Municipal Re 
 form League. They raised high the accusation of 
 demagogism and appealed to business large and small 
 to rescue credit from the hurts that Huber threatened. 
 Leighton, supported by the full strength of his or 
 ganization, was pretending that Luke s disaffection 
 was that of a discharged servant; the District- Attor 
 ney pleaded for a safe and sane conduct of the office 
 of the public prosecutor. 
 
 Although the League s lesser workers undertook 
 the task of canvassing the city, treating with politi 
 cians and employers, advertising, arguing, pleading, 
 
256 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 promising, and threatening, doing all the mysterious 
 multitude of things that are necessary to practical 
 politics; although, too, the other candidates and the 
 volunteer and hired speakers performed heavy shares 
 of the speech-making from cart-ends and stages, on 
 street and in hall, Luke was constantly being called 
 on to help his associates and had more than enough in 
 his own department to keep him busy from the time 
 when he got out of bed of a morning until, often the 
 next morning, he got in again. 
 
 By telegraph, telephone, motor-car, and messenger, 
 he had to be in perpetual touch with every election- 
 precinct in the city and with every important Leaguer 
 in every precinct. He had to answer hundreds of let 
 ters, see hundreds of callers, give out scores of inter 
 views, compose and deliver from three to a dozen 
 speeches a day to as many different sorts of audi 
 ences. There was nothing considered too small to 
 merit his attention, nothing too large to be beyond 
 his watchfulness. Once every day he was in each 
 quarter of New York, and he was nowhere for more 
 than half an hour at a time. 
 
 Only his elaborately acquired calm and his in 
 herited strength of constitution saved him from nerv 
 ous breakdown. Except for them, his burning sin 
 cerity, his zeal, and the endless calls made upon these 
 characteristics, would have driven him to a hospital. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 257 
 
 Even so, his body grew leaner and his face deeply 
 lined. He was fighting with every ounce of muscle 
 and every particle of brain. 
 
 For now, as in every alley and at every turning, his 
 political progress revealed some new though ever 
 partial phase of the power he attacked, Luke saw all 
 that he hated centered in one figure, originated by one 
 mind. He individualized Evil. That entire mesh- 
 work of wrong which he was trying to tear into 
 shreds, he traced directly to the plump, pale man in 
 russet brown, the malignant thing with the hairy 
 hands and beady eyes, the creature that he had once 
 seen crouched at the end of a mahogany table in a 
 Wall Street skyscraper, from the windows of which 
 the maze of streets resembled the strands of a web 
 with men and women struggling on them like en 
 tangled flies. 
 
 Of all the fine and fatal threads that were snaring 
 alike the helpless and the strong, what threads were 
 not spun by him? Of all the corruption that was 
 poisoning the country and infecting the ideals of the 
 Republic, what was there that did not proceed from 
 his fangs? Luke seemed to see it all now was cer 
 tain that he saw it with awful clarity. The Rollins 
 letters, the interview in Wall Street, the action of 
 the banks, and Osserman s hint from the City Cham 
 berlain, the part played by the street-girl, the raid 
 
2 5 8 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 by the police, the talks with Stein and the daily 
 partial liftings of the political curtain: these, re 
 viewed in the lurid glow of the campaign, confirmed 
 the accumulated gossip of years, corroborated every 
 wild story that came to him on the teeming battle 
 field: of bribery and thieving, of perjury and murder, 
 of all the crimes that men have known, each com 
 mitted again and again and again safely committed 
 in the dark, cravenly done under the protection of 
 bought-and-paid-for law. 
 
 What mattered now this power s culture? What 
 mattered its benefactions, its colleges for the igno 
 rant, its hospitals for the ill? As Luke saw them 
 now, these were only dust for the eyes of the public, 
 cheap peace-offerings for intricate wrongs. The good 
 could be counted on the fingers of the hand, the evil 
 was as the sands of the sea. 
 
 It was everywhere. It mocked religion, because 
 It supported churches; It debauched Government, be 
 cause It governed the governors; It destroyed Law, 
 because It controlled the Law s administrators. It 
 was master of the means of production and distribu 
 tion; It owned the storehouses of wealth; the clothes 
 upon the backs of the people, the houses that they 
 lived in; the meat on the tables of the rich, the bread 
 in the bellies of the poor. It secured Its own prices 
 for them, and withheld them as It chose- Directly or 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 259 
 
 indirectly, the whole nation took Its wages such 
 wages as It chose to pay. 
 
 At the great League meeting in Cooper Union, 
 Luke, fronting a wilderness of faces, shouted his 
 defiance of this Power. He said no name, but none 
 that heard him could doubt whom he meant. For 
 that night, Luke Huberts friends no longer knew 
 the languid young lawyer in this shouting, quivering, 
 torch-bearing evangel on the historic Cooper Union 
 Stage. The boy had died that, bound for New 
 York, thought himself as a Templar entering Jeru 
 salem, but from his ashes there rose a new Peter the 
 Hermit preaching a new crusade. 
 
 " If we had the eyes to see," he said, " we d know 
 that from this city, the center of our civilization, 
 slender threads, so numerous as to be beyond our 
 counting, run out to every corner of the land. 
 Slender threads: the merest gossamer, but so tough 
 that, once entangled in them, no man escapes. No 
 man, no woman, and no child. The delicate filaments 
 catch and hold us by the thousand every day. They 
 catch us at our birth and they hold us till our death : 
 life-prisoners even when we are unaware of it, more 
 desperately prisoners when we are unaware of it. 
 The good and the bad and the hopelessly neither- 
 good-nor-bad; efficient and inefficient, every sort and 
 condition, men and boys, women and girls the net 
 
260 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 has use for us all: for the labor of the child, the body 
 of the woman, the hand or the brain, the money or the 
 muscles, of the man. It has uses for our virtues and 
 more use for our vices. All are needed, none that is 
 caught goes free. If we had the eyes to see, we 
 should see it; but the strands are as fine as they are 
 tough, and only when a victim has so much blood in 
 him that his dying struggles ensanguine the thread 
 that holds him do we, noting his blood, note what has 
 received his blood and even there, we rarely con 
 sider that thread in relation to its fellows, hardly 
 ever realize that it is part of a plan, hardly ever 
 trace it to its center." 
 
 Luke followed the Power along thread after 
 thread through the labyrinth of American life, and 
 he made it clear that the Power was one man. He 
 pictured the stock-market, where the trade in traitors 
 began and where the fortunes of speculators and the 
 riches of the country were counters in the game of 
 roulette that this Power conducted with a braced 
 wheel. He passed on, across the map of the Union, 
 through the wrecks of industries that this Power had 
 razed. He showed how it had ruined numberless 
 houses and spoiled countless lives. He pointed to the 
 bloated bodies of the suicides it had flung into rivers 
 it had never seen, the graves it had filled in the pot 
 ters fields of distant towns, the twisted limbs of chil- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 261 
 
 dren it had enslaved, the bodies of women it had 
 forced into the arms of lust, the muscles of men it 
 had condemned to lifelong servitude. He described 
 its command over Congress, legislatures, and judges; 
 its collar around the necks of the police, who brought 
 to its service, in return for criminal immunity, gam 
 blers, thieves, highwaymen, tramps, prostitutes, and 
 pimps. He clutched its hairy hand in the ballot-box, 
 and called upon his hearers to end this Power s prac 
 tices as they loved their souls. 
 
 Luke pledged himself, if elected, to drive the thing 
 out of every department of the city s life that the 
 District-Attorney could in any way influence. He 
 pledged himself to fear no man and to serve 
 none. 
 
 "You have the eyes!" he shouted. "If you ll 
 only use them, you have the eyes to see. Look about 
 you, and what you see will give you the strength you 
 need. This thing thwarts and perverts the purposes 
 of Government, and you know it ! The men that are 
 pledged to the people, it buys with gold. These are 
 its crimes, but not the worst of its crimes. The worst 
 it does is not what it does to things material. The 
 worst it does is what it does to things spiritual. The 
 spoiling of high aims, the rape and ravage of hon 
 orable purposes: these are its sins against the Holy 
 Ghost!" 
 
262 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 2. Betty had gone to the mass-meeting, and so 
 had the Rev. Pinkney Nicholson. Even in the rush 
 of his campaign, Luke had found time to see Betty 
 every day, and, because the Ruysdael loan had re 
 solved all her doubts, she was his most ardent sup 
 porter. He sent her two stage-tickets to the gather 
 ing at Cooper Union, one of which he hoped that 
 her father would use; but Forbes was busy with plans 
 to meet the competition of the clothing trust and to 
 quiet the grumblings of his employees, who wanted a 
 raise of wages to the sums paid by his rivals, and so 
 was kept late at the offices of the firm. Betty, there 
 fore, brought Nicholson with her, and Nicholson, 
 thinking that it would not be wise for a clergyman to 
 seem to give the sanction of the Church to any party 
 in a political fight, had taken her not to the stage, 
 but to the body of the auditorium. 
 
 The girl listened to Luke s speech with parted lips 
 and flushed face. She was inspired by her lover s 
 every word and proud for each interruption of ap 
 plause. She was so inspired and so proud that she 
 did not notice the increasing frigidity of her com 
 panion. 
 
 " Isn t he wonderful? " she demanded of Nichol 
 son as the meeting ended with the entire audience on 
 its feet. 
 
 The band was playing " The Star-Spangled Ban- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 263 
 
 ner," and it had been hoped that the crowd would 
 sing that national anthem. Most of the people pres 
 ent did not, however, know the words, and those who 
 did know them had voices of too slight a range to 
 accede to the severe demands of the music. 
 
 " Isn t he just wonderful? " repeated Betty. She 
 caught Nicholson s arm. " He reminds me of a 
 French orator father and I once heard in the Chamber 
 of Deputies in Paris. You must take me up to the 
 stage to tell him so." 
 
 Nicholson had listened with mixed emotions. His 
 attention, moreover, was loose because he had lately 
 been much worried by the presence of a heavy debt 
 on his church. 
 
 " I think he is an excellent speaker," said Nichol 
 son, "but I m afraid I don t approve of his tone." 
 
 "His tone?" Betty turned sharply. "What s 
 the matter with his tone? " 
 
 Nicholson s ascetic face relaxed. He quoted: 
 
 "Too rash, too unadvis d, too sudden; 
 Too like the lightning." 
 
 "He isn t rash; he s brave," said Betty. "And 
 he isn t unadvised or sudden, for he has been thinking 
 of all these things for a long time. But he is like the 
 lightning, and these people he says are so wrong 
 will find that out." 
 
264 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 3. Mr. Irwin was at the mass-meeting, too; he 
 of the gray Vandyck beard and pink cheeks and 
 twinkling eyes, the member of the law firm of Stein, 
 Falconridge, Falconridge & Perry, whose name did 
 not appear on the firm s letter-heads. 
 
 Irwin left Cooper Union directly the chief speech 
 of the evening ended. He had been seated in an unos 
 tentatious corner high in air and close beneath the 
 roof. The people about him must have thought him 
 a warm admirer of the speaker, since he was so busy 
 taking notes of what was said that he had leisure 
 for only the most perfunctory applause. Irwin hur 
 ried down the Bowery. He went into the nearest 
 public telephone booth, arid from it he called up the 
 hotel in which ex- Judge Stein made his home. 
 
 4. Ex- Judge Stein had himself experienced a try 
 ing day, and Irwin was absent from the office, or he 
 would have known it. Somebody, it seemed, had 
 asked embarrassing questions of George J. Hallett 
 and issued exacting orders to Hallett, who had passed 
 on the embarrassing questions and the exacting or 
 ders to Stein. The questions and the orders gained 
 in intensity by transmission, and Stein was upset. 
 
 " Yes, yes, this is Judge Stein," he answered into 
 the black transmitter of the telephone when Irwin 
 called him. " Who s talking, please? " 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 2651 
 
 " Irwin." 
 
 "Eh? Well, where have you been, Mr. Irwin? 
 I have wanted you to-day on some important busi 
 ness." 
 
 " I think I have been attending to it, Judge." 
 
 " Where have you been? " 
 
 " Several places. To-night I ve been to that mass- 
 meeting in Cooper Union." 
 
 " Yes. Was there much enthusiasm? " 
 
 " A great deal." 
 
 " Spontaneous ? Genuine ? " 
 
 " Partly." 
 
 " And the tone of the speech? " 
 
 Mr. Irwin went at some length into that side of 
 the subject. He read excerpts from his notes. It 
 was evident that, since the afternoon when his senior 
 partner had first discussed Huber with him, necessity 
 had forced a greater degree of confidence. 
 
 The present conversation continued for several 
 minutes. No eavesdropper, unless previously ac 
 quainted with the facts of the case, could have gath 
 ered much from it, but it was intelligent and signifi 
 cant to the principals. At its end, Stein said : 
 
 * There is very little time left us, and this young 
 man means us to understand that he will keep his 
 word. The people for whom we are acting are 
 rather importunate, Mr. Irwin. They are not satis- 
 
266 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 fied; not at all satisfied; and I ve already had to ex 
 tend to you the time-limit I first gave you. I have 
 received instructions to the effect that we must act at 
 once." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "You understand?" 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 " At once." 
 
 " All right, Judge." 
 
 " That had better mean to-night." 
 
 " I ll do my best." 
 
 " I think you had better, Mr. Irwin. I shaVt be 
 going to bed for two or three hours yet." 
 
 5. Irwin left the telephone and hailed the first 
 taxicab that passed. It was free, and he had himself 
 driven to a political club with quarters not far from 
 the office of Anson Quirk. 
 
 The quarters were over a saloon in Second Avenue. 
 The entrance was a hallway and a stairway back of 
 the saloon. Here Irwin rang a bell, which was im 
 mediately answered by a man in his shirt-sleeves. 
 
 " Mr. Quirk upstairs? " 
 
 " No," said the man. He eyed the questioner sul 
 lenly in the twilight of the hall. " I don t think he 
 is," he added. 
 
 Irwin took a card from his pocket. He placed it 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 267 
 
 in a blank envelope, sealed the envelope, and handed 
 it to the doorkeeper. 
 
 " Give him this," he said, and stepped back into 
 the street to wait. 
 
 The man closed the door upon him. It was pres 
 ently reopened by Quirk, his round face smiling, his 
 manner jovial. 
 
 " Hello," said Quirk. " It s time good little boys 
 were in bed, but I m glad to see you, anyhow. Come 
 in and have a drink." 
 
 " No, thank you," Irwin replied. " I ll be back 
 here in two hours. There s something you ve got 
 to do in the meantime." 
 
 "Me? Now?" 
 
 " You ; right away. We ve been too slow about 
 that little business, Quirk. We can t stand them off 
 much longer. There s not much more time for delay, 
 and the people higher up want to be shown action." 
 
 "Want to see the goods, do they ?" chuckled 
 Quirk. He rattled some coins in the pocket under 
 his round abdomen. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, what do they want me to do? " 
 
 " Show the goods, I guess." 
 
 "Any suggestions?" 
 
 " No, that s up to you." 
 
 " I m on," said Quirk. " Come back in two hours. 
 
268 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 I ll run right upstairs and get my hat. An here, If 
 you won t take a drink, have a cigar: it s a long wait. 
 See you later." 
 
 6. The great bulk of Police Lieutenant Donovan 
 was hunched up in an upholstered armchair beside 
 the table in his private office when Quirk entered. 
 He looked as if his caller was not welcome. 
 
 " Nothin doin so far," he said. 
 
 Quirk, too, was serious. 
 
 " I know it," said he. " They fell down so hard 
 in that raid scheme that they must have had all the 
 sense knocked out of them. Well, you ve got to put 
 
 some in." 
 
 Donovan s growl was wordless. 
 
 " You ve got to," said Quirk. " To-night." 
 
 " To-night?" Donovan stood up. "What in 
 hell do you think I am? " 
 
 The lawyer leaned across the table. 
 
 " I think you re a bluff," he said. 
 
 "Do you? Well, I d just like you to have my 
 job." 
 
 " Donovan," said Quirk, " if you don t put this 
 thing across, an do it soon, somebody ll have your 
 job sooner than you think." 
 
 "What s that?" thundered the lieutenant. But 
 before a reply was possible, his tone changed; his 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 269 
 
 hands thrust deep in his pockets, he turned away, his 
 shoulders drooping. u Oh, I know you ve got the 
 evidence to use for an excuse," he said: "I know 
 you could do it, an I know you would." 
 
 " I wouldn t do it if I didn t have to," said Quirk 
 gently; " but you know how I m fixed myself. Don t 
 take it so hard, Hughie. You can pull this thing 
 across, if you ll only try. I m sorry, but if I haven t 
 something to show pretty soon, I ll get it in the neck 
 hard, I will." 
 
 Donovan walked to the door of the rollroom. He 
 opened it. 
 
 " Say, one o you fellows," he called to a group 
 of officers in plain clothes. " Go out an find Guth 
 an tell him to come in here right away. I want 
 him." Then he turned to Quirk: "It s got to be 
 to-night?" 
 
 Quirk nodded: 
 
 " Make it an hour and a half if you can." 
 
 41 Well, I can t." 
 
 " Then as near as you can." 
 
 " Gee," said Donovan, " I certainly am sick of this 
 whole business! Well come back in an hour an 
 forty-five minutes an we ll see what s doin ." 
 
 7. He greeted Guth with a roar. 
 
 " You re a hell of a cop, you are ! What sort of 
 
270 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 a job do you think youVe got, anyway? Rag- 
 pickin ?" 
 
 Guth, who was used to these rages, stood at atten 
 tion. The scar from his mouth to the corner of his 
 jaw-bone twitched heavily. 
 
 " I done all I could, Lieutenant," he said. 
 
 " You re a liar! " said Donovan. " You ve been 
 on this job Gawd knows how long, an your foot s 
 slipped twice. All you ve found is that he hasn t 
 got any safety-deposit box. You know he must have 
 the goods at his office, an you re afraid to get 
 em." 
 
 " They might be at his apartment house," said 
 Guth. He shifted his feet uneasily. 
 
 " They might be, but they ain t. I had Anderson 
 play that end of it. What d you mean lettin Reddy 
 Rawn t row you down this way? " 
 
 " He ain t t rowed me down. He wouldn t dare." 
 
 "Wouldn t he? Well, then, he s stallin you all 
 right, all right, an he s had a cinch doin it. This 
 thing s got to stop. I got to have them letters right 
 off. To-night. Now. Get that? " 
 
 The giant subordinate gnawed his upper lip. 
 
 " That s goin some, Lieutenant," he said. 
 
 " If you don t do it, you ll be goin more : you ll 
 be goin off the force. Now then : you beat it. Get 
 Reddy on the job. Tell him Mitchell knows the 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 271 
 
 officer on that beat an 11 see he an his friends ain t 
 interfered with. Nobody ll be in the offices to-night; 
 they ve all been over to Cooper Union an 11 be tired 
 out. Reddy ll be as safe as if he was at home in bed. 
 He d better have the Kid to help him." Donovan 
 banged the table with his fist. " I want you back 
 here in an hour with everything that s inside that 
 fellow Huber s safe. See?" 
 
 8. In that shadowy alley near Forty-third Street 
 and Third Avenue, where he had talked to Reddy 
 Rawn before, Patrolman Guth talked now with 
 Reddy Rawn and the Kid. 
 
 " It ain t my fault," he said. " I ve stood him off 
 as long as I could. You gotta do it now, an if you 
 don t he ll have you two up for Crab Rotello s as 
 sault. I know it. He means business this time. You 
 can crack a safe, Kid, can t you? " 
 
 9. On the stage at Cooper Union, Luke was 
 holding an impromptu reception. Hundreds of peo 
 ple were streaming by him and shaking his hand. His 
 arm ached, but he was proud and glad. 
 
 At the end of the stream came Betty and Nichol 
 son. Luke saw the girl long before she could reach 
 him, and he smiled to her over the heads of the 
 crowd. 
 
272 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 "You dear!" she whispered when, at last, her 
 hand caught his. " I m proud of you. I m so 
 proud!" 
 
 He pressed her hand. 
 
 " That s the best praise of all," he said, and to 
 her companion: " I m glad you re here, Mr. Nichol 
 
 son." 
 
 Nicholson shook hands. 
 
 " I was glad to be here. I admired your delivery 
 even where I disapproved of your treatment." 
 
 "What?" laughed Luke. "Is the church go 
 ing to make friends with the mammon of unrighteous 
 ness? " He was hoarse and hot and nervous, but he 
 was too warmly aglow with his success to heed seri 
 ously the reply that Nicholson was beginning when 
 one of his friends on the stage plucked his sleeve. 
 He turned. " What is it? " he asked. 
 
 " Nelson wants to see you. I don t know what 
 about, but he says it s very important." 
 
 "All right." Luke faced Betty and Nicholson 
 again. " You ll forgive me for just a moment, won t 
 you?" he said. "I ll be right back, and then, if 
 you ll let me, I ll drive over to Brooklyn with you 
 both. I have a note from your father, Betty, asking 
 me to come to the house." 
 
 "I thought he was at the office," said Betty; " but 
 I do hope you ll come with us." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 273 
 
 " He s back at the house now. This note came by 
 messenger." 
 
 " Then," said Nicholson, " I shan t interfere with 
 business. I ll go home from here. Run along, Mr. 
 Huber. I ll guard Miss Forbes while you re gone." 
 
 Luke followed the man that had sought him and 
 found Nelson standing at the farthest corner of the 
 stage. 
 
 The wholesale druggist was in evident distress. 
 He was an honorable man and a practical, and these 
 qualities spoke in the lines of his troubled face. As 
 soon as they were left together, Nelson came to the 
 point. 
 
 " Huber," he said, " I ve got to get out." 
 
 "Out? What of?" 
 
 " The League. I ve got to leave it." 
 
 Nelson was almost the last man that Luke would 
 have expected to desert. Moreover, he had so long 
 been prominent in the reform movement that his de 
 fection would be a serious blow to the League. Luke 
 had to call loudly on his lethargic manner to conceal 
 his anxiety and surprise. 
 
 " Why? " he inquired. " What s wrong? " 
 
 * This speech of yours to-night," explained Nel 
 son. " You ve been getting nearer and nearer that 
 fellow all along, but I d no idea you meant to go 
 right at him." 
 
274 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " What was the matter with the speech? I didn t 
 tell anything but the truth." 
 
 " No, I dare say you didn t, but I can t honorably 
 stand by you, Huber, now that you ve openly taken 
 this line." 
 
 Nelson swallowed hard. It was plain that he did 
 not like the dish prepared for him. 
 
 " I don t understand," said Luke. " If it was true, 
 and if we re to make a real fight for real reform, 
 we ve got to begin at the cause of corruption." 
 
 " I know. I admit it was the truth, but it wasn t 
 the whole truth. He does lots of good." 
 
 " Good and bad are relative. Relatively he does 
 n t do any good." 
 
 " I m not so sure of that." 
 
 "lam." 
 
 " Yes, but there s the League to think of." 
 
 " The League nominated me." 
 
 " Of course it did, but you re not the whole ticket 
 nor the whole movement." 
 
 This was a detail that Luke in his triumph had 
 forgotten. 
 
 " Still," he said, " we can t dodge the facts. I 
 won t dodge them, Nelson." 
 
 " I understand," Nelson said. " Perhaps you re 
 right. Anyhow, right or wrong, you ve done what 
 you ve done, and so I ve got to go." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 275 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 Nelson fidgeted. 
 
 u I may as well tell you," he at last said. " You 
 know my business has always been one that didn t 
 cross these fellows trail. But lately they ve been 
 coming toward us. I think I mentioned that? " 
 
 Luke nodded. 
 
 " Well, I ve been hard up. The other day I 
 needed money badly. I had to have money or I d 
 have failed. I have a wife and family to think of, 
 Huber. I tried everywhere to raise the wind, and 
 there was only one place where I could raise 
 it." 
 
 " You mean " Luke wet his lips. " You mean 
 that crowd?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " It came from him?" 
 
 " It came direct from L. Bergen Rivingtoa. But, 
 of course, it really came from him" 
 
 Luke put out his hand. Nelson wrung it. 
 
 " I wasn t bought, Huber," he said. " You don t 
 think that?" 
 
 " I know," said Luke kindly. 
 
 " I wish I d told you sooner, Huber. I didn t 
 expect you d go so far." 
 
 " I d have gone just as far, Nelson. I m sorry." 
 
 " I m sorry, too, Huber. Good-night." 
 
276 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 10. " Betty," said Luke, as the girl nestled 
 against him in the darkness of the cab that drove 
 them toward her home, " this is going to be a hard 
 battle." 
 
 " Then you ll win because you re right." 
 
 " I m not so sure." 
 
 Her arms went round his neck. 
 
 " I don t care whether you win or not," she whis 
 pered, " so long as you ought to win." 
 
 ii. Forbes was waiting for them in the library. 
 His rapidly-graying hair was disordered, and his 
 face was even more worried than Nelson s had 
 been. 
 
 " You d better run to bed, dear," he said to Betty 
 as he kissed her. " It s late, and I ve some heavy 
 business to talk about to Luke." 
 
 " I m wide awake," protested Betty. " I couldn t 
 sleep if I did go to bed. I ll sleep late to-morrow." 
 
 " But then there is the business we must talk 
 about." 
 
 " I don t care. I ll like it. I won t interrupt." 
 She looked at Luke. " May I stay? " she asked. 
 
 Luke smiled. 
 
 " I wish you would," he said. 
 
 Forbes made a gesture of surrender. 
 
 " All right," said he. He turned to Luke and, a* 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 277 
 
 Betty seated herself between the two men, who re 
 mained standing, he continued : " They re going to 
 strike." 
 
 "At the factory?" Luke had feared this. 
 "What do they want?" 
 
 " They want us to meet the hours and the wages 
 that the trust is giving." 
 
 " We can meet them as to hours, can t we? " 
 
 " We might. It would hurt us, but we might." 
 
 " But not the wages?" 
 
 " Not in five years." 
 
 Luke lit a cigarette. He noted that his hand 
 was steady, and its steadiness gratified him. 
 
 " They re well enough paid, aren t they?" 
 
 " You know the scale." 
 
 "Well, it s a fair one, isn t it?" 
 
 " What does that matter to them when they think 
 they can get more?" 
 
 " But you say they can t, Forbes." 
 
 " I can t convince them of it. Their attitude is 
 that if we can t pay them what they want, the Busi 
 ness had better go out of existence." 
 
 " You saw the men s committee? " 
 
 " This evening. That s why I couldn t come to 
 your meeting." 
 
 " And they won t compromise? " 
 
 * They might have, but things have gone too far. 
 
278 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 A lot of these I. W. W. organizers and agitators 
 have been at work among them. I don t know what 
 will happen to the Business now." 
 
 We can get in strike-breakers and run the fac 
 tory in spite of them." 
 
 " If we do, there ll be rioting. They might burn 
 the building. These Industrial Workers of the 
 World you don t know them." 
 
 " I don t see that we have any choice." 
 
 Forbes looked away. 
 
 " We have one," he muttered. 
 
 Luke caught his wrist. 
 
 " Look here," he demanded, " do you mean to 
 say that this may have a political origin? " 
 
 " I believe it has. I believe those letters you told 
 me about " 
 
 " You want me to knuckle under? " asked Luke. 
 
 Forbes looked at him. 
 
 " Think what a strike might do to you politically," 
 he said. 
 
 " I don t care about that." 
 
 " Your friends might." 
 
 " Not if they want to stay my friends. Besides, 
 it can t be true. The writer of those letters hates the 
 I. W. W. like poison. He can t have inspired them." 
 
 " Oh, not that. I know he can t. But if you d 
 be sensible about those letters, I believe he d be will- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 279 
 
 ing to put down the trust s wages and join us in this 
 fight" 
 
 "What did you tell the men s committee?" 
 
 " I didn t show them what I felt," said Forbes. 
 " That would never do. You can t tell workmen 
 what you really think. I just said if they wanted to 
 strike, they would have to strike." 
 
 Luke flung aside Forbes s arm. 
 
 " Then stick to that," he said. 
 
 " But, Huber " 
 
 Luke interrupted. He fronted Betty. 
 
 " Betty," he said, " do you understand what your 
 father is asking me to do? You know how I am 
 placed, and you heard my speech to-night. Now, 
 your father wants me to go back on all that in order 
 to save him from poverty and you from poverty and 
 me from poverty and defeat. I won t do it. 
 Whether you like it or not, I won t do it ! " 
 
 The girl got up slowly and put a hand on his 
 shoulder. Her eyes, as she looked from one man 
 to the other, were very beautiful, but they were firm. 
 
 " Father," she said, " I ve learned a lot lately. 
 Luke s right and and I m with him." 
 
 Forbes turned toward her irritably. 
 
 "Oh, go to bed!" said he. 
 
 Luke laughed and, reaching up, patted the hand 
 that was on his shoulder. 
 
28o THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " No, no," he protested, " you mustn t intrigue 
 with my allies, Forbes." 
 
 " Well," said Forbes, " you ll see that I m right 
 if you keep on antagonizing these people." 
 
 " We can starve them out." 
 
 " Not before there is violence." 
 
 " The law will defend us there. We ll have the 
 police: they can t deny us adequate protection in 
 such a matter and if we have to, we ll get the Gov 
 ernor to call out the troops." 
 
 Forbes argued and pleaded for a long time, but 
 to no avail. Luke would not go over to his enemies : 
 the strike must proceed. 
 
 " I ve got to leave you now," he said. " I ll have 
 to have a statement ready about this for the papers 
 first thing in the morning. Perhaps I ll get out of 
 the Subway at Fourteenth Street and open up the 
 League s headquarters and get it ready there." 
 
 It was Betty that stopped this plan. 
 
 " You ll do nothing of the sort," she ordered. 
 " You re tired out. I won t let you kill yourself." 
 She kissed him on the mouth. " You must prom 
 ise me to go straight to the Arapahoe and to 
 sleep." 
 
 At the touch of her lips, he softened. 
 
 " All right," he promised, " but I m no more 
 sleepy now than you said you were an hour ago." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 281 
 
 12. Luke would not have had to open the offices 
 of the Municipal League; that was being attended 
 to. While he was still in the Subway train returning 
 from Brooklyn to Manhattan, two men, one of them 
 carrying a small bundle, crossed Union Square and 
 turned down Broadway. Before the entrance to the 
 building in which the League was housed, they paused 
 to speak to a policeman. 
 
 " That s all right," he told them. " I know. I 
 got me orders ten minutes ago. That s why I m 
 standin here. But get a move on, you fellows. I 
 don t want to stick here all night." 
 
 The two men rounded a corner. 
 
 In the deserted street, the officer of the law walked 
 up and down, twenty paces to the north, then twenty 
 to the south. A party of strayed revelers came by 
 and tried to talk with him; but he ordered them to 
 move on if they didn t want him to arrest them. He 
 resumed his walk when they had gone, his thumbs 
 tucked in his belt, his lips pursed and whistling softly 
 a popular tune. Once he heard the sound of a win 
 dow opened overhead. A little later he saw a dim 
 light pass from one window to another in the build 
 ing above him. A dulled report sounded from be 
 hind the walls: the Elevated is not near Broadway 
 at this spot, but in the night noises travel far, and 
 this noise might have been the crash of a late 
 
282 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 train. The officer of the law did not raise his 
 head. . . . 
 
 Around the corner came two figures. Both of 
 them carried bundles now. 
 
 The officer of the law strolled past them. He 
 did not stop as he spoke. 
 
 " All right? "he asked. 
 
 " All right," said one of the figures. 
 
 The officer of the law walked on, whistling his 
 popular tune. 
 
 13. Somewhat nearer the hour of sunrise, Mr. 
 Irwin, his merry eyes grown weary, stood in the 
 sitting-room of the Hon. Marcus Stein s suite of 
 hotel apartments. He was bending over a table on 
 which lay an opened bundle. 
 
 Stein was bending over the table, too. His digni 
 fied demeanor was ruffled. 
 
 4 This is nothing but a collection of junk," he was 
 saying. " It is no use to anybody but its owners. 
 Get it out of here at once, Mr. Irwin, and tell your 
 friends to return it to the place they got it from." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 i. As every man has his day in court, so nearly 
 every man has his day in the newspapers, and which 
 is the more trying it is difficult to decide. The day 
 following the night of the Cooper Union meeting 
 was Luke s: the morning papers seemed to contain 
 little news that did not refer to him; the editorial 
 columns presented satiric paragraphs and serious 
 leaders regarding his speech and his position before 
 the public, and spread over the first pages were ac 
 counts of his address and stories of the strike in the 
 factory, with which his connection was now loudly 
 heralded. 
 
 Comment on the speech was about equally divided. 
 Half of the press ridiculed it as the vaporing of a 
 misinformed dreamer, and half denounced it as an 
 anarchistic appeal to the violence of the mob. Some 
 journals gave stenographic reports of the entire mat 
 ter; most printed only those portions which, lifted 
 from their context, were best suited to the policy of 
 the paper using them. The extremes were shown by 
 two headlines. One read: 
 
 283 
 
284 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 NIGHTMARES OF A CANDIDATE 
 
 Br er Huber Consults His Dream-Book 
 
 And Says Innocent New York Is 
 
 Being Tortured Without 
 
 Knowing It 
 
 And the other flung across eight columns, in letters 
 of vermilion, the legend: 
 
 CANDIDATE PREACHES PRIVATE WAR 
 WITH FIRE AND SWORD! 
 
 In the treatment of the strike, Luke fared even 
 worse. He was held up as a hypocrite that cham 
 pioned the People from the platform and sweated the 
 poor in the shops. He was paraded as the real owner 
 of R. H. Forbes & Son. The papers generally most 
 bitter against labor movements published long ac 
 counts of the strike, denunciatory interviews with the 
 strike-leaders, and tables showing how badly the 
 wages paid by the Forbes firm compared with the 
 wage-scale already in operation in the factories con 
 trolled by the clothing-trust. There was a hurriedly 
 drawn cartoon that depicted Luke wearing a Liberty- 
 cap and hurling a bomb at a figure labeled " Con 
 servative Business " : he was addressing a mob from 
 a soap-box that was supported by the bowed shoul 
 ders of his oppressed employees. The most respect 
 able newspaper in New York hinted that his political 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 285 
 
 attack was made against his business rivals solely 
 because they were his business rivals, and the least 
 respectable declared that his quarrel with the workers 
 stamped his election doctrines as the gospel of Mur 
 der for Profit. 
 
 As Luke entered the door of the Broadway build 
 ing in which the Municipal Reform League had its 
 headquarters, he came up with Venable also going 
 in. The old man s hand trembled as he greeted 
 the candidate. 
 
 " We seem to have raised a real thunderstorm," 
 said Luke, smiling. " I hope it ll clear the atmos- 
 phere." 
 
 "Then you know?" asked Venable. "You ve 
 seen it in the papers? " 
 
 "How could I help it?" said Luke. "It s all 
 over them." 
 
 "Oh, the speech?" 
 
 " That and this strike at the Forbes factory, yes." 
 
 " I didn t mean those things," said Venable. " I 
 meant this." 
 
 He took from his coat-pocket a folded newspaper 
 open at the financial and real estate page. He pointed 
 a shaking finger at first one and then another obscure 
 paragraph, both printed in small type and far sepa 
 rated. 
 
 Luke read the paragraphs. Each applied to the 
 
286 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 same block of an uptown street. The former said 
 that a new branch of an elevated railroad would 
 be run through this street, and the latter curtly an 
 nounced that two of the apartment houses in the 
 block were about to be converted into tenements for 
 negroes. 
 
 44 My apartment house," said Venable simply, " the 
 one that all my money is invested in, will have those 
 4 L -tracks running in front of its second-floor win 
 dows. It is just between the two houses that are to 
 to be made into tenements." 
 
 Luke swore softly. 
 
 44 Who s back of this?" he demanded. 
 
 41 You know what influences control that elevated 
 road," said Venable. 
 
 "And the tenements?" 
 
 44 They ve just been bought by Hallett" 
 
 "It s ruin?" 
 
 "It will be very close to it." 
 
 Luke gripped Venable s shoulder. 
 
 44 You get out of this," he commanded. " Leave 
 the League and go to them; they ll change their 
 plans: that s why they ve made their plans the way 
 they have." 
 
 44 No," said Venable, " I won t do it. I can t. 
 I m pretty old to be poor, but I m too old to change 
 my opinions." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 287 
 
 He was still talking in this manner when they 
 entered the League s quarters and were greeted with 
 the news that burglars had been there the night 
 before. 
 
 " Nothin s been touched in any of the offices but 
 yours, Mr. Huber," said the breathless clerk who 
 poured out this story to them; " but there the safe s 
 been blown open, and I don t know what s missin . I 
 sent for the police right away." 
 
 "The police? 1 said Luke. "Stop your joking, 
 Charley." 
 
 " I m not jokin , Mr. Huber. I did send for 
 them. They ve been here. They said they d have a 
 detective over from headquarters before long." 
 
 Luke hurried to his office. Bits of charred 
 blanket and several match-ends lay about the floor. 
 The door of the safe swung lamely upon a single 
 hinge. Inside was a tumbled mass of papers. Other 
 wise the room seemed undisturbed. 
 
 Quickly, Luke ran over the papers in the yawn 
 ing safe. He looked up at Venable. 
 
 " Everything s here," he said. 
 
 "Are you sure?" asked Venable. 
 
 " Quite." Luke went to his desk. Its lock had 
 been forced. There had been a rude attempt to re 
 store the contents to the order in which Luke had left 
 them when he quitted the office the day before, but 
 
288 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 he saw at once that everything had been examined. 
 " And they didn t get anything from here, either," he 
 added. 
 
 " I wonder what they were after? " said Venable. 
 
 " So do I," said Luke acridly. " At any rate, they 
 didn t get it." The telephone rang as he bent beside 
 it. He took the receiver from its hook. "Yes?" 
 he said. " Oh, Mr. Venable? Yes, he s here- 
 right : he s here in my office, I say. Want to talk to 
 him?" He held up the receiver. "It s that new 
 worker, Jarvie," he explained. u He wants to talk to 
 you." 
 
 Rapidly as events had of late happened to Luke and 
 the Municipal Reform League, they were happening 
 this morning with a speed theretofore unequaled. 
 Venable had not exchanged a dozen sentences over 
 the telephone before he told Jarvie to wait a minute 
 and, ringing off, faced Luke, with his cheeks gone 
 gray. 
 
 " This this is the worst thing yet ! " he gasped. 
 
 Luke was leaning against the desk, his hands closed 
 over its edge. 
 
 "What is?" 
 
 " This, that Jarvie says. It sOh ! " Venable 
 flung up his hands. " It s too much ! " 
 
 Luke s grip tightened. 
 
 " Tell me what it is." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 289 
 
 Venable crumpled into the chair before the tele 
 phone. 
 
 " A couple of the Progressives detectives have 
 caught Jarvie trying to buy one of Heney s lieu 
 tenants." 
 
 "What?" cried Luke. The veins stood out, big 
 and blue, on his gripping hands. 
 
 " Of course the Heney man was really working 
 with the detectives," moaned Venable; " but that 
 won t help. They had a dictaphone in the hotel 
 room " 
 
 "In what hotel room?" 
 
 " The one that Jarvie was to meet the Heney man 
 in. I thought he d be more careful. I told him " 
 
 Luke stood erect. He folded his arms. Venable s 
 confession shook him, but he exerted all his strength 
 of will to command himself. 
 
 "What are you telling me?" he asked. "Are 
 you telling me that the League has been going in for 
 rotten work of that sort? Are you telling me that 
 you you of all people have been engineering 
 
 it?" 
 
 Venable s terror gave quick place to amazement. 
 
 You don t mean to say you didn t understand 
 that? " he countered. " How do you suppose politics 
 are run, anyway? Where have you been all these 
 years under Leighton? " Anger came to his aid; his 
 
2 9 o THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 loose jaw wagged. " Don t try to get out of this 
 trouble by pretending you didn t know about it. 
 What we do, we do for the best ends, but I have 
 always said always that the only way to beat the 
 devil is to fight him with fire." 
 
 " Wait, please," said Luke. " I want to get this 
 thing straight. You say that all your reform move 
 ments have had some of this element in them? " 
 
 " I say we have always fought the devil with 
 fire." 
 
 " And this campaign. You ve used your fire in 
 it?" 
 
 " As little as possible. We never used more than 
 we could help." 
 
 " Did the committee know it? " 
 
 Venable reached for the telephone. 
 
 " I can t waste time over such quibbles now," he 
 said. * Jarvie s arrested and we must get him out 
 and learn the details to prepare our defense." 
 
 " But the committee knew? " 
 
 " Oh, ask them yourself ! They have a meeting 
 this afternoon. Of course, they knew ! They have 
 been in these fights since long before you were sent 
 to school, and they are not fools." 
 
 " You bet I will ask them! " said Luke. 
 
 He walked out of his office, out of the League 
 headquarters and into the street. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 291 
 
 2. His tired brain demanded action. It presented 
 one picture, a canvas as full of figures as a battle 
 field by Delacroix. There he saw all that he had done 
 or caused to be done : Yeates turned back to the baser 
 cause, Nelson forced to follow, Venable facing finan 
 cial disaster and soiling his old hands with crime; 
 burglary, prostitution, and fraud stimulated to defeat 
 him; police, city officials, and bankers corrupted to 
 ensnare him; his little fortune, on which hung his 
 mother s living, imperiled; Betty imperiled, Forbes 
 and the honorable business history of his firm im 
 periled; the factory s employees fronting starvation 
 and threatening violence; the elder political parties 
 dragged into a repetition of their former offenses, 
 the reform organization sharing in the evils it 
 sought to reform these were the present results of 
 his endeavors to civic righteousness. Could man 
 kind be so closely linked? Was there no end to the 
 lives and souls that must be wronged or made wrong 
 by one man trying to do right? He could not con 
 template the question. 
 
 To escape thought and find action, he went to 
 Brooklyn. He took a taxi to the factory. 
 
 The huge brown building rose taciturn before him, 
 ugly, dour. It ran the whole way across the end 
 of the street and was flanked by rows of tumbledown 
 dwellings. One tenuous column of smoke curled 
 
292 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 from the chimney of its engine-room, but, all about, 
 the streets had an air to which Luke was wholly 
 unaccustomed. The traffic that used to rattle through 
 them had ceased; they seemed at first sight empty; 
 yet at every corner were groups of men and women, 
 idle with that idleness which sits like the outward 
 tokens of a contagious disease upon workers who 
 have ceased their work in anger. 
 
 Luke saw them glance up at him as his open taxi- 
 cab whirled past them: uncouth, slouching figures, 
 with stooped shoulders and sullen faces. He had 
 not supposed that he could be known to a score of 
 them, but the portraits of him distributed for cam 
 paign purposes had made him familiar: the first few 
 groups merely looked at him and sneered; then some 
 one shouted an obscene epithet after him, and when 
 the cab drew up before the office-door of the factory, 
 a half-brick, tossed from the farther side of the street, 
 shattered the glass windscreen at the chauffeur s back. 
 
 Luke s impulse was toward physical reprisal. He 
 jumped from the taxi and darted around it. 
 
 On the other side of the street there was only a 
 single figure in sight: a figure that leaned against a 
 lamp-post. Once it had been a woman; now it was 
 only misery. Red toes burst from its bulging shoes 
 from which the stockings fell so far that, the filthy 
 skirt held up by a claw-like hand, at least six inches 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 293 
 
 of thin shank, a pale blue, were visible. The ragged 
 jacket hung open over an open blouse that showed 
 a flat chest. Tangled hair, hatless, fell about and 
 almost hid a red and swollen face. Through the 
 hair a loose mouth gaped, and a pair of eyes burned 
 yellow. The right hand was extended, clenched. 
 
 " You go to hell, you hypocrite!" croaked the 
 figure. 
 
 Luke turned toward the factory-door. To reach 
 it, he had to press through a double line of men and 
 women, silent, ominous : the strikers picket-line. The 
 woman s voice croaked from across the street: 
 
 " //a//eyloolyah, I m a bum bum! 
 Ha//eyloolyah, bum again ! " 
 
 Luke s memory saw a small, crowded room 
 papered in green, with framed advertisements about 
 the walls and many tables, at one of which sat an 
 unshaven, uncollared man who wore a greasy derby 
 hat. . . . 
 
 Luke pushed open the office-door and hurried to 
 Forbes s office. 
 
 3. The office was crowded. Forbes, determined, 
 sat at his desk; he faced a line of slouching men in 
 shabby clothes, who held their hats in their hands 
 and shuffled their uneasy feet, and were headed by 
 
294 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 one man, dressed as they were, but better fed and 
 brawny, his large face hard, his hat upon his head. 
 Luke knew that this was the workers committee led 
 by the organizer. 
 
 " I haven t another word to say," Forbes was de 
 claring. A hint of relief came to his voice when he 
 saw Luke. "Oh, Huber," he broke off: "Good- 
 morning. Come over here and sit down. I am just 
 telling these men for the last time that we will meet 
 them in the matter of hours, but we can t and won t 
 grant them the ruinous increase of wages they want." 
 As Luke took a chair beside him, he continued, ad 
 dressing his employees and carefully avoiding the 
 organizer: " I have one gang of men coming here in 
 half an hour to take your jobs. There are more 
 where they came from, and we ll be running full blast 
 this time to-morrow. If you re not back at work by 
 the time the first gang of men gets here, you ll never 
 get back." 
 
 Luke expected a growl of anger: there was no 
 sound from them. 
 
 The organizer coughed. 
 
 " Mr. Forbes " he began. 
 
 Forbes smacked his hands together. 
 
 " I don t know you ! " he snapped. 
 
 " You know who I am," said the organizer calmly. 
 " I told you." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 295 
 
 " I don t recognize your right to be here." 
 
 " I haven t any right, because it s against the prin 
 ciples of our organization to treat with employers, 
 but I thought - " 
 
 Raging, Forbes stood up. 
 
 " Against your principles, is it ? " he cried. " Well, 
 it s against the principles of this firm to talk to 
 
 11 Mr. Forbes - " 
 
 " That s all I ve got ro say." 
 
 The organizer was unruffled. He maintained a 
 rather terrifying dignity. He turned to the men. 
 
 " Come on, fellows," he said. 
 
 With a loud scraping of feet, the strikers and 
 their leader passed out of the room. 
 
 Luke and Forbes remained quiet. Even for some 
 time after the room was empty, they said nothing, 
 and while they sat thus, a boyish voice rose from the 
 street : 
 
 " Oh, I love my boss : 
 
 He s a good friend o mine; 
 An that s why I m starving 
 Out in the bread-line ! " 
 
 Somebody laughed, and several voices took up the 
 chorus : 
 
 " //a//eyloolyah, I m a bum bum! . . , H 
 
 The boyish voice continued: 
 
296 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Oh, why don t you work 
 
 Like other men do? 
 How in Hell can I work 
 
 When there s no work to do?" 
 
 "That s their logic," said Forbes fretfully. He 
 nodded toward the street. " How can you argue 
 with people of that sort?" 
 
 " It didn t strike me that you were arguing," said 
 Luke. " What are you going to do?" 
 
 " What I said." 
 
 "You meant it, then?" 
 
 " Every word. I ve taken your advice, after all : 
 I ve employed that strike-breaker: Breil, you know." 
 
 Luke had heard of him. Breil, he knew, owned 
 several hundred fighting-men and took them to all 
 parts of the country under the pretense that they were 
 workers anxious to start the wheels of industries 
 stopped by strikers. Wherever Breil went, trouble 
 followed. 
 
 " Then you d better employ the Pinkertons, too," 
 said Luke. 
 
 " They re too expensive," Forbes said. " Be 
 sides," he added, " that sort of thing s un-American. 
 We won t need detectives to protect the right of the 
 worker to work. If we need any help, we ll call 
 in the police. I thought you understood that. I m 
 afraid you will never learn the art of handling men, 
 Huber." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 297 
 
 Luke was anxious for a fight. The corruption 
 that he had discovered in the League fired his prim 
 itive instincts. He was angry, and it was of small 
 consequence to him upon whom he visited his anger. 
 Here his own fortune, honestly come by, was threat 
 ened; his mother s support, Forbes s and Betty s. It 
 was an excellent opportunity. 
 
 " I m with you," he said. " When do you expect 
 the first contingent of Breil s men?" 
 
 "When I said: in half an hour." 
 
 " Have you phoned police headquarters? " 
 
 " No. What s the use? I don t want to court a 
 fight. The presence of the police before there was 
 a fight might only start one. Headquarters sent me 
 down two extra men this morning when I asked for 
 them, and that s enough for the present." 
 
 Luke bent to the telephone. 
 
 " I don t agree with you," he said. 
 
 Forbes s protest was mild. Luke called police 
 headquarters and stated his case. When he men 
 tioned his name, he was told that the Police Com 
 missioner was not to be found. 
 
 " Then find him," said Luke. 
 
 " I think he s gone out," came the answer. 
 
 " If you don t find him after what I ve told you, 
 I ll show up your action at the next meeting I speak 
 at," said Luke. 
 
298 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 The Commissioner was found. 
 
 " But what trouble have you had so far? " he de 
 manded. 
 
 " We haven t had any so far," said Luke. " What 
 we want is to avoid trouble." 
 
 " I think you re easy scared," laughed the Com 
 missioner. " Have there been any threats?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Well, what s itching you, anyhow? My de 
 partment s got three campaign parades and a 
 dozen meetings on its hands to-day besides its regu 
 lar business. I can t spare my men unless I know 
 they re needed." 
 
 He rang off. 
 
 4. Luke wanted to stay for the arrival of Breil s 
 men; but there was something else that he had to 
 do and could not postpone. He left the factory 
 a few minutes before the hour at which the strike 
 breakers were to arrive. He passed into a street 
 slowly filling with strikers, but he reassured himself 
 by the reflection that what he had to do would be 
 brief and that he would soon be free to return. He 
 hurried to the League s headquarters, where he knew 
 that the Committee would soon be in session. 
 
 For, under all his absorption in the affairs of the 
 factory, and in spite of his desire to abjure thought 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 299 
 
 for action, his brain had been busy. It was telling 
 him something new about politics. It was receiving 
 the truth about parties as, from his vantage-ground, 
 he had seen it. 
 
 He did not stop in his own office. He went at 
 once to the committee-room, which opened from that 
 of the typists . The Committee must have received 
 a special summons and begun its work before the 
 usual time. Business, as Luke entered, was already 
 under weigh, and the room was filled. In the body 
 of the narrow hall a crowd of men lounged upon 
 rows of those collapsible chairs, clamped together, 
 which undertakers hire out for funerals; most of 
 the men had cigars in their mouths, and the smoky 
 air smelled of tobacco and the fumes from the action 
 of alcohol on the digestive juices. On a small plat 
 form at one end of the room sat Venable, who was 
 chairman, and, among the several persons grouped 
 about him, Luke was surprised to note both Yeates 
 and Nelson. Nearly all of the company looked at 
 the newcomer, and Venable, after looking, glanced 
 quickly away. Several committeemen whispered to 
 gether, and one laughed. 
 
 Luke sat in the first vacant chair that he could 
 find. 
 
 " It is moved and seconded," Venable was say 
 ing, " that the order of business be suspended. All 
 
300 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 those in favor will signify their consent in the usual 
 
 manner." 
 
 A droning assent answered him. 
 
 " So ordered/ said Venable, and looked uneasily 
 in Luke s direction. 
 
 There was an embarrassed pause. Finally Yeates 
 got to his feet. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman," he said. 
 
 Venable bowed. 
 
 Yeates s hands were in his pockets; his glance was 
 fixed on the floor. 
 
 " I propose this resolution," he said, his voice 
 low, his words coming rapidly : " That it is the belief 
 of the Executive Committee of the Municipal Re 
 form League of New York that Mr. Luke Huber 
 should be asked to withdraw from its ticket, on 
 which he now appears as its candidate for District- 
 Attorney, and that he is hereby so asked to do." 
 
 There was no hubbub ; everybody but Luke ap 
 peared to have known what was coming. If there 
 was any discomposure, it was plainly due to Luke s 
 unexpectedly early appearance. Everybody looked 
 at him again. 
 
 From a front seat, one man, evidently assigned 
 to the task, rose abruptly. 
 
 " Second the motion," he mumbled, and sat 
 down. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 301 
 
 Luke was standing before Venable could ask: 
 
 "Any remarks ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Luke. 
 
 " Question ! Question ! " called a dozen voices. 
 
 Luke s voice was raised above theirs. 
 
 " I want " he began. 
 
 " Sit down ! " yelled somebody behind him. 
 
 Luke turned, but the interrupter did not reveal 
 himself. 
 
 " I want to say one word about this motion," 
 Luke began. He swept the room with a steady gaze 
 and then let his eyes rest on the chairman. 
 
 Perhaps because their candidate had never seemed 
 more lazy or unconcerned, the Committee offered no 
 immediate objection. It was Venable that, without 
 meeting Luke s glance, interposed. 
 
 " Considering the topic under discussion," said 
 he, " it would be more in accord with the usual 
 procedure if Mr. Huber were not in the hall." 
 
 " Good for you ! " cried a man in the back row 
 of chairs. 
 
 " No! Give him a chance! " cried another. 
 
 Luke raised his hand to quiet them. 
 
 " Considering that this is supposed to be a meet 
 ing of the Executive Committee of the League," he 
 said, " it would be more in accord with the usual pro 
 cedure if any motions made to it were made by mem- 
 
302 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 bers of the Committee. Mr. Yeates is not even a 
 member of the League." 
 
 " Sit down ! " said the voice from the back 
 row. 
 
 " Oh, sit down!" echoed a neighbor wearily. 
 
 " We can easy find somebody else if Yeates won t 
 do ! " cried another voice. 
 
 " I am well aware of that," said Luke, " and so 
 I don t propose to quibble " 
 
 " Ain t he obligin ? " called the back-row man. 
 
 " And besides," Luke continued, " if you would 
 only listen to me for a minute, you ll find out that I 
 came here with my mind made up to do just what 
 you re now asking me to do." 
 
 He could feel their amazement at his words and 
 so he no longer heeded the back-row man s com 
 ment: 
 
 " You mean you came here to sit down?" 
 
 "Have I the floor?" asked Luke of Venable. 
 
 The chairman writhed. 
 
 " In that case," Luke pursued, choosing to accept 
 Venable s movement as a sign of assent, " I only 
 want to say that I made up my mind this morning, 
 of my own free will, to leave the ticket and the 
 League." 
 
 He was interrupted by a roar of disapproval. 
 The crowd had recovered its wits. Resignation 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 303 
 
 would not suit its purpose. Dismissal alone would 
 suit that. A turmoil of voices arose. 
 
 As if to climb above their noise, Luke stood on 
 tiptoe. 
 
 " Because this morning," he shouted, " I dis 
 covered " 
 
 Old Venable banged his desk with the gavel. 
 
 "Out of order!" he bawled. 
 
 Luke waved him down. 
 
 " That this League," he yelled, " was as corrupt 
 as " 
 
 They were all on their feet. Some were stand 
 ing on their chairs. The men next to Luke tugged 
 at his coat. Other men rushed at him crying threats. 
 They shook their fists and cursed him. 
 
 Luke was as mad as any of them now. His hands 
 struck out at the twisting figures about him. The 
 tendons of his throat swelled like knots as he 
 screamed : 
 
 " as corrupt as its enemies! Corrupt! Cor 
 rupt ! Corrupt ! And I leave you to your own 
 rottenness ! " 
 
 He fought his way through them to the door. He 
 flung one man across a chair that crashed under its 
 sudden burden. Another man who stood in his way, 
 he struck with an upper-cut under the chin and sent 
 him bouncing against the wall. Hooting, swearing, 
 
304 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 yelling, they crowded behind him, and he fought his 
 way clear and almost ran through the outer room 
 full of astonished stenographers. 
 
 A girl ran after him. 
 
 " Someone was wantin you on the telephone, Mr. 
 Huber," she panted. " I think he said his name 
 was Forbes and I know he said it was very impor 
 
 tant." 
 
 Luke paused, looked at her as if she were speak 
 ing an alien tongue and, unanswering, pressed on to 
 the elevators. 
 
 5. What now? 
 
 He thought about the newspapers, because his 
 whole soul was still set upon self-justification. He 
 went to the Union Square Hotel; found the public 
 stenographer, dictated to her, and signed, copies of 
 a statement briefly saying that he had left the ticket 
 of the League because he had found the organization 
 corrupt; posted these to the press, and then, already 
 wondering why he had bothered to follow a course 
 of publicity that was really directed solely by habit, 
 turned again into the street. 
 
 The idea of party had been torn out of him, and 
 he felt as if an arm or a leg had been torn out of 
 him. He could not imagine a man being whole with 
 out being part of a party and thereby having a party 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 305 
 
 as part of him. Even yet the lingering hope of the 
 impossible made its claim. 
 
 But his reason fought that claim with the sword 
 of remembered experiences. It recalled his faith in 
 the party into which, almost literally, he had been 
 born, and how that faith was shattered; his sub 
 sequent belief in the theory of reform within the 
 party, or the party s ability to reform itself, and 
 how that belief was broken; his intimate knowledge 
 of corruption at the head of the other two parties; 
 his discovery, that morning, of the same baseness 
 in independent reform movements. Certain as he 
 was of the rightness of his attitude toward those 
 strikers at the Forbes mill, he was yet able to see 
 that even the working-class, cheated by one political 
 organization after the other, could not win its 
 ultimate desires through any political organization, 
 though they formed one of their own. Where was 
 the entity? What was a party but the people that 
 composed it? Could a party be a thing-in-itself ? 
 Could it have any existence save in and through its 
 members? That mattered nothing. Whether the 
 members imposed evil upon the organization that 
 they created, or whether the thing that they created 
 imposed evil on its creators, the evil was in 
 herent in Party. The irrefutable fact was that the 
 disease lay not in the form of a party and political 
 
3 o6 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 system, but in the system itself: parties were wrong 
 ab initio, politics were evil in their conception and 
 being. Not this or that party was responsible, nor 
 were these or those politics; parties were not diseased, 
 politics were not diseased. Party in the abstract, 
 Politics in themselves were the disease. 
 
 Nevertheless, he would hold those letters for a 
 little while. . . . 
 
 6. That turn of his passing thought toward the 
 position of Labor reminded him of the message that 
 the stenographer had given him. He went to a 
 telephone and called up the factory. 
 
 Over the wire, Forbes s voice came in a broken 
 cry. Breil s men had arrived on time, and the strik 
 ers were waiting for them. There was a pitched 
 battle in the street. The few policemen on duty 
 disappeared. The strike-breakers fled into the fac 
 tory, where two of them now lay dangerously 
 wounded and a dozen others were badly cut and 
 bruised. 
 
 " Why didn t you telephone sooner? " Forbes de 
 manded. " It s awful ! I sent for doctors and 
 nurses. I ve been trying everywhere to get you. 
 There s one man I couldn t find you anywhere 
 I don t know " 
 
 Luke gritted his teeth. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 307 
 
 "Haven t you phoned for more police?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Of course I have; but the Commissioner said 
 it wasn t anything but a street-fight." 
 
 " Then I ll try the Mayor." 
 
 " I have done that, Huber." 
 
 " What did he say?" 
 
 " He said you would hardly believe it he said 
 that these matters were the Commissioner s busi 
 
 ness." 
 
 7. Luke went himself to the Commissioner and 
 the Mayor, and was given the answers that Forbes 
 had been given. The Commissioner said that he 
 had the reports of his patrolmen, and that these 
 spoke of the matter as trivial when it happened and 
 described it as now ended. In the Mayor s office he 
 was told: 
 
 " I have to depend on the word of my Commis 
 
 sioner." 
 
 Luke spent the remainder of the afternoon trying 
 by long-distance telephone to reach the executive 
 office at Albany. When he got an answer, it was 
 from the Governor s secretary, and was to the effect 
 that he now expected: no troops could be called 
 out for service in any county of the State until the 
 local civil authorities asked for them. 
 
308 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 8. That night, when there was a lull in the tur 
 moil around the factory, Luke and Forbes sat late 
 in the library of Forbes s house, trying to devise 
 some plan to save the situation. It was two o clock 
 in the morning when Luke walked into the darkened 
 hall; but there Betty s warm arms were around his 
 neck, and Betty s voice was whispering in his ear: 
 
 " It will come out all right. I know it will come 
 out all right, because we re right." 
 
 He kissed her. 
 
 " I hope I do better at this than I did in politics," 
 he said. " I haven t had time to tell you, but I lost 
 there, dear." 
 
 " No, you didn t." He felt her hair brush his 
 cheek as she shook her head in contradiction. " No, 
 you didn t. You had your choice between doing what 
 was right and what was wrong. The only way to 
 win was the way they thought was losing. But you 
 did what was right and so it was they that lost, and 
 it was my brave man that won 1 " 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Something had gone wrong again with the head 
 of that office in the Wall Street skyscraper where 
 George Washington watched the stock-ticker and 
 where the windows looked down on filmy streets 
 full of figures bobbing like entangled flies : the plump 
 man in brown, the man with the pointed teeth and 
 the beady eyes, was once more absent. The slight 
 cold that the doctors mentioned, the catarrhal affec 
 tion, had returned; the mucous membranes of the 
 throat were re-inflamed; the malady that no news 
 paper gave a name to renewed its war. 
 
 As always, the office work proceeded with silent 
 regularity. Simpson, the almoner, saw callers. At- 
 wood, the chief broker, telephoned for orders up 
 town. Conover, the confidential clerk, traveled sev 
 eral times a day between his master s house and his 
 master s place of business in one of his master s 
 motor-cars. At the brown man s home, the famous 
 physicians issued their non-committal bulletins; L. 
 Bergen Rivington and George J. Hallett came in 
 and went out, the former worried and elliptical, the 
 latter loud in denial. And directly across the street 
 
 309 
 
3 io THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 the relays of reporters resumed their watching, asked 
 hourly the same questions and received always the 
 same replies. Rumor once more hinted dark things 
 about a ruined digestion and an overworked brain. 
 
 Nevertheless, there was a difference between this 
 occasion and its predecessors, and the delicate nerves 
 of the financial world quivered with their subtle and 
 sure appreciation of it. The interval of good health 
 had been briefer than ever before. Simpson looked 
 grave. Atwood received few orders. Conover more 
 often than not failed to see whom he sought. The 
 famous physicians called other famous physicians into 
 consultation. Rivington and Hallett were sometimes 
 denied audience. The reporters sent their chiefs 
 a word that made every newspaper-office in the 
 country hunt up a certain long-prepared obituary, set 
 it in type and keep it standing on the bank with a 
 slug-line that read, " Hold for Orders." Rumor 
 shook its thousand heads, and this time rumor was 
 right: the thumbs of the gods were turned down. 
 
 No more rising early and working late for the 
 man with the beady eyes and hairy hands. No more 
 gluttony. No more scheming. All hours are alike 
 in the sickroom; his only food was tepid broth, and 
 about a brain too tired to scheme for itself, the only 
 scheming was how to drag forward from minute to 
 minute its life that was death-in-life. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 311 
 
 In the street straw had one day been strewn to 
 quiet the noise of traffic, and the next day commands 
 from City Hall closed that street to traffic. Outside 
 was silence, and silence was inside, behind the brown- 
 stone walls and shuttered windows, over the rich 
 rugs, among the pictures by the great dead artists. 
 
 In a darkened room, in a big Louis XV. bed, 
 bought from the poor descendant of a Provencal 
 marquis for whose mistress it was made, the patient 
 lay. His legs were beneath the covers, but an up 
 holstered bed-rest propped him so that his trunk was 
 almost upright, wrapped in a house-jacket of French 
 flannel, russet brown. Freshly shaven and carefully 
 brushed, he was as neat as if he were about to go to 
 business; but his cheeks hung like folds of dough over 
 his heavy jaw-bone; his short-sighted eyes were fixed 
 on the tapestried canopy above him, which showed 
 the rape of Europa; his lips, turned pale, were pulled 
 back tightly over his yellow fangs. On the edge of 
 the coverlet, high-drawn, his hairy hands gave the 
 only sign of life in all his body: the rounded tips 
 of their stumpy fingers moved constantly as if they 
 were spinning . . . spinning . . . 
 
 He would not go to business any more. 
 
 It was the day on which Luke s month of prom 
 ised suppression was to expire. In the sick-room of 
 the man in russet-brown two doctors stood at one 
 
312 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 side of the bed now, with a nurse between them. 
 L. Bergen Rivington and George J. Hallett were ad 
 mitted to the room, and Rivington stood at the foot 
 of the bed with his trembling hand before his face, 
 while Hallett, beside him, squared his jaw and looked 
 at the dying man, who did not look at him. Some 
 servants that had worked in the house for twenty 
 years hovered in the shadows and sobbed, because 
 they loved their master and had long cause to love 
 him. A clergyman, in his vestments, knelt at the 
 side of the bed opposite the doctors and read from 
 a little book. 
 
 " O Almighty God," read the clergyman, his voice 
 sounding loud in the quiet of the room " with 
 whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, 
 after they are delivered from their earthly prisons; 
 we humbly commend the soul of thy servant, our 
 dear brother, into thy hands . . . " 
 
 One doctor quietly reached out and placed a seek 
 ing finger on the dying man s wrist. 
 
 ". . . that it may be precious in thy sight . . ." 
 
 The doctor looked over his shoulder at his col 
 league. The colleague s eyes asked a question. The 
 examining doctor nodded. 
 
 . . . it may be presented pure and without 
 spot before thee." 
 
 Then the man on the bed died. He died silently, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 313 
 
 speedily, grimly. The stumpy fingers stopped their 
 weaving motion; they shot into the palms of the 
 hands, and the hands clenched until only their hairy 
 backs were visible. The lips tightened for a moment 
 until the pointed fangs seemed to have bitten through 
 them; the beady eyes protruded still farther from 
 their sockets; the crooked arms curved stiffly toward 
 the belly; the crooked knees shot toward the chest; 
 the whole figure seemed to curl up; the mouth fell 
 open. 
 
 The clergyman looked, hesitated and continued: 
 "... teach us who survive, in this and other 
 like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail 
 and uncertain our own condition is; and so to num 
 ber our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts 
 to that holy and heavenly wisdom, whilst we live 
 here, which may in the end bring us to life everlast 
 ing, through the merits of Jesus Christ, thine only 
 Son our Lord. Amen." 
 
 Far down in the offices on the twentieth floor of 
 a Wall Street skyscraper, everything was going on 
 as usual. Only one room of the suite was empty, and 
 even in it, under the solemn Washington, the stock- 
 ticker was weaving out its yards and yards of tape 
 by the windows that looked to the web of streets on. 
 which the people buzzed always like entangled flies. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 i. Public opinion had been unanimous concern 
 ing Luke s break with the Municipal Reform League. 
 Only in the terms of their condemnation did the 
 newspapers differ: they were all agreed that Luke 
 was anathema. His letters to the press served him to 
 small purpose; the Executive Committee issued a 
 statement declaring that his withdrawal had been 
 requested " because of inflammatory utterances and 
 practical policies contrary to the spirit and purpose 
 of the organization." The official statement was ac 
 cepted and his individual version treated as a futile 
 attempt to blacken a reputable, if mistaken, move 
 ment. It was everywhere believed that he had been 
 forced to resign because of his Cooper Union speech, 
 and it was in some quarters hinted that his former 
 comrades held him responsible for the attempt to 
 bribe the Heney lieutenant a scandal made the most 
 of during the subsequent period of the campaign and 
 thereafter dropped before it reached the courts. 
 In spite of the fact that the Committee had met in 
 secret session, some of its members gave their own 
 story of its turbulent denouement to the reporters, 
 
 314 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 31$ 
 
 and this was published in a form that made Luke 
 appear as a cornered bully. 
 
 i 
 
 " Mr. Huber [said the most dignified editorial on the subject] 
 was rnce doubtless a well-intentioned young man, but his first 
 taste of popular applause seems to have intoxicated him, made 
 him see visions of one real evil in every impossible quarter and 
 caused a fit of that acute mania wherein one s best friends are 
 mistaken for one s worst enemies. This is the only charitable 
 explanation of the tragic end to a promising career, but on that 
 end the Municipal Reform League is certainly to be congratu 
 lated." 
 
 Other editorials laughed at Luke s habit of hitting 
 at vast conspiracies of which he never produced 
 proof, and some charged him with flagrant dishon 
 esty. He reverted for a time to his belief in pub 
 licity and bombarded the papers with letters of ex 
 planation; but the papers at first garbled and then 
 forgot to print what he wrote. He sent for reporters 
 to give them interviews, but, although the men still 
 liked him, and politely took down his every word, 
 they could never get their " copy " beyond the edi 
 torial desks. Within a few days, the former candi 
 date was a newspaper joke. 
 
 He had, of course, written to his mother and sister 
 about his engagement to Betty, since publicly an 
 nounced, and they had replied with kindly letters, 
 glad because of his planned marriage to the daughter 
 of a man of good family supposed to be well-to-do, 
 
316 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 and hopeful for his continued happiness. Now, with 
 the news of his political overthrow published broad 
 cast, Jane wrote to ask him why he had been so fool 
 ish and to quote her husband the Congressman, to 
 the effect that what Luke needed was an apprentice 
 ship at practical politics; his mother s comment was 
 one of love triumphant over the defects of the loved 
 object and forgiveness for behavior inexplicable in 
 his father s son. 
 
 The strike dragged on wearily. After the first 
 outbreak of violence, the leaders were able, for a 
 time, to prevail upon the strikers to use more peace 
 able methods; but the resulting days of siege were 
 as trying for both sides as the active warfare had 
 been. Forbes s boasts to the contrary notwithstand 
 ing, the firm, handicapped by the unskilled labor of 
 the strike-breakers, found itself unable to fulfil its 
 contracts ; the new recruits were all raw men, whereas 
 much of the factory s work was intended for trained 
 women: badly needed money was being forfeited. 
 The dispossessed employees, on the other hand, 
 rapidly exhausted their own supplies; because they 
 had gone over to industrial unionism, the American 
 Federation of Labor, to which their old " local " had 
 been attached through the trade-union that it was a 
 part of, refused help and forbade the union to give 
 any; there had been a national reaction against the 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 317 
 
 I. W. W., and it could furnish but little money. The 
 strikers held angry meetings and faced starvation; 
 Luke and Forbes met in long conferences and faced 
 ruin. 
 
 In those days, only Luke s love for Betty sus 
 tained him, and Betty, being new to both love and 
 disaster, remained loyal. She was confident that the 
 politicians and the papers were conspiring against 
 him, and, knowing her father s gentleness in his 
 home, she was equally confident that the strikers were 
 wrong. 
 
 Luke did not inquire as to the reasons of her stead 
 fastness. In the first darkness of disaster, he was too 
 glad for support to quarrel with its origin. She was 
 warm and human, sympathetic and at hand; she 
 loved him. With all his heart and soul, he returned 
 her love. In the last analysis, he fought, he told 
 himself, for an ideal that, if greater than them both 
 or separately, was yet necessary to them. The ideal 
 had an undeniable lien upon the best of his strength 
 of body and mind; yet whatever of these the ideal 
 could spare was not for him, but for Betty. 
 
 Then came the death of the man whom Luke had 
 regarded as the personification of the evils from 
 which the country was suffering. It came close 
 enough upon the Cooper Union speech to make 
 that speech appear in the worst possible taste; but 
 
3i8 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 it was an event considered of such tremendous 
 importance in itself that Luke was forgotten and 
 once for all swept from the columns of the news 
 papers. 
 
 Those papers, even the daring few that had once 
 or twice had the temerity feebly to question the lesser 
 schemes of the man who now pursued no more 
 schemes, were crowded with reverential accounts of 
 his illness, awed pictures of his last moments, lauda 
 tory descriptions of his Napoleonic career, and edi 
 torials that spoke only of his undeniable greatness 
 and his outstanding benefactions. The country talked 
 as if its king had died; the achievements of none of 
 the three presidents killed while in office had re 
 ceived louder praise or more lengthy attention. He 
 left two large fortunes to individuals: one to the 
 niece to whom Yeates was engaged, and one to be 
 divided among more distant relatives, with bequests 
 to faithful servants in his house and businesses; but 
 the bulk of his money went to the colleges and hos 
 pitals that he had so magnificently assisted during his 
 life. Firmly, the entire press observed the Latin 
 maxim: they let nothing but good be spoken of the 
 dead. 
 
 Luke was by this time prepared for such an atti 
 tude on the part of the papers, but, on his own part, 
 he permitted no illusions. The fact of death must 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 319 
 
 always be solemn; but the force that ended wrong 
 doing did not palliate it. This blow was like a judg 
 ment from Heaven. Luke did not think so much of 
 how it would benefit him as of how it would benefit 
 the country, but he was of too common clay not to 
 spare some reflection to the influence of the event 
 upon his own affairs : it would probably mean the dis 
 solution of the antagonism to him in business; it 
 would surely mean the cessation of the personal per 
 secution that had already wrecked his political and 
 professional career. Yet it was more for the triumph 
 of the larger and broader good that he felt ready to 
 chant a Jubilate. 
 
 Once the thoughts crossed his mind: If Heaven 
 were just, and this death were indeed Heaven s 
 judgment, why had Heaven s judgment been so long 
 delayed? And, since Heaven had been tardy when 
 the death of a single man could thus ease the world 
 and make for social righteousness, how could he 
 have held it wrong had some sufferer from that evil 
 struck, in Heaven s default, this single blow for the 
 freedom of society? But he was in no mood to front 
 casuistry: the thing had happened, and that was 
 happiness enough. 
 
 He was reading the news in his rooms at the 
 Arapahoe. He had sat up late with Forbes the night 
 before and had risen late this morning, breakfasting 
 
320 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 in the apartment house. He knew that he ought 
 to go to the factory, but he could not go at 
 once. 
 
 He began again to dream dreams as he used to 
 dream them. His personal failure counted for noth 
 ing in what must happen now. Suppose he were 
 discredited and unable to win back the public con 
 fidence: somebody, without party and without poli 
 tics, a larger and better man than he had been, would 
 assume a national leadership, where his had been 
 small and local, and would now bring the whole coun 
 try back to the simple political faith and the plain, 
 honest financial and industrial policies of the nation s 
 founders. The mercenaries of darkness that had 
 served the evil mind could not now, with the evil 
 mind in perdition, stand for one day against the 
 Army of Light. 
 
 Himself? He would begin over again, with Betty 
 and for her. In the new order, under the reign of 
 equity, public opinion would soon clarify, and he 
 could re-establish himself and perform some part, 
 however small, of the mighty work of reconstruction. 
 He had been too busy of late with love and politics 
 and business to continue in the social life in which Jack 
 Porcellis had launched him. Porcellis s sporadic re 
 turns to New York the man was just now in India 
 on the pretense of studying its religions were, lat- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 321 
 
 terly, Luke s sole occasions of approaching that exist 
 ence. Save to secure the loan, he now contritely re 
 called, he had neglected Ruysdael, whose agent as 
 yet evinced no misgivings over the effect of the strike 
 upon Forbes s securities, and on his last incursions 
 into Mrs. Ruysdael s set, though Luke had found 
 himself liked, he was made aware that the liking 
 for his small-talk was severely tempered by scorn 
 for his enthusiasms. He must overcome all 
 that now. To be of use, to help Betty, he must 
 regain. 
 
 When he was a small boy, his ambition in life had 
 been carpentry. At some remote time or other, he 
 must have seen and admired one of those journeymen 
 joiners of the elder type that used to tramp the 
 country roads from small town to town and keep 
 alive by doing odd jobs at the houses on their end 
 less way. He loved tools and he loved wandering; 
 even yet he loved them, and this figure had once rep 
 resented Romance to him as definitely as the dead 
 man in russet brown, long afterward, represented 
 Evil. This morning, while he smiled at the memory 
 of those young imaginings, Luke felt a little of their 
 charm: it seemed impossible for him to form, as he 
 should, his new plans while he sat in an apartment 
 house in the city in which his plans must eventually 
 be applied; he wished that he could drop everything 
 
322 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 for the day and go somewhere far out into the 
 country to tramp the dusty roads and dream at 
 ease. 
 
 It was then that the telephone announced a caller: 
 ex- Judge Stein. 
 
 2. The Judge, as he entered, presented the same 
 dignified figure that he had presented when Luke last 
 talked with him. His strong face was solemn, but 
 undisturbed by its solemnity. He arranged with care 
 the tails of his frock-coat as he seated himself in 
 the best chair, but on this occasion he came directly 
 to the point of his visit. 
 
 " Mr. Huber," he said, " a great many things 
 have happened since we met." 
 
 Luke shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I ll admit you ve kept me pretty busy, Judge." 
 
 " I was not referring to the unnecessary trouble 
 in which you involved yourself. I was referring 
 to the fact that your month has elapsed and that 
 the man you threatened is dead." 
 
 The news of the morning had temporarily an 
 nulled Luke s sense of time. Only yesterday he had 
 wondered what use he should make of the Rollins 
 letters, now carried in a safer place than his coat- 
 pocket; to-day he had forgotten them. 
 
 " Yes," he said, gathering his thoughts behind 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 323 
 
 his impassive face : " the month s over and the man s 
 dead." 
 
 The Judge leaned impressively forward. He 
 shook his white head gravely. 
 
 " Death," said the Judge, " wipes out all ani 
 mosities. I know you would not use those letters 
 now, Mr. Huber, because I know you would not 
 strike a dead man. So I have come to ask you to 
 deliver them to me." He held out his opened hand. 
 
 Luke blinked at it. 
 
 " I don t understand," said he. " I thought you 
 always represented yourself as well, as not profes 
 sionally retained in this matter?" 
 
 " I am now," said the Judge. 
 
 "Oh! By the estate?" 
 
 " Not directly and not altogether." Stein chose 
 his words. " I am retained by the company whose 
 property those letters are." 
 
 " I thought you had left the railroad-claim business 
 long ago. Perhaps you are specially retained for this 
 one job? " 
 
 The Judge looked hurt. His firm mouth quivered. 
 
 " Mr. Huber," he said, " I am in no frame of 
 mind for joking to-day. This man is dead, and he 
 was my friend " 
 
 " I m sorry to have seemed to joke," Luke inter 
 rupted. 
 
3 2 4 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Stein bowed and went on: 
 
 " He is dead, and whatever his faults we all have 
 our faults, Mr. Huber they died with him. I am 
 here only to ask you to show a decent respect for the 
 memory of a dead enemy. I am here to ask you to 
 be magnanimous, Mr. Huber." 
 
 " Magnanimous? You talk as if I had won! " 
 
 " The living are always the winners," said the 
 Judge. 
 
 Luke began to doubt that theory. 
 
 " And so you want me to surrender these letters? " 
 
 "Exactly. What use can they be to you now?" 
 
 " There were other people involved. Are they will 
 ing to accept my terms ? I know they can t hurt me, 
 because I know they haven t the courage or the 
 power of the man you ve been talking about. But 
 that s neither here nor there: will they accept my 
 terms?" 
 
 " They did not write either of the letters Mr. 
 Huber." 
 
 " They re inculpated by them." 
 
 " Not legally." 
 
 " Enough inculpated to serve my purpose." 
 
 " If you think that," said the Judge, " I can only 
 repeat the offer I made you when I called here be 
 fore." 
 
 Luke smiled. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 325 
 
 " And I can only refuse it." 
 
 " Mr. Huber," the Judge began again, " the man 
 is dead " 
 
 Luke s nerves had been strained for many a day. 
 He leaped to his feet. 
 
 " Of course the man s dead!" he cried. "He 
 was dead this morning, and he s still dead. Why do 
 you keep saying that over and over? I m tired of 
 hearing it." He saw the look of pain return. " I 
 beg your pardon," he said; " but I might as well tell 
 you first and last that I won t surrender those let 
 ters, no matter what you plead or threaten. I won t 
 tell you what I intend to do with them, either. And 
 the only reason I know that they must be of use to 
 me is your coming here and saying they aren t any 
 use." 
 
 The Judge rose also. 
 
 " Mr. Huber," said he, " I am very sorry to hear 
 you speak this way. I can t tell you how sorry I am. 
 You ought to know by this time " 
 
 " I couldn t know anything," Luke cut in, " that 
 would make me change my mind." 
 
 " But suppose," said the Judge heavily, " suppose 
 my friends happen to know that the situation of the 
 Forbes Company " 
 
 Luke s face went very white. 
 
 He opened the door. 
 
326 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Good-morning, Judge," he said. 
 
 3. Stein s polite, but portentous adieux were not 
 a quarter of an hour old before Luke sought the 
 office of the newspaper that had been the last to 
 refuse him space in its columns for his political ex 
 planations. The man that was dead had, it seemed, 
 left a something of his influence behind him: Luke 
 resolved to strike at it. 
 
 The office-boy was a long time returning, and, 
 when he did, it was to announce : 
 
 " He says ter find out whatcher want." 
 
 " Give me my card," said Luke. 
 
 He scribbled on the card: "Non-political." 
 
 " Now," he said, " try him again." 
 
 4. The editor was one of those men whom news 
 paper-work so affects that they look any age between 
 thirty and fifty. His nervous face was full of tense 
 lines, and every few minutes his mouth twitched. 
 
 Luke told his story and showed the letters. The 
 editor read them. 
 
 4 Why do you want to do this? " he asked. 
 
 Why?" Luke was amazed. "Because I want 
 to protect the public." 
 
 "Then you d better go to the M. & N. rail 
 road." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 327 
 
 " But you know they wouldn t do anything. 
 They ve promised before." 
 
 " I can t believe that," said the editor. 
 
 11 1 know it," said Luke. 
 
 " I can t believe it. You have always been too 
 sudden, Mr. Huber if you ll pardon my saying so. 
 At any rate, we can t print these things." He re 
 turned the letters. " After all, the man s dead, you 
 know." 
 
 "What s that got to do with it?" Luke s voice 
 rose in reply to the hated phrase. " I want to keep 
 some other people from dying." 
 
 The editor picked up a proof-sheet and began to 
 read it. 
 
 " It would be bad taste for us to print that, just 
 now," he said. " Come around in a couple of weeks, 
 and we may think about it. Why, the body s hardly 
 cold yet." 
 
 5. As Forbes had once gone from bank to bank, 
 Luke went that morning from newspaper-office to 
 newspaper-office. Yet there was this difference : that, 
 whereas Forbes had only tried a few banks, Luke 
 tried a dozen newspaper-offices. His search included 
 the papers notoriously controlled by the money or 
 the advertising of the power that opposed him; he 
 even tried some of those journals of the city which are 
 
328 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 printed in foreign tongues, and he tried the radical 
 press. He tried all in vain. 
 
 Most of the editors were men that had fought 
 him when he was the candidate of the Municipal Re 
 form League; some that he sought were of those 
 who had tired of him when he pestered them with 
 explanations of his political overthrow. Many re 
 fused to see him; one or two pronounced him mad. 
 The radicals shared the view of the man with whom 
 he first spoke : they would not be guilty of bad taste. 
 Wherever he got word with a person in authority, 
 the word was the same ; he met with that all-sufficient 
 argument : 
 
 " After all, the man s dead." 
 
 6. When, finally, he acknowledged defeat, his 
 wearied nerves manifested their condition through 
 deep physical exhaustion. He could not front the 
 thought ot passing the remainder of the day at the 
 factory; could not go at once from one losing fight to 
 another. However much he might be needed, he 
 could not do it. Until he had rested, he would be 
 useless, and worse than useless. 
 
 He did not go back to the Arapahoe. Instead, 
 with the open country calling him, he went to the 
 Grand Central Station and took a train into Con 
 necticut. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 329 
 
 The day was Saturday, and the cars were filled 
 with released workers, but Luke avoided them by 
 going far and descending at the least important of 
 the train s stops. Tired though he was, he walked 
 beyond the little town. He cut across fields to a hill 
 crowned by a clump of trees and there, in the shade, 
 threw himself on the ground and lay for hours think 
 ing of nothing and looking at white clouds sailing 
 across a blue sky. He wished that he could lie here 
 forever. . . . 
 
 It was one o clock in the morning before he re 
 turned to his rooms. It was far too late to reply 
 to the score of telephone-calls that, he was told, 
 Forbes had made on him. 
 
 Luke remembered that he had promised Betty to 
 go with her to service at Nicholson s church. 
 
 7. He was strengthened by his brief rest, and he 
 went to Betty with a heart renewed. 
 
 " Father s still asleep," she said, as she met him in 
 the hall of the Forbes house, her gloved fingers 
 busied with her hair, preventing the escape of one of 
 the yellow wire pins that held the few strands too 
 short for her pins of tortoise-shell. " He wanted 
 to be called, but he was so tired out, I told the maid 
 not to disturb him. He sat up ever so late, waiting 
 for you. Where were you, Luke? " 
 
330 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Luke had rarely seen her looking better. The 
 Sunday calm had erased all the tokens of the recent 
 trying days from her face: it was rosy and young; 
 it was appealingly almost childish. The morning sun 
 was in her hair; her brown eyes were wide and 
 bright. He did not want to spoil her by the story 
 of his yesterday s defeat, and so he passed it by 
 with some facile excuses for his absence from the 
 factory. 
 
 " We re late," he said, as he helped her into the 
 Forbes motor-car. 
 
 The chauffeur ran close to the speed-laws all the 
 way to Manhattan. They reached their journey s 
 end immediately after the choir had taken its posi 
 tion in the chancel. 
 
 The ritualistic church of St. Athanasius is one of 
 the handsomest in New York. It was built in close 
 imitation of Beverley Minster, and so elaborate was 
 the work done upon it that, in spite of its wealthy 
 congregation s assistance, it still staggered under the 
 load of a heavy debt. It has the Yorkshire building s 
 two Early English transepts, Perpendicular towers, 
 and a Late Decorated nave with flying and pinnacled 
 buttresses. Inside, as Luke and Betty entered it, the 
 warmly-colored light fell through many Lancet win 
 dows on the crowd of fashionable worshipers kneel 
 ing before narrow chairs. Nicholson s voice, coming 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 331 
 
 from behind the choir-screen, sounded clear but far 
 away. 
 
 Luke and Betty walked up the nearest aisle and 
 took the seats assigned to the Forbes family, close 
 to the carved pulpit and under the triforium. The 
 high arches were carried on clustered pillars, and, 
 down the perspective of the nave, Luke could see into 
 the choir, to the Decorated reredos, where, as in 
 Beverley, the piers increased in size by successive 
 groups of shafts that projected like corbels. He 
 knelt beside her and tried to give his mind to the 
 service; but his eyes, familiar though they were with 
 the church, wandered to the north aisle s windows 
 and the ogee and foliated arcade under them, to the 
 people in front of him, and so, inevitably, to the girl 
 at his side. 
 
 The service proceeded. The people said the 
 Lord s Prayer; Nicholson recited the collect, and 
 then read the Ten Commandments of Moses, the 
 congregation responding. 
 
 " Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts 
 to keep this law." 
 
 After the creed, Nicholson walked to the pulpit. 
 He climbed its steps, and for a few moments only his 
 clasped hands were visible as he knelt inside. Then 
 rising, he took his stole from the pulpit rail, kissed the 
 
332 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 cross embroidered at the top of the stole, and put 
 it on. 
 
 " In the Book of Ecclesiastes," he began, u in the 
 ninth chapter and the second verse, it is written: 
 
 " * All things come alike to all : there is one event to 
 the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good, and 
 to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacri- 
 ficeth, and to him that sacrificeth not. 
 
 Nicholson s face was earnest. It was at once stern 
 and irradiated, the face of an ascetic turned seer. 
 
 " And in the General Epistle of St. James," he 
 proceeded, " in the second chapter and the twenty- 
 second verse : 
 
 " * Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, 
 and by works was faith made perfect? 
 
 Nicholson spoke without notes, but without hesi 
 tation. 
 
 " A great man," he said, " has just died. We have 
 heard evil report of him, and good report. We have 
 heard whispers against him, and we have seen good 
 that he has done; but his greatness no man ques 
 tioned. To-day he has passed to his last account. 
 To-day the dead man stands before his Eternal Judge. 
 One of those events that happen to the rich and poor 
 alike has happened to him. With what he has done 
 that is over, the Court of Heaven now alone, in all 
 its boundless mercy, has to deal. We that remain 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 333 
 
 here on earth may not judge of that. We that remain 
 on earth must consider the things that he has done 
 and are not over, the things he has left behind; we 
 must concern ourselves only with what concerns us; 
 it is our duty to remember him by the works that he 
 has made his monument." 
 
 The preacher dwelt upon the dead man s rise from 
 poverty to vast riches, a hopeful lesson in the reward 
 of thrift and wisdom to every poor boy in a republic 
 that grants equal opportunity to all. He spoke with 
 an admiration of the genius that had carved its way to 
 power until its will was felt in the uttermost corners 
 of the earth. 
 
 As he proceeded, Nicholson seemed to forget his 
 admonition against the judgment of things over and 
 done with. He made direct reference to Luke s 
 Cooper Union speech, and he looked full in Luke s 
 face as he made it. 
 
 " Not long ago," he said, " while this man was 
 tottering upon the brink of eternity, another man, a 
 sincere, but misguided man, made terrible charges 
 against him, charges that reflected, however veiled, 
 upon the character and motives not only of the man 
 now dead, but a whole group of people eminent in 
 public and business life. And what was the result? 
 Nothing that lent the least credit to the accusers 
 intelligence or appreciation of the value of evidence, 
 
334 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 for nothing at all was proven, nothing even corrobo 
 rated." 
 
 Luke flushed. He felt Betty looking at him, but he 
 would not return her gaze. He felt other people in 
 the congregation turned toward him. He could not 
 guess what had changed Nicholson. 
 
 The sermon was proceeding with praises of the 
 dead man s benefactions. One by one they were de 
 scribed and extolled. 
 
 " His greatness," said Nicholson, " would have 
 availed him nothing at this one event for the righteous 
 and the wicked if he had not had charity, for we are 
 told that though we speak with the tongues of men 
 and of angels and have not charity, we are become as 
 sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Charity, how 
 ever, this man had. The institutions that he sup 
 ported and has endowed have given and now forever 
 will give learning to thousands who, but for them, 
 would have lived in ignorance healing to thou 
 sands who, but for them, would have died in agony. 
 
 "Charity: but charity alone will not suffice. 
 Sounding brass itself, unless it is informed by faith ! 
 And this man s sublime faith even his worst enemy 
 cannot deny. For his counsel and advice, for his 
 painstaking and sagacious investment of its funds the 
 Church is indebted to this man as it is to no other. 
 Many a denomination outside our own fold can truly 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 335 
 
 say the same of him and should say and does say how 
 much we owe him, also, for the unceasing flow of his 
 money into our treasuries. He did not speak of these 
 things. He did not let his right hand know what his 
 left hand did; but we of the Church remember that 
 he gave millions of dollars to the faith. 
 
 " The faith of men of money is tested by their 
 money; yet this man s faith had many another test and 
 rose triumphant from them all. His attendance at the 
 Church s services not only on Sundays, but on fast- 
 days and holidays, on saints -days and work-days 
 never failed. His wisdom was free to our councils, 
 and I have been told on reliable authority that he 
 never rose in the morning, went to bed at night, or 
 embarked on any business enterprise, however small, 
 without first humbly and privately asking direction of 
 the Most High. He knew in his every act that the 
 greatest man is as nothing before God; and when he 
 came to die, he died like a Christian, a priest of God 
 by his side and the words of God s mercy sounding 
 in his dulling ears. From first to last, his works and 
 his faith were one : Seest thou how faith wrought 
 with his works, and by works was faith made per 
 fect? For us who are Christians, that is enough. 
 It is enough to make us each pray to meet his end, 
 each at his own station in life, as this great man met 
 his. De mortuis nil nisi bonum." 
 
336 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Only amazement had held Luke in his chair. At 
 this phrase, he half rose. 
 
 Nicholson, however, was concluding: 
 
 " There is but one word more, a word personal 
 to us of this congregation, to be said. I need not 
 recall to you the heavy privations that this church in 
 which we now are has undergone. They were gen 
 erously met and nobly borne, but, in spite of all your 
 nobility and all your generosity, the time came, a 
 week since, when it seemed indeed as if the forces of 
 evil were about to conquer, and as if, unless Heaven 
 intervened, this beautiful building must pass out of 
 our hands. 
 
 " Three days before the death of the man I have 
 been speaking of this morning, an impulse came to me, 
 and I wrote him a letter. My friends, I do not be 
 lieve that that impulse was of this world. 
 
 " I have since been told that when the letter reached 
 him, his eyes were too dim to read it; yet, when he 
 was informed of its purport, he asked that it be read 
 to him. It was read, and then, with a hand already 
 trembling at the touch of death, he took a pen and 
 signed the last check of his career. That check was 
 our emancipation; it was a check for the entire sum 
 for which this Church of St. Athanasius this beau 
 tiful church in which it is our privilege to worship 
 God stood indebted. I ask you to join in prayer for 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 337 
 
 the soul of our dead benefactor and then to unite in 
 the doxology for thanksgiving to God. Seest thou 
 how faith wrought with his works, and by works was 
 faith made perfect? 
 
 8. " Where are you going? " gasped Betty. 
 
 The people were kneeling, but Luke was on his 
 feet. 
 
 " I m going to get out of here," he answered. 
 " I m going to get into the open. I want fresh air. 1 
 
 He strode down the aisle under the clustered pil 
 lars of the triforium, and Betty hurried after. At 
 the church door stood a table bearing a pile of leaflets, 
 and unconsciously he took one as he passed. 
 
 9. In the sunlit street, he felt a little ashamed of 
 his impetuosity. Betty was indignant. 
 
 " Why did you make such a scene? " she asked. 
 
 " I m sorry," said Luke. " I simply couldn t stand 
 it. A priest talking like that! And Nicholson the 
 priest! " 
 
 " He shouldn t have attacked you," Betty granted, 
 " but you didn t put him in the wrong by behaving 
 impolitely." 
 
 " Oh, I don t care about putting him in the wrong, 
 and I don t care about his attacking me ! " Luke 
 helped her into the waiting motor, and the car started 
 
338 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 smoothly on its return journey. " What I couldn t 
 stand was the Church making a hero out of such a 
 man; the Church selling itself for a few thousand 
 dollars." 
 
 " But the man did do good, Luke." 
 
 " How much compared with the evil he did? " 
 
 "I can t know that. Who can?" 
 
 " You talk like Nicholson ! " 
 
 " No, I don t." She put her hand on his. " But 
 what good can come of abusing the man? " 
 
 " I don t want him abused : I only don t want God s 
 Church to make a saint out of him." 
 
 " Nobody s doing that, Luke. They re simply be 
 ing decent about him. After all, he is dead." 
 
 Luke shook her hand free. Then, suddenly, he 
 tossed back his head and broke into a high laugh. He 
 frightened her. 
 
 "Luke! What is it?" 
 
 He could not at once answer. 
 
 " Oh, what is the matter? " she pleaded. 
 
 " You ! " he laughed. " You, too ! " To control 
 himself he unfolded and looked at the leaflet that he 
 had picked up in the church doorway, and had been 
 heedlessly folding and unfolding ever since. His 
 mirth stopped. " Listen to this," he ordered. " By 
 Jove, it s not Nicholson alone; it s the whole bunch, 
 and speaking officially, too ! Listen to this. It s a 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 339 
 
 printed statement issued by the General Executive 
 Committee of the whole church not St. Athanasius 
 alone, but the entire denomination and it s worse 
 than Nicholson s sermon." His eyes ran from line to 
 line. " We call upon the prayers of the faithful, 
 he read as well as the motion of the car permitted. 
 . . . " He has not buried his talent nor hidden his 
 candle under a bushel. ... So far as a man s life can, 
 his life exemplified Law and Order, realized the 
 truth uttered by Richard Hooker: " Of Law there 
 can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is in 
 the bosom of God, the harmony of the world." 
 
 Betty had been listening attentively. 
 
 "Well?" she asked. 
 
 " Well ? " repeated Luke. " Well ? Don t 
 you see? The whole Church is standing up for him. 
 And not our Church alone: all churches. He d 
 bought them bought them ! " 
 
 " Luke ! How can you? " 
 
 " Yes, he has. One way or another. He or 
 his kind: for I m beginning to see at last he wasn t 
 alone never was and never will be. And seeing 
 that, I m not blaming him so much any of the hims. 
 I don t say, any more, he was worse than the rest of 
 us; he was only stronger. Maybe he was only the 
 average man in extraordinary circumstances. He 
 didn t make them I m beginning to believe that, 
 
340 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 too, they made him. But the Church! The 
 churches ! They ve sinned against the light. They re 
 liars. They re why, they must be founded on a 
 lie: their light must be darkness! " 
 
 The girl had edged away from him, her brown 
 eyes big with horror at his blasphemy. The motor 
 was drawing up before the door of the Forbes house; 
 it was drawing up in a quiet Brooklyn street. And 
 there, in that Sunday stillness, and among those sur 
 roundings of commonplace respectability, suddenly 
 the Marvel came to him. 
 
 It came to him, this denial of Religion, as a pro 
 found religious experience. It was Miracle, burning, 
 blinding, transfiguring. Elemental, tremendous. It 
 was a stroke that affected his entire being; suffused 
 him; changed him, spiritually, in every atom. It 
 hurled him from all his old bases and set him in a 
 new relation to the universe. It was not reformation; 
 it was revolution. Luke was another personality: 
 this was the " new birth." He saw the glory of in 
 dividuality, the divinity of his humanity. In the flash 
 of revelation, he learned to walk and knew that for 
 all his life he had been permitting himself to be car 
 ried. Without guessing it, he had been, he now 
 knew, all these years, afraid, and now, with this 
 new inspiration, he faced all things and feared none. 
 Believing, he had been dead, but denying, was alive 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 341 
 
 again; faithful, he had been lost, faithless, he was 
 found, and not by any other help than his own: he 
 had found himself. It was the thing that, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, can make an honest man of a liar, 
 an abstainer of a dipsomaniac, good out of evil. 
 It was the same thing that happens to a penitent at the 
 moment of " conversion," of " receiving grace," of 
 "experiencing religion"; the same force operating 
 with the same power and the same manner, but in an 
 opposite direction. 
 
 As St. Paul rose from the earth after his vision 
 near Damascus, so Luke staggered from the Forbes 
 motor-car. His hands groped at the air. 
 
 " Betty! " he gasped; " tell your father I can t see 
 him. Not now. I ll be back later. Perhaps in a 
 little while. Later." 
 
 She put out her arms to him. 
 
 "What is it, Luke?" she cried. "What s the 
 matter?" 
 
 His eyes looked at her, but he did not see her. He 
 turned from her to the street. 
 
 " I don t know," he said, " but I think I think 
 I m Being Saved." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 i. For an hour, for two hours, he tried to adjust 
 his mental and spiritual sight to the blazing illumina 
 tion; but adjustment, he at length realized, must be 
 a matter of many days. The illumination was too 
 sudden and too intense. He could no more assess 
 moral values and determine ethical duties than a 
 new-born baby can know the use of those objects most 
 habitual to its elders a new-born baby to whom the 
 lamp on a table and the moon in the sky are one and 
 the same. There must be false starts on wrong roads ; 
 there must be disappointment and stumbling; there 
 must even be moments of relapse. The great thing 
 for Luke was that, as the lives of some men are 
 changed forever for the better by an affirmation of 
 faith, his life had now forever been changed for the 
 better by a rejection of faith. He had denied the 
 superhuman in man s affairs, and the banishment of 
 the superhuman raised the human; it left the man no 
 longer a pigmy trembling before a giant, but himself 
 a giant, limited and mortal, yet self-sufficient and 
 divine. He had found what was for him the ulti- 
 
 342 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 343 
 
 mate strength; for the knowledge of how to use that 
 strength rightly he could wait. 
 
 Meanwhile, there was the patent obligation to 
 Forbes. Forbes needed him; Luke returned to the 
 Forbes house. 
 
 2. Forbes was waiting in the library. 
 
 "Where were you yesterday? Are you going 
 crazy, Huber? You knew I needed you." 
 
 The elder man had borne disaster hardly. He 
 looked tired and ill. 
 
 " I m sorry," said Luke. " I was busy." 
 
 " Busy? What could have kept you busy in town 
 when you knew this strike was going on? And you 
 went to church this morning instead of waking me ! 
 Betty says you re sick. Are you ? " 
 
 " No. I m only getting well." 
 
 Forbes s tone was more considerate : 
 
 " Anyhow, you might have come in to luncheon. 
 Have you had anything to eat? " 
 
 " I m all right," said Luke. 
 
 " But Betty says " 
 
 "Where is she?" 
 
 " She s in her room. I told her to He down. She s 
 all upset. Really, Huber " 
 
 Luke seated himself by the table covered with 
 magazines and sprawling sections of the Sunday news- 
 
344 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 papers. Outwardly, he was as self-contained as dur 
 ing his days in Leighton s office. 
 
 What was it you wanted to see me about? " he 
 interrupted. 
 
 Forbes took a chair opposite. He assumed the 
 voice of persuasion. 
 
 " I want to be perfectly frank with you, Huber," 
 he began. 
 
 Luke thought : " I wonder what he is going to keep 
 back." All that he said was: " Yes? " 
 
 4 Yes," resumed Forbes, " and I want you to be 
 perfectly frank with me. You once told me you d 
 made enemies of the people who ve since made such 
 trouble for us, because you had some letters or other 
 that belonged to them, didn t you? " 
 
 Luke bowed assent. He knew now what to ex 
 pect. 
 
 " Well," Forbes went on, " the only use those 
 letters were to you was political. Now that you 
 can t use them politically, why don t you give them 
 up?" 
 
 " You mean now that I ve been chucked out of 
 politics?" 
 
 " Well, you know you ve ruined yourself there. 
 You can never get back again. When you can t hurt 
 your enemies, why not make them your friends? " 
 
 " No, thank you." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 345 
 
 " But these letters are of no use to you." 
 
 " How do you know that? " asked Luke quietly. 
 
 Forbes blushed. 
 
 "Are they?" he countered. 
 
 " And why," persisted Luke, " didn t you suggest 
 this to me days ago? " His eyes probed the man be 
 fore him. " What else did Judge Stein say to you? " 
 he demanded. 
 
 Forbes drew back in his chair. His flush deepened, 
 but presently he made an impatient gesture. 
 
 " Oh, very well," he said defiantly, " the Judge did 
 see me yesterday, and if you had been at the factory, 
 as you should have been, you d have seen him, too." 
 
 Luke thought it unnecessary to remark that he 
 had been honored by a previous call from Stein. 
 
 " What else did he say?" Luke repeated. 
 
 " He said a great deal; but the upshot of it was 
 that he would induce your enemies, who are the men 
 that control the trust we re competing with, to lower 
 wages and join the fight against the employees, if you 
 would agree to surrender those letters." 
 
 " I won t do it," said Luke. 
 
 " Don t be hasty," Forbes implored. " Think of 
 me. Think of Betty " 
 
 Luke winced. 
 
 " Don t begin that," he commanded. 
 
 " But what have you to gain? " asked Forbes. 
 
346 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Nothing. I ve nothing to gain. I ve only some 
 thing to keep: my self-respect." 
 
 " Your self-conceit, you mean. Be reasonable, 
 Huber. These people won t give in." 
 
 "So I must?" 
 
 " They won t give in, and you can t get back to 
 politics and can t get any paper to take up your 
 case." 
 
 " Oh," Luke could have laughed " so Stein 
 told you that, too, did he? " 
 
 " Never mind what he told me. The point is: his 
 people can help you if you ll only acknowledge defeat, 
 now that you re defeated. They can give you back 
 all you ve lost, and nobody else can." 
 
 " And if I don t admit I m whipped, they ll whip 
 me some more? " 
 
 " They ll finish what they ve begun, Huber; they 
 will wipe out the Business, too." 
 
 " I m sorry," said Luke " very sorry for you, I 
 mean. But there s no use arguing: I won t give in." 
 
 Forbes exhausted his every resource. He pleaded 
 for the business, for Luke, for Betty. For an hour he 
 sent the squadrons of his appeal against the impreg 
 nable wall of Luke s determination. 
 
 "What have you to gain?" he reiterated; and 
 once he said : " The worst of the crowd is dead, any 
 how." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 347 
 
 Luke was not listening. He was saying to himself : 
 
 " What is it I am to do next ? There is still a little 
 money left to my account at the bank. It will keep 
 me for a year and mother for a year and then ? I m 
 making Forbes hold out against the trust, and if he 
 does hold out his mill is doomed. No hope there! 
 Can I go back to the Law? I can t, because the Law 
 is just what the Church is. The Law was made by 
 the powerful, it is interpreted by their paid servants 
 and administered by their slaves. It is a game de 
 vised by the crafty powerful to cheat the simple weak. 
 The last five years have proved that to me, and I m 
 ashamed that it took me so long to learn. Betty " 
 
 He did not dare to think of Betty. He thought 
 rather of the open country, of the smell of the earth 
 on which he had been lying twenty-four hours ago, 
 and the coolness and freedom of the white clouds 
 against that sky of blue. . . . 
 
 Forbes was saying something about his grand 
 father and the Business. Luke got up. 
 
 " There s no use your wasting your breath," he 
 declared. " Nothing that you could say would 
 change me no, nothing that even Betty could say! 
 But I ll do this : I ll never be away from the factory 
 again when I ought to be there; I ll stand by you till 
 we ve beaten these strikers or till they ve ruined us." 
 
 He walked out of the room and closed the door 
 
348 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 before Forbes could answer him, and he walked into 
 Betty s arms. 
 
 3. " Luke," she whispered, " what was the mat 
 ter this morning? Won t you tell me, dear? " 
 
 He felt the blood mount hotly to his head. Her 
 hair was sweet to his nostrils. 
 
 " Don t," he said sharply. 
 
 But, Luke " 
 
 He drew her hands from his neck. He imprisoned 
 her wrists in his grasp. 
 
 " I don t quite know what s the matter yet," he 
 said. " It s all come too suddenly. But, Betty O, 
 Betty, I don t believe I m the man for you ! " 
 
 She asked him what he meant, and he could not tell 
 her. She pressed him, and he could only repeat his 
 conviction. 
 
 " Do you mean " she drew her hands away 
 " that you like some other girl better? " 
 
 He laughed rudely. 
 
 " No," he said, " not that." 
 
 " But you don t care for me? " She recovered all 
 her dignity. " If you don t care for me, why aren t 
 you brave enough to say so? " 
 
 The afternoon sun fell through the hall-window 
 and showed her to him very fair. 
 
 " Betty," he said slowly, " there are only two kinds 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 349 
 
 of marriages you understand : there is the Church, but 
 I don t believe any more in any church; and there s 
 the Law, but the Law can t make a marriage for me." 
 
 At least the immediate purport of the words she 
 understood. Her face burned red and then became 
 white and still. 
 
 " You mean " she began. Her hands 
 
 clenched. " Oh ! " she cried. 
 
 She tried to pass him. 
 
 Passion left him, but a great sorrow took its place 
 as his master. He wanted to justify himself; he even 
 so wanted to repair the hurt done her that he would 
 have shut his eyes to the new light. He seized her 
 hand. 
 
 "Betty!" 
 
 She wrenched her hand. 
 
 " Let me go! I want to go to father! Let me 
 go!" 
 
 " But, Betty, wait listen " 
 
 She freed her hand. 
 
 "I shan t tell him. Don t be afraid. He has 
 enough to worry him. Only don t let me ever see 
 you again ! " 
 
 4. All that night Luke walked the streets. It 
 was breakfast-time when he returned to the Arapahoe. 
 His letters and the morning papers were lying on the 
 
350 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 floor of his sitting-room where they had fallen when 
 the bell-boy dropped them through the slit in the 
 door. 
 
 He read the letters first. There were not many, 
 for his correspondence had of late declined to almost 
 nothing. The only things of interest were a note 
 from Porcellis, announcing that he would soon return 
 to New York and a letter from Luke s mother, say 
 ing that she had written Betty to pay her a visit: " It 
 is only right that your fiancee should do this," wrote 
 Mrs. Huber, " and that I should have an early 
 chance of knowing the girl that is to be my son s 
 wife." 
 
 Luke wondered how Betty would reply to the invi 
 tation. As he was thinking of this, his eye caught the 
 heaviest headlines on the first page of the newspaper: 
 during the night, a body of strikers at the Forbes 
 factory had marched to the main entrance and bat 
 tered down the door in an endeavor to drag out the 
 Breil men who slept there as guards by night and 
 worked there by day; the Breil men resisted; there 
 was a general battle with at least two deaths ; the at 
 tacking party were repulsed, but the police, sum 
 moned by a riot-call, gained what appeared to be no 
 more than a preliminary skirmish, for the entire 
 neighborhood was in arms and more bloodshed was 
 expected to-day. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 351 
 
 Luke dropped the paper with an oath. He was 
 more hungry than before for a part in this fight in 
 any fight. If Religion was a coward, he would make 
 one more appeal to Government, to force. He called 
 Albany on the long-distance telephone. He kept on 
 calling until he had brought the Governor to the 
 other end of the wire, and then he was astonished to 
 hear that the proper civil authorities in New York 
 had already asked for troops. 
 
 " It is always best," he was told, " not to drag lo 
 cal men into an affair of this sort, if it can be helped; 
 so I m having the Adjutant General send down a 
 company from Poughkeepsie. That ought to be 
 enough for the present, and they ought to get there 
 by noon." 
 
 Luke muttered his thanks and rang off. 
 
 " I know why that was done," he said to himself: 
 " They think they ll make more trouble for us 
 with the militia here than without it. Well, we ll 
 
 see." 
 
 He stripped off his clothes, went to the bathroom, 
 and began to run the water for a cold plunge. He 
 was talking to himself. 
 
 " The worst of the crowd s dead," he said. " That 
 was Forbes s way of putting it. There he had a 
 glimpse. Started down to rock-bottom. But he 
 didn t arrive. I felt that way till only a little while 
 
352 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 ago. But I see I was wrong. I thought this was a 
 one-man show; I believed in a sort of personal Devil. 
 I wish I d been right. It would have been all so 
 simple, if I d been right in that. But I wasn t. It 
 isn t the men ; it s the system. The man didn t make 
 the system ; the system made the man." 
 
 He was wonderfully clear about that now. All 
 his fight against evil had been directed toward one 
 man, and the man, was dead and the evil remained. 
 He could almost pity that man in russet brown. That 
 man who had sat at the fountain of forces reaching 
 up and down through all the life of the world, seemed 
 to originate the forces and use them for his own 
 malign purpose; but now and herein lay one of the 
 reasons for Luke s present wonder at life he per 
 ceived certainly that the man had been only a little 
 better treated by the forces than the forces treated all 
 the rest of mankind, was their creation and their slave 
 just as wholly as the most obscure victim. Indus 
 trial evolution, working through the collective igno 
 rance of the race, had devised the Great Evil. Here 
 was a web that no spider wove, a web that killed 
 spiders as well as flies, lived on with a life of its 
 own, grew and spread of itself. So long as the web 
 existed, there would always be a spider. The Web 
 remained. It was the Web that must be broken. 
 
 Yet he wanted to fight. He would fight. The 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 353 
 
 Gospel of Negation had given him its light; it had 
 yet to teach him to see. 
 
 5. Other forces vitally affecting Luke were at 
 work that day, at first far distant from the factory. 
 They were forces that had affected him imperfectly 
 heretofore, but that now were set in motion in a man 
 ner no longer to be diverted. 
 
 Ex-Judge Stein was summoned from his office 
 almost at the moment of his appearance there. His 
 motor-car took him into Wall Street, to a certain sky 
 scraper, into which he went and was taken as far as 
 the twentieth floor. 
 
 He entered an unmarked door and passed an at 
 tendant who bowed to him respectfully. He passed 
 another attendant. A third, at sight of him, got up 
 and went through a second door, leaving the Judge 
 to wait in dignified repose. Then the last attendant 
 reappeared and nodded, and the Judge passed the 
 second door. 
 
 He remained inside for an hour. When he came 
 out his mien was undisturbed, but his strong and 
 kindly face was even graver than usual. He almost 
 forgot to return the farewells of the attendants as he 
 left them. He rang twice for the elevator, although 
 the elevator was not long delayed. 
 
354 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " The office," he said to his chauffeur as he climbed 
 again into the car. 
 
 6. Returned at his own quarters at half-past ten, 
 he sent immediately for Irwin, to whom he talked for 
 perhaps forty-five minutes. He spoke with a sad in 
 evitability. 
 
 " No more excuses, no more extensions of time, 
 no more delays," he concluded " and no more fail 
 
 ures." 
 
 The twinkle left Irwin s eyes. 
 
 " I understand," he said. 
 
 He could not fail to understand. His superior had 
 been once and for all explicit. Judge Stein, during 
 his service to the public on the bench, had never been 
 called upon to pronounce a sentence of death, but, 
 had he been so called upon, he would have spoken 
 much as he now spoke to Irwin. 
 
 7. " I hate to have to tell you this," said Irwin 
 to Quirk at noon in the latter s shabby law-office, 
 " but if that job isn t done before to-morrow morn 
 ing, those affidavits charging you with jury-fixing are 
 going to be turned over to the District-Attorney, and 
 the people that have them are now in a position to 
 make Leighton act on them, too." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 355 
 
 Irwin also had become specific. The plump Mr. 
 Quirk lost his habitual smile. 
 
 " It s a rotten business," he said. 
 
 " It is," Irwin agreed; " but your arrest would be 
 a worse one for you." 
 
 " We may have to go the limit," said Quirk. 
 
 " Then," said Irwin, " you d better go it. That s 
 no affair of mine." 
 
 8. " This time," said Quirk, " you ve got till 
 to-night to make up your mind." 
 
 He was talking to Police-Lieutenant Donovan. It 
 was just after lunch-time. 
 
 " What about? " asked Donovan. 
 
 " Whether you want to bluff us again or lose your 
 job." 
 
 " We never did bluff you." 
 
 " Well, then : whether you want to get those let 
 ters or get fired. Not try to get them : get them. It s 
 get them or get out." All the kindliness and good- 
 fellowship was missing from Quirk s voice. " It s one 
 thing or the other. We got evidence to fire you on. 
 You knew we had, last time I talked to you. Well, 
 they were easy on you then, Hughie. This time they 
 mean business." 
 
 Donovan looked at Quirk. 
 
356 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 " Suppose somebody gets hurt? " he said. 
 Quirk shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 9. When Guth came in late in the afternoon, 
 Donovan said: 
 
 " I got a warrant in my desk for you, Guth. A 
 friend o mine swore it out. If I don t stop him, it 
 means a criminal trial where you won t have the 
 chance of a goat. You know what it s for : that little 
 girl up in Fifty-second Street. The only way I can 
 get him to hold off s for you to get Reddy Rawn to 
 do what you d ought t got him to do long ago. If 
 somebody gets hurt, it ain t our fault." 
 
 10. At eight p. m. in the shadowy alley near 
 Forty-third Street and Third Avenue, Patrolman 
 Guth s twisted mouth was menacing the dark 
 ness. 
 
 " He s down at the Forbes factory now," said 
 Guth. " There s sure to be a fight there to-night, an 
 anybody can get in. It s a cinch." 
 
 The darkness did not reply. 
 
 u Anyhow, you got to," said Guth. " The old 
 man s crazy mad. He says it s the chair for yours if 
 you fall down this time. Crab Rotello s got worse. 
 He can t live the night, an the old man says he s 
 goin to have you railroaded soon as Crab cashes in, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 357 
 
 if you don t do what he says. He means it, too, 
 Reddy." 
 
 Out of the darkness came the answer: 
 
 " I ll maybe have to croak this guy." 
 
 " That s up to you," said Guth. " It ll look like 
 some strikers done it. It s his own fault for bein a 
 fool. What in hell do you care, anyway? We ll 
 look out for you." 
 
 " All right," said the darkness. 
 
 " Mind you," Guth repeated, " no more stallin 
 this time. If you don t get the goods, an get em 
 to-night, you re a dead boy, Reddy." 
 
 There was an instant of silence. Then the dark 
 ness spoke again : 
 
 " It won t be me s the dead one." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 I. The text of the newspaper article, which Luke 
 read carefully while he dressed, added few facts to 
 those marshaled in its headlines. To Luke it was 
 evident that the past few days had brought the strikers 
 to desperation. Their own funds were gone, and they 
 had no help from outside. They were not strong in 
 numbers, and many of them were women. The ranks 
 of the men had, however, been swelled to a formi 
 dable figure by unsought additions from the hundreds 
 of hooligans that, in every city, are attracted to seats 
 of industrial war, and these provided an element 
 which the leaders were unable to control. The af 
 fair had gone the usual way: a picket had jeered at 
 a non-union worker; two policemen attacked the of 
 fending picket; the crowd ran to the rescue, and a 
 general disturbance, with the assault on the mill, was 
 the inevitable result. Now there was no telling 
 to what extent the trouble might go. 
 
 Luke was savagely glad that physical action was 
 imperative. He wanted something that would stop 
 thought. He wanted rest from thought: from the 
 spiritual strain, from the yearning for Betty. Again 
 
 358 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 359 
 
 and again, as he hurried through a breakfast forced 
 upon himself only by the knowledge of his need, he 
 found his mind playing with the childish idea of the 
 carpenter that he wanted to be, tramping the country 
 roads from casual job to job. He might well come to 
 that. Meanwhile, it was good to have this chance for 
 a fight. 
 
 2. Luke drove to the factory in a taxicab that he 
 insisted should be open. As he neared his destina 
 tion through rows of grimy buildings and vacant lots 
 in which goats grazed among ash-heaps and tin cans 
 and " For Sale " signs, the streets began to look as if 
 a heavy skirmish had been fought through them. 
 Knots of idle sightseers already lined the uneven side 
 walks and pointed to the relics of the conflict; at cor 
 ners the former workers were gathered in low-speak 
 ing groups shrunken figures; slouching forms in 
 poor clothing, whose business was the making of bet 
 ter clothes for luckier beings; faces angry and sullen, 
 faces savage, debased, hungry; women s faces as sex 
 less as the men s and everywhere, furtive and sinis 
 ter, those other faces, the faces most to be feared, of 
 the gathered condors of the underworld, the feeders 
 on economic carrion, who had slunk here from the 
 darkest corners of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City, 
 rising from a hundred alleys and pot-houses, and cir- 
 
360 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 cling toward the factory as birds of prey come from 
 the four quarters of the compass toward a battlefield; 
 he saw them crouched at the shadowy thresholds of 
 tumble-down dwellings, leering from fetid passage 
 ways, peering from the swinging doors of stinking 
 saloons, stealthy, determined. 
 
 Overhead the sky was clear sapphire. A strong 
 breeze came in from the Sound, laden with health. 
 It fanned the memories of yesterday out of his brain 
 and for a moment made the present seem a picture 
 from the remote past. It was unreal : he felt himself 
 an unimportant spectator of some unconvincing play. 
 
 Then, rising above rows of rickety houses, the mill 
 came into sight, blocking the street-end, and restored 
 his appreciation of the imminent. A wrecked coal- 
 wagon lay horseless in the middle of the street oppo 
 site a bent lamp-post, the coal heaped where it had 
 fallen. Battered hats were in the gutter, and on the 
 pavement was a coat, torn and muddy. No smoke 
 curled to-day from the chimney of the mill s engine- 
 room, and in front of its shattered main-door, rudely 
 repaired by unpainted planks of fresh pine, two po 
 licemen lounged, facing a string of mute pickets. 
 
 Luke passed the door unmolested and entered the 
 office. The superintendent, a whiskered man named 
 Whitaker, was there, and one or two pasty and 
 frightened clerks. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 361 
 
 " Mr. Forbes down yet? " asked Luke briskly. 
 
 " No, sir/ said Whitaker. " He just sent word he 
 was sick." 
 
 " Sick ? What s the matter with him ? " 
 
 " I don t know exactly, Mr. Huber. It was Miss 
 Forbes telephoned, and she said he d had a kind of 
 fainting fit right after breakfast." 
 
 Luke sat down at the desk and called up the Forbes 
 house. 
 
 " Mr. Forbes there? " he asked of the maid that 
 answered him. 
 
 " No, sir. Mr. Forbes is in bed." 
 
 "111?" 
 
 " Not very well." 
 
 " Ask Miss Forbes to come to the phone. This is 
 Mr. Huber talking. I m at the factory, and I must 
 know something about Mr. Forbes condition." 
 
 The maid assented, but, after he had waited, it was 
 again she that spoke to him. 
 
 " Miss Forbes asks you please to excuse her. She s 
 very busy. She says to tell you Mr. Forbes was a 
 little dizzy and had to lie down. He thinks he can 
 get to his office late in the day." 
 
 Luke felt the mortification that it was patently in 
 tended he should feel; but he lost no time over it. 
 He turned at once to Whitaker and the clerks, and 
 secured from them what verification he could of the 
 
362 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 newspaper s story. Then he sent for the brawny, 
 flannel-shirted Breil and learned what remained for 
 him to know. 
 
 " You think there ll be more trouble? " he asked, 
 after he had sent Whitaker and his assistant from the 
 room. 
 
 " Sure there will," said Breil cheerfully, " but not 
 before to-night." 
 
 " When ll the soldiers get here?" 
 
 Long about noon, I guess." 
 
 " How many police have they given us? " 
 
 " Half a dozen. I couldn t beg more." 
 
 " Better send some of them out to have that coal 
 cleared away." 
 
 " I tried to, but they said it wasn t their duty, an I 
 couldn t get any satisfaction at City Hall. You know 
 how these cops are." 
 
 " Couldn t you have a detail of your own men do 
 it?" 
 
 " I d like to first-rate; but it d mean a fight, an we 
 don t want to put ourselves in the position, to the 
 public, of courtin that. Mr. Forbes said Satur 
 day " 
 
 " He was right. How many men have you in good 
 shape?" 
 
 " Seventy-two. I d send for more, but they re on a 
 job at Hazleton." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 363 
 
 " Will City Hall send more police if there s 
 trouble?" 
 
 " Not till they can t help doin it." 
 
 The hours passed slowly. Luke made the rounds 
 of the mill as the commander of a fortress inspects it 
 before an attack. He saw that the strike-breakers, an 
 anxious lot of men, were stationed at the vulnerable 
 places, and he talked again with Breil. 
 
 Forbes did not appear, and Luke was too proud to 
 try a second time to question Betty about him; but 
 reporters came and sent in urgent requests for a state 
 ment from the company. Luke refused to see them. 
 It was his turn to refuse the newspapers. 
 
 " Better feed em a little pap," Breil advised. 
 
 " I won t so much as look at them," said Luke. 
 
 " They ll knock us if you don t." 
 
 " That can t hurt us. I won t see them and you re 
 not to talk to them either, Breil." 
 
 He began to chafe under the delay. He made the 
 rounds of the mill again and smoked incessantly at 
 cigars that he found in a box in Forbes s desk. He 
 bolted a cold lunch sent in at noon, and he wondered 
 why the soldiers were late. 
 
 The soldiers came at two o clock. Out in the 
 street there were some derisive shouts, and then the 
 regular tramp of marching feet. Luke hurried to an 
 office above Forbes s. a room furnished with a small 
 
364 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 desk at one side, a large table in the center, and a few 
 chairs, and there, from a window, saw the column of 
 men in khaki, advancing four abreast, down the street. 
 
 " They re nothing but a lot of boys," he said as, 
 when they drew nearer, he looked at their young 
 faces. " It s a shame to send a lot of kids like that 
 into a mix-up of this kind." 
 
 He received the Captain and the first-lieutenant in 
 the main office. The Captain had taken off his broad- 
 brimmed service hat and was mopping his face with a 
 blue bandana handkerchief. 
 
 " Phew ! " he said. " This looks as if it was goin 
 to be the real thing ! " 
 
 " It is the real thing," said Luke. 
 1 You haven t got a drink handy, have you?" 
 asked the Captain. He was an olive-complexioned 
 young man of twenty-two or -three with a girlish 
 mouth and bright black eyes. 
 
 Luke produced a bottle and glasses, and the Cap 
 tain drank. He spoke in the high tone of excitement 
 as he rattled on : 
 
 " Somebody threw a brick at us just up here. Did 
 you see em? It near cracked Sergeant Schmidt s 
 coco. Poor old Schmidt; he was scared yellow, 
 wasn t he, Terry? " 
 
 Terry was the lieutenant, a raw Irish lad with the 
 face of a fighter. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 365 
 
 " You bet," said he. 
 
 Luke drew the Captain aside. 
 
 " You may as well understand at once," said he, 
 " that this isn t any picnic. You ve been sent here to 
 protect our property, and you may have a hot time 
 doing it. We have seventy-two strike-breakers here 
 under Mr. Breil; the superintendent; one or two 
 clerks; and five foremen who ve remained loyal to the 
 company. That, with me, makes up the inside force. 
 There s half a dozen police, too. What I want you to 
 do is to draw a cordon of your men along the front 
 of the building. Stand them on the pavement. 
 Breil s men ll watch the back. Half your people had 
 better go on duty now and be relieved by the other 
 half at five o clock. But from seven on, we ll need 
 your whole company on the job." 
 
 The Captain looked serious and worried. 
 
 " You think there ll be real trouble to-night? " 
 
 " I shouldn t be a bit surprised, especially as I see 
 the Governor s sent us just enough of you fellows to 
 excite a mob and yet be powerless against it. What 
 were your instructions from up top ? " 
 
 " I was to use my own discretion." 
 
 Luke looked at the young man and smiled at the 
 idea of intrusting men s lives to such discretion. 
 
 " Well, the main thing is not to lose your head," 
 said Luke. 
 
366 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 "They ll outnumber us?" 
 
 " If they attacked, yes undoubtedly." 
 
 The Captain returned to the whiskey bottle. 
 
 " And we d be powerless, unless " He hesi 
 tated. 
 
 " Unless you fired," Luke concluded for him. 
 
 They looked at each other, the man and the boy. 
 
 " You mustn t fire," said Luke. 
 
 " No," said the boy. 
 
 " Unless you have to," said the man. . . . 
 
 The afternoon dragged by. Luke gave up all hope 
 of Forbes and spent most of the time in the upper 
 office, looking at the soldiers stationed in front of 
 the building and at the groups of men staring at the 
 soldiers. It seemed to Luke that the numbers of the 
 staring men were increasing. . . . 
 
 3. The night was dark. The purple arc-lamp 
 that burned directly in front of the main entrance to 
 the factory flared vividly upon a circle of the street 
 beneath it, but beyond this circle, which was long 
 empty, one could scarcely see, one could rather only 
 feel, the presence of a slowly gathering, silent crowd. 
 
 In the main office, Luke was again consulting with 
 the Captain, Breil, and a policeman. The policeman, 
 as if acting under instructions, had sneered at the idea 
 of further trouble so long as the crowd was unmo- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 367 
 
 lested, and Luke would not ask again for aid from 
 City Hall. His lieutenants were standing about the 
 room in attitudes of uncertainty. All were agreed 
 against precipitating a fight by attempts to disperse 
 the enemy. 
 
 The Captain drew up his boyish form. 
 
 " My men " he began. 
 
 " Your kids/ corrected Breil. 
 
 " We re all right, anyhow," the Captain lamely 
 concluded, his cheeks hot under this indignity. 
 
 Raucous cries came now and then from the street. 
 
 " You ve got enough to take care of with your 
 own affairs," said Luke. He turned to the policeman. 
 u Are there many in that crowd out there ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not many," said the policeman, " but I think 
 there s more comin ! " 
 
 Still smarting under Breil s rebuke, the Captain 
 felt some show of his bravery to be a duty to the 
 organization to which he belonged. 
 
 " We can handle em all right," he said, " however 
 many there are. They re mostly nothin but foreign 
 ers, anyhow." 
 
 Luke wanted above all to preserve harmony in his 
 ranks, but an imp of perversity whipped his tongue. 
 
 "What s your name?" he asked the Captain. 
 
 " Antonio Facciolati," said the Captain, " but I m 
 a naturalized American citizen." 
 
368 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Luke patted his shoulder. 
 
 " That s all right," he said reassuringly. " What 
 have your men got in their guns, Captain? Blank 
 cartridges? " 
 
 " Not much," said the Captain boldly: " ball." 
 
 " Good," Luke smiled. " But don t use it. Butts 
 are best for this work." 
 
 He decided that Forbes, well or ill, ought to know 
 how things were going. He bent to the telephone, 
 placing the receiver to his ear. 
 
 There was no answer. He rattled the hook im 
 patiently. 
 
 "What s the matter with this phone?" he 
 growled. 
 
 He rattled the hook again, but could get no reply. 
 
 Breil left the room. Presently he returned. 
 
 " I ve tried the one in the hall," he said, 
 " and the one in the cloth-room. The wires are 
 cut." 
 
 For a moment nobody spoke. Facciolati s hand 
 crept to his sword-hilt, and the sword clattered. 
 From somewhere far up the street came a choral 
 murmur of voices : 
 
 " //tf//eyloolyah, I m a bum bum !" 
 
 Breil stepped to the window. 
 " That s them. That s the others. They re com- 
 in ," he said. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 369 
 
 I 
 
 4. The men ran to their posts. Luke climbed to 
 the upper office and went to its window. 
 
 They were coming indeed. They were there, 
 vividly from the circle of light beneath him, vaguely 
 to the walls of the tumbledown dwellings across the 
 street. At his feet was a line of khaki-clad militiamen, 
 standing at ease beside their magazine-rifles, along the 
 curb; beyond them a few yards of open street, and 
 then what at first looked to Luke like a field of wheat 
 under a high gale, gigantic wheat, black of stalk and 
 white of head, tossing in the wind: the shoving, sway 
 ing bodies, the gesticulating arms, the threatening 
 faces of the mob. 
 
 They had come to complete the work of the previ 
 ous night. His startled eyes could pick out no one 
 individual, his ears could select no single word; but he 
 could see leaders, who had lost their leadership, mak 
 ing gestures of despair; men, who had seized license, 
 waving fists and shaking sticks ; could hear a turmoil 
 of cries and curses. The whole impression was 
 blurred and general; yet, as he looked, the wheat- 
 field changed to a roaring sea, the black pitching and 
 tossing of a terrible tide ever mounting nearer, 
 nearer to the soldiers drawn up in front of the broken 
 factory door. 
 
 The thought mastered him: this was his property 
 which only that frail door separated from them 
 
370 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 that frail door and those frightened boys in khaki. 
 They were going to destroy his property his ! 
 
 A second street-lamp, farther up the way, lighted 
 the rear of the crowd, and into the circle of its illumi 
 nation Luke saw running a motor-car. He saw the 
 mob scatter, the car stop, the crowd close around it. 
 He heard more distant shouts above the shouts that 
 were nearer. 
 
 The broken section of the crowd swayed, hesitated, 
 attacked the car. For an instant, the arms of the 
 chauffeur beat at the man that climbed to his seat, and 
 then the chauffeur was pulled to the ground. Luke 
 strained his eyes to see if the car were familiar to him. 
 It was. There was a woman in it : its only occupant. 
 It was the Forbes car, and the woman must be Betty. 
 
 5. Luke circled the center table and ran down 
 the steps three at a time. He nearly fell upon the 
 huge form of Breil, coatless, a revolver in his hand, 
 hurtling from one group of his forces to another. 
 Luke pushed him away. 
 
 " Where are you going?" cried Breil. 
 
 Luke did not answer. He was tugging at the door. 
 
 Breil s heavy hand fell on Luke s arm. 
 
 "Here! Stop that!" he bellowed. "Where 
 d you think you re goin ? " 
 
 " Get away ! " shouted Luke. " I m going out." 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 371 
 
 The door leaped open. The howls of the mob 
 beat upon the two men s faces. 
 
 Breil thrust his lips against Luke s ear. 
 
 " Are you crazy? " he yelled. 
 
 "Yes!" said Luke. 
 
 He slipped through the door. 
 
 Facciolati was there, white-faced, standing behind 
 his soldiers. 
 
 Luke made an egress through the ranks by shoving 
 away a soldier with either hand. 
 
 "You re not going out there?" cried the Cap 
 tain. " They ll kill you !" 
 
 Luke jumped to the curb. 
 
 " I don t care ! " he answered. 
 
 He was crazy, and he didn t care whether he was 
 killed or not. Of these two things he was certain. 
 He was mad from the torments of his conflict be 
 tween logic and desire, and death would be an easy 
 solution perhaps it was the only one. It flashed 
 upon him that such a solution might be cowardly; 
 but the next instant he had but one impulse; he was 
 going to save Betty, and that was enough. A new 
 madness, the madness of what seemed an absolutely 
 unselfish act, of an act that intoxicated him with its 
 unselfishness, gave him the strength of ten and fired 
 a berserker rage in his breast, hurled him forward 
 like a rock from a ballista. He was going to save 
 
372 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Betty, and he was a hundred yards away from her in 
 the midst of a mob that hated him. 
 
 The ocean of raging men closed over his head; its 
 pandemonium smashed his ear-drums; but he was 
 deep in the crowd before any of its members realized 
 whence he had come. He was clearing a way, strik 
 ing, kicking, biting, shouting he knew not what 
 shrill oaths and guttural threats thrusting their 
 heavy bodies from side to side. He felt their hot 
 breath, encountered their resisting arms and legs, 
 smelled the sweat of them. 
 
 " Stop him ! " yelled somebody. " He came out 
 of the factory! " 
 
 He saw a host of faces about him, dark with anger; 
 eyes big with hunger and hate. He felt blows that 
 could not hurt him, felt his own fists sink into flabby 
 bellies, crack upon stout skulls. 
 
 "The scab!" 
 
 A hand fell across his mouth, and he used his teeth 
 like a were-wolf ; he tasted the smooth salt blood be 
 fore it began to trickle down his jowl. A second 
 hand snatched at his collar, another grabbed his arm. 
 He pulled frenziedly, he struck out blindly, he threw 
 all his weight far forward. He knew that his coat 
 ripped; he twisted his arm free, lowered his head 
 and dodged forward, men sprawling before him. He 
 had gained the motor-car. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 373 
 
 Betty was standing up in the tonneau. Her hands 
 were clasped before her breast, her face was set. She 
 saw him falling toward her. 
 
 Luke jumped beside her, his coat gone, his shirt 
 torn, his face bleeding from a cut above the right eye, 
 his hair matted over his forehead. She did not know 
 him as he seized her roughly and picked her up in his 
 arms; but, in the moment that he balanced on the 
 edge of the car, with the light full in his face, the 
 crowd knew him. 
 
 " That s him ! That s Huber ! " they shrieked. 
 
 He jumped with her directly back into the 
 crowd. 
 
 While he was still in the air, he thought that was 
 the worst thing to have done. Without him, she 
 might have had some chance; with him she would 
 have almost no chance at all. But it was too late 
 now; he could only fight until he could fight no more, 
 and then they must die together. . . . 
 
 6. They did not die. Somebody, as the mob 
 laid hold of them, broke through its ranks some 
 body with still some shred of authority left him. 
 
 " Get back, you fools ! Get back ! Do you want 
 to kill the woman? " 
 
 It was that organizer of the strikers whom Luke 
 had seen in Forbes s office when the employees made 
 
374 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 their last appeal to Forbes. It was the man Forbes 
 had ignored. 
 
 With infinite slowness, against infinite opposition, 
 the rescuer made way for them. Grumbling, growl 
 ing, threatening, the crowd fell back. It menaced, it 
 cursed, it hurled ribald jokes; but it fell back before 
 the leader that it no longer obeyed in anything else, 
 until he, followed by Luke with Betty in his arms, 
 came to the line of soldiers at the battered factory 
 door. 
 
 Luke swayed a little. Facciolati stepped up and 
 tried to steady him, but he tossed Facciolati away. 
 Luke turned to the organizer. 
 
 " Won t you come inside ?" he panted. 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 " I m I can t tell you how much I owe you for 
 this," said Luke. 
 
 " Oh, you go to Hell," said the man. 
 
 7. Inside the factory, Luke would not waste a 
 glance on the strike-breakers that gathered, open- 
 mouthed, around him. 
 
 " Get away," he ordered. " I m taking her to 
 the upper office. Nobody is to disturb her there. 
 You understand? Nobody." 
 
 8. During all that frightful progress back 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 375 
 
 through the mob, she had lain in his arms silent, her 
 eyes closed. Only now, when he brought her to the 
 upper office, banged the door behind them and put 
 her in an arm-chair, which he kicked the length of the 
 room in order to place her as far as might be from 
 the window, did she look at him. 
 
 " I didn t faint," she said. " I only pretended. I 
 thought that was safest." 
 
 He had dropped to his knees beside her and had 
 begun to chafe her hands. He was unconscious of 
 the renewed din outside. Thus alone with her, he 
 was thinking only how much he wanted her. 
 
 She was leaning far back in the chair. The rays of 
 the street-lamp were the only light in the room, and 
 they made her face seem as peaceful as the faces of 
 the dead. When she opened her eyes, her eyes were 
 luminous. 
 
 " You re safe," she continued. " You re safe, 
 aren t you?" 
 
 He kissed her hand hotly. 
 
 " You ! " he said. " I m all right. But you ? " 
 
 She stood up, smiling. 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 He rose also. 
 
 " The brutes! the beasts! I d like to I ll do it, 
 too ! " 
 
 He had stepped into the light. His shirt was torn, 
 
376 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 his hair dank. Blood caked over the cut on his fore 
 head, and his jaws were red with the blood of the 
 man whose hand he had bitten. 
 
 "Luke! You are hurt!" 
 
 She came toward him. 
 
 " No, I m not," he persisted, but he let her fingers 
 touch the wound on his head, and her fingers thrilled 
 him. 
 
 " Luke," she said, when she had convinced her 
 self that the cut was superficial, u I m glad it was 
 you." 
 
 " That came for you? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I didn t do much. I was nearly the death of you. 
 For a minute I thought it was death. That other 
 fellow s the one you have to thank." 
 
 " Anyhow, I thank you." She pressed his hand. 
 
 A shout came from the mob. It brought him back 
 to material concerns. 
 
 " How did you come to this part of town? " 
 
 She had complete command of herself. 
 
 " Can t you guess? " she asked. 
 
 Her eyes were unafraid. 
 
 " Don t say you came on my account." 
 
 " But I did; I did. Father s too ill to ask ques 
 tions. It was a slight heart attack, the doctor said: 
 he s been so worried lately, Father has, and so over- 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 377 
 
 worked. But I wanted to know, and I tried to tele 
 phone here, but they said the connection was broken. 
 Then I was sorry for not answering that call you 
 made before, and when they said you hadn t got back 
 to the Arapahoe, I was afraid. So I told Father I 
 was going to Mr. Nicholson s mission he must have 
 thought me dreadfully unkind to leave him for that 
 and I had James drive me Oh! " she broke off: " I 
 wonder if he s hurt? " 
 
 " The chauffeur?" Luke remembered. "I saw 
 him just as I got to the car," he chuckled. " He d 
 reached the outskirts of the crowd and was running 
 for dear life. I don t think they ll catch him." 
 
 The noise of the mob would grow from a hoarse 
 mutter to a loud howl and then sink to a low murmur. 
 
 " Luke," she said, " it was you rescued me." 
 
 He listened to the noise. 
 
 " Then I ve probably only rescued you from the 
 frying-pan to dump you into the fire. I wish I d had 
 the sense to take you in the opposite direction. I 
 don t know what I could have been thinking of. Of 
 course, they ll simply have to send more police soon 
 and attack these fellows from the rear: the soldiers 
 haven t the right to drive away the crowd, and Breil s 
 men daren t leave the building. But I do wish I 
 hadn t brought you here ! " 
 
 " You ve brought me where you are," said Betty. 
 
378 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Her eyes were wide, her lips parted. Luke s breath 
 caught in his throat. 
 
 " Betty," he said, " do you mean " 
 
 She did not quail. 
 
 " I mean I love you." 
 
 u What?" He drew back, afraid of her, afraid 
 of himself. 
 
 " I know you weren t yourself," she said. " I 
 know how all this trouble has upset you. I know you 
 didn t mean those things." 
 
 The reversal was too much for him. He leaned 
 against the table and burst into laughter. An instant 
 ago the roar of the crowd had seemed miles away, 
 had seemed no more than any recurrent noise of 
 city life. They two, Betty and he, had seemed to 
 him set apart from it all, remote from it, together. 
 Now 
 
 " Luke ! " she was crying. 
 
 A picture drifted into his mind. It was a picture 
 of pine trees and the sun in a blue sky full of fleecy 
 clouds and a long white road winding, dusty and care 
 free, to the end of the world. 
 
 " Luke " 
 
 He could not hear her now. He saw terror in her 
 face, but the noise from the street rose, rattled at the 
 window-pane, and engulfed her words. 
 
 A new cry rang out from the mob a cry so sharp 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 379 
 
 and loud that both the persons in the room forgot 
 themselves and ran to the window. They looked out 
 upon the tossing faces below. 
 
 The crowd had turned. It was elbowing, straining 
 necks, rising on tiptoe, gazing backward. 
 
 Far back there something dark fluttered in the 
 night air. It was seized and passed from hand to 
 hand. It reached the circle of light and waved high 
 above the center of the crowd, a banner of crimson, 
 tossing like a beacon over the swarm of black heads, 
 defiant, audacious : the Red Flag. 
 
 And then came a new sound. It began In the heart 
 of the mob and spread outwards like circles in water 
 broken by a dropped stone. It did not stop the other 
 noises; it assimilated them. It was low, but strong; 
 it seemed to contain all the history of past wrongs, 
 all the arsenal of present determination; but it was 
 touched with far hopes and freighted with tremen 
 dous dreams. It was a chant, a song, a hymn, and all 
 the crowd was singing it with the strength of a 
 thousand pair of lungs. 
 
 "What s that?" asked Luke, although he ex 
 pected no answer. 
 
 But the girl gave him one. 
 
 " It s a thing called The International, " she 
 said, her voice trembling. " I heard it once in Paris. 
 It s a terrible song." 
 
380 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 Luke s eyes were caught by a movement at the 
 window of one of the tumbledown dwellings across 
 the street. He saw the window open and a frowsy 
 woman lean out. She held something white in her 
 hands. She raised it, then dashed its contents toward 
 the nearest soldier. The shot fell short, and two men 
 in the crowd were drenched. 
 
 The hymn ended in a shriek. The mob believed 
 that the insult had come from the factory and in 
 stantly resolved itself into a fuming whirlpool. Luke 
 saw tossed aside people who were evidently strike- 
 leaders frantically trying to quiet their one-time fol 
 lowers, but he did not guess the purport of the new 
 commotion in the seething mass. Then he saw some 
 thing that made him jerk Betty away from the win 
 dow and fling her against the wall at its side. 
 
 There was a crash a pause a tinkling. A gust of 
 air, fresh and cool, invaded the room. A missile had 
 broken the window. A whole volley followed, smash 
 ing more glass and battering at the factory walls. 
 The mob was using the coals from the dismantled 
 wagon that Luke had noticed in the street hours ago. 
 
 Somebody had been pounding unheard at the office- 
 door. Luke saw the door bend and ran to it. He 
 flung it wide. 
 
 Breil stood there, his revolver in his hand. 
 
 " I ve got to disturb you " he began, and, 
 

 THE MOB WAS USING THE COAL FROM THE DISMANTLED 
 
 WAGON 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 381 
 
 though he shouted, his voice did not reach to where 
 Betty stood against the wall. 
 
 " That s all right," called Luke. " I ve been a 
 fool and a coward to stay here. Give me that gun." 
 
 He wrenched the weapon from Breil s resisting 
 hand. He leaped to Betty and slipped the revolver to 
 her. 
 
 " Got to go downstairs," he cried to her, for the 
 broken window let in a roar that made ordinary 
 speaking tones futile. "Bolt the door after us! 
 You ll be safe ! We ll fall back to the stairs, if we 
 have to fall back. Good-bye ! " 
 
 He would not look back. His last sight of her was 
 of a woman standing erect, alert, comprehending, the 
 revolver shining in her hand. Then, with the follow 
 ing Breil calling out that he must go to his own men 
 at the rear, Luke ran down the stairs, opened the 
 main door and, leaving it gaping behind him, 
 plunged outside. 
 
 9. Coherent purpose he had none. All that he 
 realized was this: here was a struggle; here was a 
 final endeavor to destroy his property, which, how 
 ever endangered by the trust, was almost his sole 
 means of support. There would be no more chance 
 given him for delay; there would be no further help 
 from the police the half-dozen sent that morning 
 
382 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 had disappeared until help was too late; there was 
 only the boyish soldiery. He would go to them, and 
 he would fight. 
 
 As he emerged upon the street, he saw the circle of 
 light empty of the human mass that had lately swirled 
 there. A resounding cacophony from the darkness, 
 and dimly perceived objects moving a hundred yards 
 and more away, told him that the rioters had with 
 drawn to the upturned coal wagon. At the moment 
 of understanding this, he heard a rending staccato 
 noise. 
 
 The frightened Facciolati heard it, too. He was 
 standing on the pavement by the door and had drawn 
 up his men in a closer column before him. His bared 
 sword was in his right hand. 
 
 "What s that?" asked Luke. 
 
 u It s the tongue of that coal wagon," gasped the 
 Captain, " they re rippin it off." 
 
 " What? For a battering-ram? For this door? " 
 
 The Italian nodded. 
 
 " Yes. I heard someone yell for them to do it. 
 Then they all ran over there." 
 
 A terrible stillness fell. Behind the curtain of the 
 night, the mob only hummed and shuffled its feet. 
 
 "Well?" asked Luke. 
 
 His eyes pierced Facciolati s. His voice was preg 
 nant with meaning. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 383 
 
 " What had I better do? " faltered the Captain. 
 
 Before Luke could reply, a strident yell came from 
 the invisible ranks of the mob : 
 
 " Now then : come on ! Burn their damned shop 1 " 
 
 A thousand voices echoed: 
 
 " Burn it ! Burn it down ! " 
 
 The Captain turned to Luke. 
 
 " You ve got to stop them," said Luke. 
 
 The din increased. 
 
 "O my God!" said Facciolati. 
 
 In Luke blazed up all the furnace of battle. He 
 gripped the Captain s collar and shook the man as if 
 he were a frightened, disobedient child. 
 
 " Give the order 1 " he commanded. He hated 
 this boy. 
 
 In a shrill, hysterical voice that cut the rising noise 
 of the mob, Facciolati gave the preliminary order, 
 and the rows of lads in khaki, standing on the curb, 
 raised their black-blue rifles to their shoulders. 
 
 "We won t shoot!" he called into Luke s ear. 
 " We ll only frighten em !" 
 
 " Burn it " From the street the cries were 
 
 merged into a wordless roar. There was the wild 
 rush of two thousand feet, and into the light burst the 
 mob again : a long trotting column with the Red Flag 
 swaying overhead, and in the midst five or six men 
 bearing the wagon-tongue leveled like a lance. 
 
3 8 4 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 A veil of crimson seemed to flutter before Luke s 
 eyes the eyes of the man that had counseled caution 
 and the use of only the butts of rifles. He did not 
 think, he could only feel only feel that here at last 
 was the chance, here the unavoidable need of action 
 that had the splendid conclusiveness of brutality. 
 This was man s work. This was no rescuing of a 
 girl: it was war. The world had meshed him in a 
 net of intellectual doubts and quibbles : here was his 
 moment to cut the net, and to cut his way to freedom, 
 to take vengeance on the world. 
 
 That and something more. Betty was in danger 
 anrl the property that was partly his, that in part he 
 owned and had bought. But above all this, riding it 
 all, goading it, spurning it, mad with its mastery, 
 the blood-lust, the Sense of Power, the dizzy knowl 
 edge that he could kill. 
 
 The mob was almost upon them. It was a tidal 
 wave. 
 
 "Now!" shouted Luke to the Italian. 
 
 But the Captain caught his hand. He gabbled the 
 nothings of panic. Luke threw the boy to the pave 
 ment. With all the breath in his body he vociferated : 
 
 "Pint" 
 
 10. Hell belched its flames: a thunder-clap, a 
 thunder-cloud knifed by red flashes of lightning. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 385 
 
 Luke felt his head bashed against the wall of the 
 factory. He was choking in a cloud of smoke. He 
 could see nothing, but once he thought he heard the 
 crack of other shots from somewhere above. 
 
 Then he felt his knees clutched. He felt a pawing 
 at his elbow; and presently he heard the chattering 
 voice of Facciolati screaming against his cheek: 
 
 " Why in Hell did you do that? How in Hell did 
 you dare? Don t you know what you might have 
 done? Who s in command here?" 
 
 " Shut up," bellowed Luke, " or I ll show you 
 who s in command." He tried vainly to see through 
 the smoke. " Take your hands off me 1 " < 
 
 It was as if he were in the crater of an erupting vol 
 cano. The reverberation split his head, and through 
 it came shrieks, groans, curses, and then, as the smoke 
 slowly lifted, the pound of two thousand feet on the 
 paving-stones, while, with the Red Flag sagging to 
 and fro like a wounded eagle above it, the mob fled 
 pell-mell up the street. 
 
 But the Captain had not heeded Luke s warning. 
 
 " Now they ll be back ! " he was wailing. " We ll 
 all be goners now. Why did you give that order? 
 Why didn t you let me change it? I d instructed 
 the men to fire over their heads An you didn t let 
 me change it An of course they did fire over 
 their heads an nobody s hurt Do you know what 
 
386 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 that means? They ll be back and kill all of us! " 
 
 It was impossible for Luke to believe. Then, not 
 fear, but the rage of thwarted blood-lust sent out his 
 clawing hands. 
 
 "You did that?" 
 
 He caught Facciolati under the arm-pits and raised 
 him clear of the ground. 
 
 " You " 
 
 A new sound interrupted him. At first he thought 
 that the mob had wheeled a machine-gun into the 
 street and turned it on the factory. Then the sound 
 became a clatter and, looking through the ranks of 
 soldiers, Luke saw, far ahead, a tangle of rearing 
 horses and falling men : even City Hall had been un 
 able longer to hold its hand; one of the patrolmen 
 who had fled to the factory must have telephoned a 
 final word to headquarters ; the mounted police were 
 charging the crowd; the riot was ended. 
 
 11. Luke ran up the stairs to the upper office and 
 found the door unbolted. He did not know what he 
 went for. He was not glad that the riot was ended; 
 he was raging like a man-eating tiger foiled of its 
 quarry. 
 
 Betty stood at the window in the full light of the 
 street-lamp. He scarcely knew her face. He had 
 never seen her look like this. He had never dreamed 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 387 
 
 that she could look like this. Her hat had fallen to 
 the floor; her golden hair tossed above her head like 
 licking tongues of flame; her eyes were bright coals; 
 her cheeks were scarlet; her white upper teeth bit deep 
 into the vermilion of her lower lip. As if to give 
 freer play to a breast that panted, she had torn open 
 her dress at the base of her splendid throat. The 
 revolver was in her hand. It was cocked and smok 
 ing. She looked like Bellona invoked and material 
 ized from the fire and smoke of that roaring inferno 
 of the street. 
 
 " How many? " she gasped. " How many have 
 we killed?" 
 
 Luke stopped at the door. He knew now that he 
 had indeed heard shots from overhead. He knew 
 that the same primaeval passion which had made him 
 a tiger and still maintained its sway had worked 
 this metamorphosis also, had changed this gentle girl 
 into what he saw. At another time, in another mood, 
 he would have loathed it; but in his present mood he 
 gloried in it. He thought that he had never seen her 
 so beautiful or imagined her so splendid; her madness 
 matched his own. 
 
 He came toward her, circling the table that stood 
 between them. 
 
 " None ! " he cried. " That fool Captain told the 
 men to shoot high." 
 
388 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 He put out his arms. He wrenched her to him. 
 His right arm clutched her about the supple shoul 
 ders, the fingers of his right hand sinking into her 
 firm left breast. With his left hand he shoved her 
 face upwards. Brown from the caked blood of the 
 man he had bitten, his opened mouth closed upon 
 hers. 
 
 He heard the revolver clatter to the floor. She 
 writhed in his embrace. He had expected the perfect 
 response. Meeting an abrupt refusal, he was taken 
 off his guard, and she escaped from him. 
 
 She staggered into a corner. The devil that pos 
 sessed him had lost its power over her. She had 
 reverted to her natural being. She did not cry, but 
 she stood there with her hands pressed tight against 
 her breast, the fingers mechanically busied with re 
 pairing the opened blouse, her face all horror at the 
 thing she had been. 
 
 " What must you think of me? " she was moaning 
 " I don t know what came over me ! What must 
 you think of me? " 
 
 He thought nothing. He could think nothing. 
 He could realize only that he was again to be robbed. 
 Twice to-night the cheat that played with men at the 
 game of life had given him the winning hand, only to 
 sweep the stakes from the board just as Luke reached 
 for what he had won. The blood-lust changed its 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 389 
 
 form; it assumed an ungovernable fury. Something 
 crackled in his brain as he had seen imperfect feed- 
 wires at the touch of a trolley-wheel. The crimson 
 veil fluttered again before his eyes. 
 
 He turned and bolted the door. He turned again 
 and ran to her. His face was wet with sweat, black 
 with powder, terrible. 
 
 She understood. She lowered her head and tried 
 to dodge past him. She cried out. 
 
 His strong fingers caught her hair. The hair 
 streamed down. Her forward lurch brought it taut. 
 He jerked at it; she fell toward him. His free hand 
 caught her throat and stopped her fall. He tossed 
 her against the table ; her feet brushed the floor, but 
 he pressed her shoulders tight to the table s top. 
 He bent over her, one hand at her throat, the other 
 raised to stop her mouth, his beating breath on her 
 face. 
 
 She was wholly in his power now. The outside 
 world was impotent because the outside world could 
 not have heeded her appeal; the woman herself was 
 helpless because her captor s was the strongest body. 
 Again came to Luke the frightful sense of Power, 
 again the dizzy knowledge that he could do what 
 ever he chose. 
 
 At that instant the madness fell from him. 
 
 A physical motive there of course was, since the 
 
390 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 more intense the passion the briefer is its duration; 
 but even if it originated in the physical, this reaction 
 transcended things material and wheeled about to 
 crush them. It was the second and fuller phase of 
 that revelation which had come to him in the Sunday 
 quiet of the Brooklyn streets. Burning, blinding, 
 transfiguring, the Marvel and the Miracle, elemental 
 and tremendous, returned, and what they had once 
 done from the flesh to the spirit, they now did from 
 the spirit to the flesh. They returned to remain. 
 They completed the revolution, the new birth. 
 
 Luke saw yet more dazzlingly the glory of indi 
 viduality, the holiness of his humanity; but it was 
 as if scales fell from his eyes, for he saw entire. 
 Here had been one of the false starts on a wrong 
 road, one of the moments of relapse that he had ex 
 pected. The individuality was divine; physical pas 
 sion was a splendid thing; but when the individual s 
 physical passion stooped to force or cunning, what 
 had been splendid became foul, and what had been 
 divine was bestial. Luke, in his denial of revealed 
 Religion, was no longer a pygmy trembling before a 
 giant; he was himself a giant; but what he was in 
 actuality he must recognize as potential in his fellow 
 creatures. His mental and spiritual sight was at 
 last adjusted to the new illumination. He could 
 assess moral values, could determine ethical duties 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 391 
 
 now. It remained only to find their reason and de 
 cipher their credentials. On Sunday he had gained 
 his strength; to-night he had gained the knowledge 
 of how rightly to use it. 
 
 He ran to the door and tore back the bolt. 
 
 "Whitaker!" he called. 
 
 The superintendent came cringing from the main 
 office, where he had cowered through all the riot. 
 
 " Get two policemen and have them see Miss 
 Forbes safely home." 
 
 Betty was secure now, and the mill was safe. He 
 borrowed a hat too large for him, and put over his 
 ragged shirt the alpaca office-coat of some clerk, 
 which he found in a locker. He walked out into the 
 street. Far away he heard a woman s strident voice 
 singing : 
 
 " Oh, why don t you save 
 
 All the money you earn? 
 If I did not eat 
 I d have money to burn" 
 
 There was the sound of a distant shot. 
 Then silence. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 i. He could not stay in the factory while she 
 was there. To go to the upper office where he had 
 left her, to attempt to explain, to offer a shoddy 
 apology this would be to add the last insult to the 
 wrong that he had done her. He thought that worse 
 than to have completed the thing that he had 
 begun. 
 
 He cut northwestward toward the more peopled 
 part of the borough, not because he wanted to be 
 among people, but because he did not even yet want 
 to have to think. He tried to think, but he did not 
 want to. He saw clearly his new duties and his new 
 restrictions; but they presented themselves to him as 
 isolated facts which, offending his reason, spurred 
 his reason to demand their credentials, and these he 
 could not yet read. Moreover, the memory of the 
 scene with Betty would rise before his restless mind, 
 burning all else away, and, to burn memory away, 
 his heart drove him into the more crowded streets. 
 
 Women of the streets accosted him. He passed a 
 house from a window on the ground-floor of which 
 two girls with painted faces beckoned. He passed 
 
 392 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 393 
 
 brightly lighted saloons that sent into the street in 
 viting streams of light and the lure of clinking glass-es 
 and laughter. In a jostling thoroughfare he noticed 
 that passersby were looking strangely at him and, 
 recollecting what a queer picture his disordered 
 clothes and bloody face must present, he blamed him 
 self for not repairing the damages of the fight before 
 setting out. He turned again into the less frequented 
 quarters. 
 
 Here he looked at his watch, but his watch had 
 stopped at half-past seven, the moment, probably, of 
 his charge to Betty s rescue. Seeing the lighted win 
 dow of a jeweler s shop near by, he went to it and 
 looked at the clock displayed there. It was nine 
 o clock. As he could not have been walking for more 
 than an hour, and as the active rioting must have be 
 gun no later than seven-fifteen, all the events of the 
 riot must have been massed within forty-five minutes. 
 
 He turned back toward the factory. He hated 
 these city thoroughfares. His boyish dreams of the 
 open road and the tramping carpenter returned to 
 him. . . . 
 
 If he could only read his credentials. . . . 
 
 2. When Luke entered the office on the ground 
 floor, the little militia captain was there. He had 
 come for whiskey and finished the bottle. He was 
 
394 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 quite drunk, and evinced a thick but facile desire to 
 describe the victory that his troops had won. 
 
 " Oh, go away ! " said Luke. 
 
 He turned Facciolati out. 
 
 Breil came next, and some of the policemen, the 
 former anxious to report the present condition of the 
 mill, the latter that of the streets; but to these men 
 Luke was scarcely more civil than he had been to the 
 Italian. Whether he liked it or not, he must think 
 things out. 
 
 ;< There s no reason for you to stay any longer, if 
 you don t want to," said Breil. 
 
 Luke looked at him vacantly. 
 
 " I do want to," he said. 
 
 One of the policemen glanced significantly at the 
 empty whiskey-bottle and smiled. 
 
 " I have some things to think about," said Luke. 
 " I ll go up to the office over this. Tell the fellows I 
 don t want anybody to butt in, Breil." 
 
 He decided that it would be well for him to do his 
 thinking in the room in which he had so nearly done 
 Betty what she must consider the ultimate wrong. 
 He went there. 
 
 3. He closed, but did not lock the door; he 
 trusted to his orders against intrusion. 
 
 The street-lamp furnished the room with sufficient 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 395 
 
 illumination. Luke saw that one of the chairs had 
 been overturned and lay close beside the table. He 
 must have overturned it while struggling with Betty, 
 but, so far as he could recollect and his mind for 
 some time employed itself with such trifles he had 
 not remarked the fall at the moment of its occurrence. 
 
 He went to the broken window and lounged there, 
 now looking out upon the scene of the street-battle, 
 now back at the scene of the essentially similar combat 
 that had been fought inside. It was astonishing how 
 little he remembered of the details of either, but per 
 haps the reason for that was to be found in the size 
 of their results. 
 
 Something glittered in the lamplight on the floor at 
 his feet. He stooped and picked it up; it was one of 
 those yellow wire hairpins that Betty used to supple 
 ment the pins of tortoiseshell. Down in the street 
 he saw a draggled necktie that had been torn from the 
 throat of some striker. His gaze wandered from one 
 object to the other and back again. 
 
 He stood there for a long time. . . . 
 
 He was beginning to find out at last the logic that 
 he had sought. 
 
 Betty was lost to him, and if she were not lost he 
 must give her up. All that was vital in what he had 
 all along felt for her was only one of the forces that 
 go to make up complete love right enough, he told 
 
396 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 himself, when combined with its fellow elements; 
 right enough upon occasion when frankly acknowl 
 edged between a free woman and a free man ; but, he 
 determined, disastrously insufficient to be made the 
 sole element of anything more than the briefest union 
 between two individuals, and criminal when it was the 
 only motive of but one of the individuals in any union. 
 About what Betty had felt for him he was equally 
 clear; it was another of the forces that compose real 
 love; it was the element of Romance, just as insuffi 
 cient and just as wrong, when it was alone, or when it 
 existed on the one side only, as was the merely physi 
 cal. Real love was the fusion of the physical, the ro 
 mantic, the spiritual and the comradely, the fusion of 
 two people for whom there was but one means of 
 salvation. He knew now, beyond all questioning, 
 that, however they had deceived themselves, Betty s 
 thoughts and his, her hopes and his, her aims and his, 
 her work and his, were and had always been divided 
 beyond the possibility of junction. No marriage 
 service that might have been performed between 
 them could have married but the least of their outly 
 ing selves. Not Church and State together could 
 have joined their true selves that, living where 
 there was no church and no state, had yet no natural 
 relationship to each other. Some day real love might 
 come to him; some day it would surely come to Betty. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 397 
 
 To-day, though it tore his heart, though it was as if 
 he were ripping the heart out of his breast, he must, 
 for Betty s sake since she was the weaker even 
 more than for his own, tear her out of his life. His 
 desire for her would long remain ; the moments would 
 be full of her when he sank from waking into sleep, 
 or climbed from sleep to waking; but though he might 
 regain the power to enslave her soul and make a serv 
 ant of the self of which he could not make a work- 
 fellow, to use that power would be to sin against 
 what was best in her. He must not see her again, 
 even were she willing to see him, and he must leave 
 her thinking the worst of him in order that she might 
 the sooner want to forget him. 
 
 He tossed the gilt pin out of the window. Fol 
 lowing its flight, his glance came again to the work 
 er s necktie, lying in the street. 
 
 What right had he over the man who had worn 
 that? What right that he did not have over 
 Betty? 
 
 His reason answered : None. 
 
 There, he tremendously realized, was the key to 
 his credentials. He leaned heavily against the win 
 dow-sill. He understood. It was a bitter lesson, but 
 he learned it, there and then. 
 
 What he had done to these men was what he had 
 tried to do to Betty, not in the riot only, but in ac- 
 
398 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 cepting the position that society had offered him in 
 relation to them ; it was what every employer, from 
 the actual boss to the smallest shareholder, every 
 where was doing. It was living upon the work of 
 others, profiting by values for the creation of which 
 the pay had to be low enough to permit of profit. It 
 was compulsion. If he sold dear what he bought 
 cheap, what was it that he bought cheap but their 
 labor? If he wanted pay for executive ability, what 
 executive ability did he, or any shareholder in any 
 company, exercise? If he claimed a return for the 
 risk of his investment, what return did these men get, 
 who invested that labor-power which was their whole 
 capital ? If any stockbuyer talked of profits as the re 
 ward of previous years of saving, how could he ex 
 plain the fact that his savings would secure no profit 
 until they employed labor to produce it? He had 
 been fighting against his own ideals. It was the 
 workers that had been right and he that had been 
 wrong. What the man in russet brown had been to 
 him, that he and all who directly or indirectly em 
 ployed labor for profit, had been and were to the 
 employed. 
 
 So, quite as suddenly as he had come to see life in 
 the new light, he came now, in the little office of the 
 lonely factory, to see the reason from which the light 
 proceeded; there was only one evil in the world and 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 399 
 
 that was Compulsion; only one good, and that was 
 power over one s self. 
 
 The awful thing, he said to himself as one who 
 reads what is written, was not to have too little power 
 over others; it was to have too much. To have the 
 means of oppression was to go mad and use them; it 
 was to confuse the means with the right. Too much 
 power over others and too little over himself, both 
 states a result of a system based upon compulsion, 
 had made the man in russet brown all that the man in 
 russet brown had been ; it made Luke a potential mur 
 derer and ravisher. He saw all life as endlessly cre 
 ating and no two hours the same. Seeing this, he 
 understood why it was that, when authority was laid 
 upon any one, that one rebelled in proportion to his 
 vitality. He saw the present wrong and the future 
 impotence of churches and laws, of politics, govern 
 ments, and property. To believe in any one of them, 
 to traffic with any of them, was now to exercise com 
 pulsion over his fellows and now to delegate to his 
 fellows his power over himself. 
 
 He must give up everything that was easy and com 
 fortable the easy thought and faith as freely as the 
 easy food and lodging. He must join the op 
 pressed. 
 
 He leaned through the battered window and filled 
 his lungs with the pure night air. He looked up to 
 
400 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 the patch of heaven overhead where a yellow moon 
 was riding. 
 
 " I haven t let their corruption destroy my pur 
 pose," he said to the moon. " I ve simply put myself 
 where they can t destroy me. I ve put myself where 
 they can t lie to me again. I ll fight them as one man 
 against the world; I ll lose, but I won t be using their 
 weapons; I won t be what they are, and I ll lose as a 
 free man. So far as the world inside of me s con 
 cerned, they invaded it and bossed it. I ve chucked 
 them out of it, and I ve destroyed them! " 
 
 It seemed wonderfully simple now and wonderfully 
 peaceful. He would go to Forbes to-morrow and 
 draw up a legal paper, the last legal paper he would 
 ever put his name to, his last compromise, turning 
 over his interest in this factory to his mother; and 
 Forbes poor old Forbes ! He was sorry for Forbes, 
 but he knew what would happen; left alone, Forbes 
 would end by selling out, profitably, to the trust. And 
 then for Luke the open road, the old open road 
 that he had always loved, the learning of a manual 
 trade, the sale of his labor-power no more than was 
 necessary to keep him alive and free to go wherever 
 slaves fought the system of corruption for their 
 liberty, until sometime, when the soldiers would 
 have Luke before them instead of behind them, and 
 did not shoot over the heads of the mob. He was 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 401 
 
 tasting of contentment for the first time in his life. 
 He was glad that he had not died out there in the 
 riot. There was so much to do. There was so much 
 to do in this life that he did not see how he had 
 ever had time to think of any other. And now he 
 was about to do his part of it conscientiously, with 
 open eyes and with all his soul, and to do it with 
 complete power over himself, using no compulsion 
 upon others and allowing no other to use compul 
 sion upon him. Luke had conquered. For every 
 soul there is, somewhere, a separate road to salva 
 tion. Luke had found his own. . . . 
 
 Somewhere out in the city a clock struck eleven. 
 He knew that he had been standing at the window 
 for a long time, but he had no idea it was so long as 
 this. If he had been so engrossed, what, he won 
 dered, had finally roused him. He remembered: it 
 was something about the door. He had not heard 
 it move; he merely thought that it was moving. He 
 turned to it, but it did not move. Perhaps a draught 
 of air had deceived him. 
 
 The factory was very quiet. . . . 
 
 4. " Don t open your trap ! I got you covered ! 
 If you let out one yip, I ll croak you." 
 
 The door had opened and closed, letting in a figure 
 that quickly bolted it and then discreetly avoided the 
 
402 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 light from the window. Luke saw a dim form in the 
 shadow. All that projected into the shaft of light 
 was a fist tightly clenched about a leveled revolver. 
 
 " What do you want?" asked Luke. 
 
 He was not afraid to disregard this intruder s 
 command to silence. He was curiously fearless. He 
 supposed that this unseen man was some fanatic 
 from the mob. Anybody could have slipped into 
 the factory through the door that Luke had left 
 open when the terror of the soldiers fire swept the 
 street and the smoke of it clouded the doorway. 
 This was an avenger thus arrived. Luke felt the pres 
 ence of a certain crude justice. He had deserved this. 
 
 " Don t worry; I m not going to yell," he said. 
 
 He was expecting death now, expecting absolute 
 extinction; but he faced it with a serenity that mildly 
 surprised him. This was not the mad courage, too 
 sudden to be fine, which had hurled him into the 
 crater of the riot to rescue Betty. It was a courage 
 that weighed results. He thought of the dusty, open 
 road. He was rather sorry to have to miss that, but 
 no doubt he would never have got it anyhow. 
 
 " Well," he said with a faint touch of impatience, 
 " why don t you answer my question ? What do you 
 want?" 
 
 The barrel of the revolver wavered ever so 
 slightly. 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 403 
 
 The intruder s voice came again out of the dark 
 ness; it was as if the darkness itself made answer: 
 
 " I want them letters." 
 
 Luke s teeth came together with a snap. He had 
 been carrying the letters in a money-belt about his 
 middle, next his body. It was hours since he had 
 thought of them. He had just now been feeling that 
 perhaps he ought to be shot, but this feeling had no 
 origin in the affair of the letters. They were a differ 
 ent matter. For the letters he had fought so much 
 and so fairly that he was ready and willing to fight 
 for them once more. He tried to gain time. 
 
 "What letters?" he asked. 
 
 " I dunno," said the darkness. " But you do. 
 Come on, now; don t try to flimflam me: them letters 
 you got in your coat." 
 
 Luke glanced at the alpaca coat that he had put on 
 when he last left the factory. 
 
 " If you want anything that was in my coat, you ll 
 have to look in the street for it: I left it there." 
 
 The intruder did not at once reply. Luke saw the 
 revolver advance toward him in the light. It was 
 followed by a thick, short arm, and the arm was 
 followed by a short thick man. He wore a velours 
 Alpine hat. It was pushed to one side of his head, 
 and Luke saw that the hair below it was red. 
 
 That was almost the last thing he did see before 
 
404 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 the shot was fired. Luke made a flying leap at the 
 red-headed man and tried to knock the revolver into 
 the air. As he did so, the revolver spat at him. 
 
 A loud report. A darting arrow of flame. 
 
 Luke lay on the office floor. The red-headed 
 man s skilled fingers ran deftly through his clothes. 
 Then the killer raised the shattered window and 
 dropped into the street. 
 
 5. One of Breil s strike-breakers, making his 
 round of the factory, heard the shot and came run 
 ning toward the noise. He ran to the upper office 
 and burst into the room. 
 
 A curling cloud of lazy smoke was weaving grace 
 ful figures in the shaft of light from the street-lamp 
 outside; it embraced an overturned chair, and circled 
 the top of the center table. Above it the strike 
 breaker saw the upper half of a disheveled figure, 
 the figure of Luke Huber, leaning out of the window 
 and shaking its fist at all the city round about. In 
 a high, cracked voice, Luke was yelling curses at the 
 world. 
 
 " God damn your system and your politics!" 
 yelled he. " God damn your law and your govern 
 ment! God damn your god! " 
 
 He turned toward the noise behind him and 
 showed himself with matted hair and staring eyes, 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 405 
 
 with a cut in his forehead and a white face that had 
 brown stains about its lolling mouth, with a slowly 
 broadening patch of blood in his torn shirt. 
 
 " Mr. Huber!" gasped the strike-breaker. He 
 ran forward. 
 
 As he did so, Huberts voice howled into shattered 
 song : 
 
 "Hallelujah, I m a bum bum! 
 Hallelujah, I m a " 
 
 He lurched forward into the strike-breaker s arms. 
 Before those arms closed about him, he was dead. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 On the twentieth floor of a Wall Street skyscraper, 
 in that office where the engraving of George Wash 
 ington hung between the windows, three men sat in 
 the mid-morning light, about the mahogany table. 
 They were talking business. Each man had his own 
 offices and his own businesses, but they frequently and 
 quietly met in this one because most of the businesses 
 of each were closely allied with the business-interests 
 of all. 
 
 There was nothing unusual about the outward ap 
 pearance or public actions of this trio ; they were ap 
 parently but three units of the legion that makes this 
 portion of New York a city by day and a desert by 
 night. Each had come down town in his own motor 
 that morning, defying speed-laws and traffic regula 
 tions, just as scores of his business neighbors had 
 done. Each had descended at his own offices, passed 
 through half a dozen doors guarded by six bowing 
 attendants, and proceeded to his own desk in his 
 own private room, precisely as a small army of other 
 business men were doing at the same time within a 
 radius of half a mile. Each looked like the rest of 
 
 406 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 407 
 
 that army. All three were men of about the average 
 height, not noticeably either above or below it, and 
 two were inclined to bulkiness. Those two had pale 
 faces and close mouths and steady eyes, which looked 
 out from under bushy brows with glances that gave 
 the lie to the lethargic indications of the little 
 pouches of lax skin below their lower lids. They 
 wore flowers in the lapels of their coats; one wore a 
 white waistcoat; the cropped mustache of one was 
 black; that of the other was touched with grey. 
 Hallett chewed leisurely at the end of an unlighted 
 cigar; Rivington s slim hand stroked his mustache 
 with a contemplative movement. 
 
 The man at the head of the table was almost of 
 the age of the man that used to sit there, but he was 
 somewhat shorter, and he was thin. His clothes fell 
 loosely about his bony frame. His eyes were nar 
 row. He sat before a neat pile of memoranda, with 
 his thin hands, the blue veins of which marked them 
 like a map, tapping upon the surface of the table. 
 Like his predecessor s, his elbows were raised at right 
 angles to his torso and pointed ceilingward; his 
 chest heaved visibly, but his breathing was inaudible. 
 His eyes were everywhere. 
 
 He had come to his office betimes that morning. 
 He had read his letters, directed his charities, in 
 structed his brokers, given his orders to lieutenants 
 
4 o8 THE SPIDER S WEB 
 
 at the state capitals and to such lieutenants at tHe 
 national capital as needed them. Now he was re 
 ceiving his fellow commanders in council. 
 
 "McKay?" he said in thin comment on some 
 remark of Rivington. "What McKay?" 
 
 " Henry," said Rivington. " Dohan s successor 
 in the M. & N. He s the sort of man " 
 
 " We can unload this stock," said Hallett, " any 
 time now." 
 
 Rivington began a question. 
 
 " It s all right," nodded Hallett. u And by the 
 way, that little Forbes concern s come into the com 
 bine." 
 
 "I know," said Rivington; "but those letters 
 You remember " 
 
 " Stein sent em over to me yesterday morning. 
 We ll burn em this time." 
 
 The man at the head of the table rapped with his 
 spatulate finger-ends. 
 
 " We are too busy to bother with trifles," he 
 said. " I ve got here " he indicated the memo 
 randa " all the reports on the proposed food 
 stuffs monopoly. I must decide on that right 
 away. . . ." 
 
 After a momentary silence, the stock-ticker, with 
 metallic insistence, went on weaving out its yards of 
 
THE SPIDER S WEB 409 
 
 tape beside the windows that looked down to the 
 web of radiating streets, on which minute black ob 
 jects that were men and women bobbed and buzzed 
 like entangled flies. . . .. 
 
 (THE END 
 
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 Filled to overflowing with the emotional glamor of love, "Romance" 
 is the romance of a famous grand opera singer and a young clergy 
 man. Despite their different callings they are drawn together by a 
 profound and sincere love. In the hour of trial the woman rises to 
 sublime heights of self-denial. 
 
 Wherever you bought this volume you can purchase any other of the 
 Crown Series at the same price; or they can be obtained from the 
 publisliers. 
 
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FAMOUS BOOKS AT 
 POPULAR PRICES 
 
 SIMPLY WOMEN, by Marcel Prevost 
 
 "Like a motor-car or an old-fashioned razor, this book should be 
 in the hands of mature persons only." St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 
 
 "Marcel Prevost, of whom a critic remarked that his forte was the 
 analysis of the souls and bodies of a type half virgin and half courtesan, 
 is now available in a volume of selections admirably translated by R. I. 
 Brandon- Vauvillez." San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF A NICE YOUNG MAN, by Aix 
 Joseph and Potiphar s Wife Up-to-Date 
 
 A handsome young man, employed as a lady s private secretary, 
 is bound, to meet with interesting adventures. 
 
 "Under a thin veil the story unquestionably sets forth actual 
 episodes and conditions in metropolitan circles." Washington Star. 
 
 HER REASON, Anonymous 
 
 This startling anonymous work of a well-known English novelist is 
 a frank exposure of Modern Marriage. "Her Reason" shows the 
 deplorable results of the process at work to-day among the rich, whose 
 daughters are annually offered for sale in the markets of the world. 
 
 THE COUNTERPART, by Homer Cotes 
 
 One of the best novels of the Civil War ever written. John 
 Luther Long, the well-known writer, says of this book "It is a per 
 fectly bully story and full of a fine sentiment. I have read it all 
 and with great interest." 
 
 THE PRINCESS OF FORGE, by George C. Shedd 
 
 The tale of a man, and a maid, and a gold.-mine a stirring, 
 romantic American novel of the West. The Chicago Inter-Ocean says 
 "Unceasing action is the word for this novel. From the first to the 
 last page there is adventure." 
 
 OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, by Albert Dorrington and 
 A. G. Stephens 
 
 A story of the Far East. The Grand Rapids Herald says of the 
 book " Our Lady of Darkness is entitled to be classed with The 
 Count of Monte Cristo. It is one of the greatest stories of mystery 
 and deep-laid plot and its masterly handling must place it in the front 
 rank of modern fiction." 
 
 THE DUPLICATE DEATH, by A. C. Fox-Davies 
 
 A first-rate detective story one that will keep you thrilled to 
 the very end. The New York Tribune s verdict on the book is this 
 "We need only ^ commend it as a puzzling and readable addition to 
 the fiction of crime." 
 
 Wherever you bought this volume you can purchase any other of the 
 Crown Series at the same price; or they can be obtained from the 
 publishers. 
 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY, 15 West 38th St., New York 
 
 Send for Illustrated Catalogue 
 
FAMOUS BOOKS AT 
 POPULAR PRICES 
 
 THE DANGEROUS AGE, by Karin Michaelis 
 
 Here is a woman s soul laid bare with absolute frankness. Europe 
 went mad about the book, which has been translated into twelve 
 languages. It betrays the freemasonry of womanhood. 
 
 MY ACTOR HUSBAND, Anonymous 
 
 The reader will be startled by the amazing truths set forth and, 
 the completeness of their revelations. Life behind the scenes is 
 stripped bare of all its glamor. Young women whom the stage attracts 
 should read this story. There is a ringing damnation in it. 
 
 MRS. DRUMMOND S VOCATION, by Mark Ryce 
 
 Lily Drummond is an unmoral (not immoral) heroine. She was 
 not a bad girl at heart; but when chance opened up for her the view 
 of a life she had never known or dreamed of, her absence of moral 
 responsibility did the rest. 
 
 DOWNWARD: "A Slice of Life," by Maud Churton Braby 
 
 AUTHOR OP "MODERN MARRIAGE AND How TO BEAR IT." 
 " Downward belongs to that great modern school of fiction built 
 upon woman s downfall. I cordially commend this bit of 
 
 fiction to the thousands of young women who are yearning to see what 
 they call life. " James L. Ford in tlie N. Y. Herald. 
 
 TWO APACHES OF PARIS, by Alice and Claude Askew 
 
 AUTHORS OF "THE SHULAMITE," "THE ROD op JUSTICE," ETC. 
 
 All primal struggles originate with the daughters of Eve. 
 
 This story of Paris and London tells of the wild, fierce life of the 
 flesh, of a woman with the beauty of consummate vice to whom a man 
 gave himself, body and soul. 
 
 THE VISITS OF ELIZABETH, by Elinor Glyn 
 
 One of Mrs. Glyn s biggest successes. Elizabeth is a charming 
 young woman who is always saying and doing droll and, daring things, 
 both shocking and amusing. 
 
 BEYOND THE ROCKS, by Elinor Glyn 
 
 "One of Mrs. Glyn s highly sensational a-nd somewhat erotic 
 novels." Boston Transcript. 
 
 The scenes are laid in Paris and London; and a country-house 
 party also figures, affording the author some daring situations, which 
 she has handled deftly. 
 
 THE REFLECTIONS OF AMBROSINE, by Elinor Glyn 
 
 The story of the awakening of a young girl, whose maidenly 
 emotions are set forth as Elinor Glyn alone knows how. 
 
 "Gratitude and, power and self-controlj * * in nature I find 
 there is a stronger force than all these things, and that is the touch 
 of the one we love." Ambrosine. 
 
 Wherever you bought this volume you can purchase any other of the 
 Crown Series at the same price; or they can be obtained from tte 
 publishers. 
 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY, 15 West 38th St., New York 
 
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FAMOUS BOOKS AT 
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 THE VICISSITUDES OF EVANGELINE, by Elinor Glyn 
 
 "One of Mrs. G lyn s most pungent tales of feminine idiosyncracy 
 and caprice." Boston Transcript, 
 
 Evangeline is a delightful heroine with glorious red hair and amaz 
 ing eyes that looked a thousand unsaid challenges. 
 
 DAYBREAK : a Prologue to "Three Weeks" 
 
 "Daybreak" is a prologue to "Three Weeks" and forms the first 
 of the series, although published last. It is a highly interesting account 
 of a love episode that took place during the youth of the famous 
 Queen, of "Three Weeks." 
 
 A story of the Balkans, this is one of the timely novels of the 
 year. 
 
 ONE DAY: a Sequel to "Three Weeks" 
 
 "There is a note of sincerity in this book that is lacking in the 
 first." Boston Globe. 
 
 "One Day" is the sequel you have been waiting for since reading 
 "Three Weeks," and is a story which points a moral, a clear, well- 
 written exposition of the doctrine, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." 
 
 HIGH NOON : a New Sequel to "Three Weeks" 
 A Modern Romeo and Juliet 
 
 A P9werful, stirring love-story of twenty years after. Abounding 
 in beautiful descriptions and delicate pathos, this charming love idyl 
 will instantly appeal to the million and a quarter people who have read 
 and enjoyed "Three Weeks." 
 
 THE DIARY OF MY HONEYMOON 
 
 A woman who sets out to unburden her soul upon intimate things 
 is bound to touch upon happenings which are seldom the subject of 
 writing at all; but whatever may be said of the views of the anonymous 
 author, the "Diary" is a work of throbbing and intense humanity, the 
 moral of which is sound throughout and plain to see. 
 
 THE INDISCRETION OF LADY USHER : a Sequel to "The 
 Diary of My Honeymoon" 
 
 "Another purpose novel dealing with the question of marriage and 
 dealing very plainly, one of the most interesting among the many 
 books on these lines which are at present attracting so much atten 
 tion." Cleveland Town Topics. 
 
 Wherever you bought this volume you can purchase any other of the 
 Crown Series at the same price; or they can be obtained from the 
 publishers. 
 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY, 15 West 38th St., New York 
 
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FAMOUS BOOKS AT 
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 SIX WOMEN, by Victoria Cross 
 
 A half-dozen of the most vivid love stories that ever lit up the 
 dusk of a tired civilization. 
 
 LIFE S SHOP WINDOW, by Victoria Cross 
 
 It tears the garments of conventionality from woman, presenting 
 her as she must appear to the divine eye. 
 
 PAULA, by Victoria Cross 
 
 Here the author s fervid energy combines with a sense of humor 
 to make a book both vital and attractive. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF EVELYN HASTINGS, by Victoria 
 Cross 
 
 A study of passion, but it is passion that ennobles and brings 
 happiness. 
 
 SIX CHAPTERS OF A MAN S LIFE, by Victoria Cross 
 
 There is no mistaking the earnestness of the morality which it 
 enforces. 
 
 A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE, by Victoria Cross 
 
 Here the author presents a stirring story of love, intrigue and 
 adventure, woven about a proud, independent, reckless heroine. 
 
 THE WOMAN WHO DIDN T, by Victoria Cross 
 
 A striking, well-told story, fascinating in its hold on the reader. 
 
 ANNA LOMBARD, by Victoria Cross 
 
 A bold, brilliant, defiant presentation of the relations of men and 
 
 THE ETERNAL FIRES, by Victoria Cross 
 
 Given the soul of a maiden waiting for love, the plot as it un 
 folds shows how the heroine finds one worthy of her. 
 
 Wherever you bought this volume you can purchase any other of the Crown 
 Series at the same price; or they can be obtained from the publishers. 
 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY 
 
 15 West 38th Street, New York 
 
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FAMOUS BOOKS AT 
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 THE SPIDER S WEB, by Reginald Wright Kauffman 
 
 A splendid story, in every way equal to the "House of Bondage," 
 written in the author s best manner. 
 
 LITTLE LOST SISTER, by Virginia Brooks 
 
 Gripping, vital, true, intense, it is a page from the life of a beauti 
 ful girl. 
 
 SPARROWS, by Horace W. C. Newte 
 
 The story of an unprotected girl, of which the reader will not skip 
 a single page. 
 
 THE OTHER MAN S WIFE, by Frank Richardson 
 
 The duel of sex is here, and it is described without bias, as fear 
 lessly stated as it is exquisitely conceived. 
 
 SALLY BISHOP, by E. Temple Thurston 
 
 There have been few stories so sweet, so moving, so tender, so 
 convincing as this life-record of a London girl. 
 
 THE PRICE, by Gertie de S. Wentworth-James 
 
 Dealing with woman s life under modern conditions, the author 
 writes of the heights and the depths of existence. 
 
 DAUGHTERS OF THE RICH, by Edgar Saltus 
 
 A story of great strength and almost photographic intensity, wise, 
 witty, yet touchingly pathetic. 
 
 HAGAR REVELLY, by Daniel Carson Goodman 
 
 A truthful presentation of the real reasons why some girls go 
 wrong and others do not. 
 
 UNCLOTHED, by Daniel Carson Goodman 
 
 A novel for the woman of thirty, this book is an hones* attempt 
 to be honest. 
 
 LOVE S PILGRIMAGE, by Upton Sinclair 
 
 A novel which deals with a husband and a wife, which for efficiency 
 and truth is unexcelled. 
 
 Wherever you bought this volume you can purchase any other of the Crown 
 Series at the same price; or they can be obtained from the publishers. 
 
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