-NRLF 
 
 CARLTON MCCARTHY, 
 
 Author "Soldier Life," A. N. Va. 
 
 PRICE: 
 
 To the Personal Fiiends oi the Author, $1.00. 
 To the Public genera .y, SO cents. 
 
OCCASIONALLY HE HALTED ON A CORNER TO LET HIMSELF 
 STRIKE OUT IN A NEW DIRECTION. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED 
 FELLOW-CITIZEN 
 
 BY 
 
 CARLTON MCCARTHY 
 
 AUTHOR SOLDIER LIFE A. N. VA. 
 
 " The great are great only because ive are on our knees. Let us 
 rise!" PRUD HOMME. 
 
 RICHMOND, VA.: 
 WHITTET & SHEPPKRSON, PRINTERS 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1889 
 BY 
 
 CARLTON MCCARTHY 
 
 
%2/r 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS LOVINGLY DED1CATEP TO ALL WHO ARE DOOMED TO LIVE, AND 
 TO DIE, WITHOUT BEING AT ALL DISTINGUISHED, AND 
 WHO DO NOT PROPOSE TO BE DIS 
 TRESSED ABOUT IT 
 
 
 S7 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE labor expended in the preparation of this story 
 has so exhausted the resources of the author that 
 he finds himself unable to undertake, with any hope of 
 success, the more arduous work of writing an apology 
 for it. The probabilities are that those who are pleased 
 with it will prepare their own apologies, and that those 
 who are not pleased would not accept the very best 
 apology the author could make. Those who treat the 
 story with indifference, or with contempt, are, of course, 
 not entitled to any consideration from the sensitive author, 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED 
 FELLOW-CITIZEN 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SCHNEY. 
 
 IN THE cellar of a great wholesale grocery establish 
 ment where hogsheads of sugar and molasses were 
 so numerous that all sense of their size was lost, and 
 where the light of day, hurt at the small provision made 
 for its entrance, would hardly go, Schney, clad in thick 
 and everlasting garments, scraped (away with a steel 
 spade at the thick scale of molasses and dirt which had 
 accumulated on the floor. When he had scraped together 
 a few bushels of the obstinate material he carried it, in a 
 huge iron vessel, to the elevator, to be hoisted out and 
 carted away. 
 
 Mr. Schney was known to all the house, from the 
 principal of it down to the office boy, as simply "Schney." 
 Nobody there knew whether he was married or single, 
 where he came from, what his past had been or his future 
 would be; and nobody cared a copper. Schney himself 
 knew only where he came from, and that he had a wife 
 and children. His life was spent in the cellar with the 
 hogsheads, and the man seemed to fit the place. Schncy s 
 advantages had been limited and peculiar, and he had 
 
8 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 made the most of them. He was not required by the 
 circle in which he moved to dress well or live decently, 
 and so he did neither. His pay was sufficient to supply 
 all his wants. In fact, Schney saved money constantly, 
 and as constantly lost almost everything else which makes 
 life endurable. He was such a man that money was his 
 only hope. His wisdom consisted of the knowledge of 
 the fact that he was grossly ignorant and almost without 
 what is commonly called natural ability. As he slowly ac 
 cumulated money he strove to make plans for the future, 
 but had never been able to do much more than resolve to 
 keep what he had and save more if possible. These are 
 simple ideas, it is true, but they constitute the foundation 
 of many princely fortunes. 
 
 One day Schney suddenly realized the fact that he had 
 some hundreds of dollars in bank, and it was to him a 
 dimly pleasant idea. It is true that ten years of toil had 
 been necessary to produce this store; but of this he did 
 not think. His wife had been for ten years a servant of 
 all work and his children dirty brats. But Schney was 
 not the man to be distressed by things like these. He was 
 so thoroughly coarse that he escaped nearly all the ex 
 quisite pains of a higher nature, and groaned only when 
 pain racked his flesh and bones. And yet at this point 
 in his career Schney was a comparatively decent man. 
 At any rate he had not learned to make lying pay o*- 
 meanness profitable. When he was mean or when he 
 lied it was for the fun of the thing or because it was 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 9 
 
 perfectly natural. He was a thief, in a small way, stealing 
 occasionally some sugar or some molasses, but he never 
 felt any loss of self-respect or any pain of conscience on 
 that account, because, in fact, he had no self-respect of 
 any appreciable quantity and no conscience sufficiently 
 developed to suffer. But, strange to say, Schney did have 
 a sort of ambition, and was both conceited and avaricious. 
 And so it happened that while the steel spade, driven by 
 his brawny arms, scraped the floor of the cellar, Mr. 
 Schney longed for his idea of a better life. Not that he 
 wanted rest, or time for thought, or even clean comfort, 
 but the grandeur of a rather more independent style of 
 life. Schney began to want to be his own "boss," with 
 a business of his own, and to wear a white shirt and a 
 beaver ; have Sunday clothes, and be, as it were, a gentle 
 man. He resolved that it should be so. 
 
 When the labor of the day was ended Schney reported 
 at the office window, hat in hand, for leave to go. The 
 junior clerk, in the same condescending tone which he 
 had used for several years, gave a gracious consent, and 
 the porter of the great house walked slowly homeward. 
 When he reached his home he had been transformed by 
 a decision and a resolve destined to change the current of 
 his life. 
 
 That very night Mrs. Schney was informed that 
 henceforth the direction of their family was to be upward 
 and onward ; that her husband, so long the slave of cir 
 cumstances, was now about to break away from this 
 
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 most unreasonable restraint, and, though he did not so 
 express it, tread the ascending scale. His wife had suf 
 fered long, without any hope but that which sustains 
 mothers when they look upon their children. If a man 
 but dares to hope, his wife instantly believes. 
 
 As in America there are no fixed degrees in the social 
 scale, and no heights to which anything human may not 
 aspire, there can be no pretenders. A man is what he is* 
 or what he becomes. The fact is, the law needs no prece 
 dent and fixes no principle. When, therefore, Mr. Schney 
 determined to rise, there was nothing to oppose his pro 
 gress. He was already prepared by the past to endure 
 without pain a life which would be torture to a man de 
 scending to it. He was rising, and had already learned 
 that decision is both comfort and power. He felt even 
 now that he was no longer a servant, but a man. When 
 he presented himself at bank and asked for his cash he 
 was for the first time in his life treated with deference. 
 It was an inspiration. From that moment his small 
 ambition and his well-developed avarice grew side by 
 side like twin plants, and his conceit, like another weed, 
 grew rapidly. When the cashier shook his hand cordially 
 and asked him to continue his very valuable account, as 
 a sort of compliment to the bank, he planted enough 
 vanity in the new customer to ruin him forever if he had 
 been an ordinary man. But Schney was an extraordinary 
 man, and the load of vanity he carried away only served 
 to equip him for the voyage of life. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. n 
 
 Mr. Schney had never formulated the idea, but was 
 nevertheless guided by that famous maxim that it is well 
 to begin at the bottom ; and who so well adapted to prac 
 tice that theory as he, being then as near the bottom as a 
 passive man ever gets ? Any move he might make would 
 surely put him at the approved starting point. Being 
 low, ignorant, and unskilful even in crime, his only chance 
 for success in independent conflict with the world was 
 necessarily to come from a struggle with some element 
 baser or weaker than himself. And so with shrewdness 
 and modesty he selected the simplest form of business and 
 located it in the midst of ignorance and vice, where the 
 victims were numerous and willing, and where success 
 seemed not merely possible, but almost certain, for a man 
 even as stupid as he knew himself to be. 
 
 There was great rejoicing when the family moved to 
 the new place, and the poor wife s heart beat with a new 
 sense of happiness when she saw over the door, in beau 
 tiful golden letters, the name of Conrad Schney! Over 
 the store were lovely rooms, as white as the plasterer s 
 art could make them ; a room for the wife and a room for 
 their daughter, Mina, and a room for the boys and yet 
 another room, henceforth to be the parlor. Back of the 
 store, for convenience, the diining-room. Everything was 
 arranged. 
 
 At once the trade began and never slacked. From day 
 to day, and indeed for nearly half the night, greasy coin 
 and odorous paper money tumbled into the money-box of 
 
12 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 Schney, and as constantly a stream of stupefied and dis 
 eased negroes and besotted white men and women poured 
 in and out of the busy place. The proprietor was at first 
 astonished and then delighted at his success. He saw that 
 his future was assured, and at once gave himself without 
 reserve to the prosecution of his business. It never oc 
 curred to him that he was doing anything disreputable or 
 mean. On the other hand, he was greatly pleased with 
 himself and his business, regarding himself as an enter 
 prising and successful merchant, and would have been 
 greatly surprised if some rare honest man had told him 
 the truth about himself. It would not have saved him, 
 however, because Schney was already clothed in that im 
 penetrable armor which all men wear who have deter 
 mined, for a purpose, to abase themselves. Mr. Schney 
 was ignorantly, but yet exactly, imitating some brilliant 
 examples. 
 
 At the end of a month Schney again appeared at bank 
 as a depositor. He had some vague fears about the safety 
 of the institution, and could not rid himself of the idea 
 that as the bank was organized by shrewd men solely for 
 the purpose of making money, it might by some means 
 "make" some of his money. He knew how indifferent he 
 was himself about the mode, and was afraid that the 
 bank, inspired by the same purpose, might be equally as 
 unscrupulous. Such men like to see the man highest in 
 authority. So the anxious depositor was led into the 
 solemn quiet of the president s room, where he was re- 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 13 
 
 ceived with soft graciousness, and had his idle fears 
 removed to that extent that he became once more a de 
 positor. 
 
 The president knew the sensitiveness of capital, and 
 especially small capital, having passed through the agonies 
 of acquisition, and though he had never been as mean as 
 Schney certainly not mean in the same way he had 
 sacrificed the best years of his life to the same ambition 
 which now moved his new customer. He -wondered 
 when Schney was gone that he had been able to receive 
 him so cordially and treat him so respectfully, knowing all 
 the time what a wretched character he was, and remem 
 bering how often he had been obliged to treat far better 
 men and even old personal friends with safe distance. 
 But the puzzle was soon explained. The president ex 
 cused and justified himself by the simple plea that he was 
 there for business; that getting deposits was business; 
 that a man with money to deposit ought to have recogni 
 tion and deference, and that, however shameful it might 
 be from any other standpoint, from a business standpoint 
 Schney was entitled to polite consideration as a successful 
 man and promising customer of the bank. On the other 
 hand, the president felt that it was his duty to guard 
 the bank against many well-meaning and respectable peo 
 ple who, not being so utterly lost to principle or so enter 
 prising as Schney, would probably never do as well. The 
 great burden of the president s life was an ever present 
 dread that some man admirable in every other way, but 
 
14 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 as yet a little weak financially, would drop in on him and 
 ask a favor with a risk attached. His ideal community 
 would never be realized until all the people learned to 
 make, save, and deposit, and borrow only on collaterals. 
 
 A man cannot be a good bank president without letting 
 go some parts of himself for which he will sigh and sigh 
 in vain as the end approaches, nor without accumulating 
 some traits which will mysteriously and persistently sepa 
 rate him from his fellow-men. It appears that every man 
 must choose his part, there being a limit to what each may 
 have. Men imagine that they add constantly to their pos 
 sessions, while, in fact, the new acquirements simply 
 crowd out the older and many times the sweeter treasures ; 
 and a being who was in early life furnished bountifully 
 by the Master with the necessaries of a happy and a 
 healthy life, fills himself with husks and dies among the 
 swine. 
 
 Schney s credit was soon established not only in the 
 bank, but everywhere. Men who would have blushed to 
 put the thought into words trusted him cheerfully, be 
 cause they knew that a man who had gone down into 
 the depths as he had would make money and pay 
 promptly. Prompt pay hideth a multitude of sins. 
 
 Schney loved neither virtue nor vice. He studied in his 
 dull way the capacity of each to produce money, and 
 learned that for rude hands like his vice was the best 
 tool. He flattered his most abandoned customers, and en 
 couraged them in anything wicked which yielded them 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 15 
 
 pleasure and brought him profit. He could see that the 
 debauchery must be a source of profit to somebody, and 
 taking a simple business view of the matter, made haste 
 to monopolize all the material within his reach. Business 
 is business always, and sometimes crime. 
 
 Against the advice of his wife Schney added a room 
 and a few tables for convenient gambling, and made ex 
 tensive and costly improvements about his place. If ever 
 there was a thoroughly complacent and hopeful man, 
 Schney was. What more could a man wish who could see 
 his business prospering, and who knew that the basest 
 and strongest passions of human nature and all the 
 powers of evil were pledged for his success. Schney knew 
 all this, and acted upon it, but he would never have 
 dreamed of expressing it exactly so. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MlNA. 
 
 FOR a long time Mrs. Schney was forced to be near 
 the business, and to know much of its vile associa 
 tions. Though her nature revolted, she submitted like a 
 good wife, and was silent. At last her patience was re 
 warded, and she received her freedom. "Pauline," said 
 Schney, "I have a man hired for the bar, and now you 
 will take care of the house and children." 
 
 It was a proud day a man in his employment! So 
 now the wife drifted away from the business, and saw it 
 only in its results: servants, handsome dresses, better 
 furniture, more rest, and even some leisure. Her husband 
 seemed to be happy, though rude and overbearing, and^ 
 all things considered, and in contrast with the past, was 
 generous, and even indulgent. One creditable thing he 
 did in keeping Mina away from the low frequenters of 
 his bar and store. He loved the girl, and had good reason 
 to be proud of her beauty and intelligence and amiability. 
 He had no idea that she would ever be useful to him or 
 ever necessary to the success of his plans. 
 
 At the public school Mina saw other girls who seemed 
 poorer than herself, and not so well dressed, who had 
 some mysterious charm of manner and of voice which 
 she could not assume or imitate. At times it seemed to 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 17 
 
 6e only pride or vanity; but their kindness and courtesy 
 contradicted that thought. She longed to be like those 
 girls with the mysterious, quiet air, and confessed to her 
 mother that there was something about them which made 
 her dissatisfied with herself. Her mother comforted her 
 with the assurance that if she would be patient she would 
 yet learn the secret and be the equal of her schoolmates. 
 
 The mother had already learned that a man rises in 
 the social scale more readily than a woman, though the 
 woman be his wife or his daughter. She saw her husband 
 was on good terms with men whose wives would never 
 recognize her or ever forget the porter s wife. The poor 
 woman, being greatly superior to her husband, was keenly 
 sensitive where he was utterly indifferent. She cheered 
 and encouraged her daughter, and smilingly predicted a 
 happy future for her, but recognized the difficulties which 
 would meet her in the way, and would be made even 
 greater and more dangerous by the rapid rise of her 
 father. The wife and mother questioned in her heart the 
 desirability of their surprising good fortune. She did 
 many weary hours of thinking, which the wizards of the 
 pen would have been glad to seize and fasten to paper 
 and place to their own credit. She is a base woman, in 
 deed, whose thoughts do not take on beauty when her 
 children are the theme. Mothers are now the only 
 workers of miracles. 
 
 Every day Mina went to school, and three times a week 
 she had a music lesson from a famous paralytic professor, 
 
1 8 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 who laid at full length on his bed and made angelic music 
 on the guitar. He trained her head and her fingers and 
 her voice for the pay he received, and because he was 
 kind, he taught her a graceful carriage, a proper accent, 
 some rules of etiquette, and some rudiments of dancing. 
 Whenever she left him he would say, "What eyes ! what 
 eyes !" 
 
 Of course this chance to rise out of her surroundings 
 came from her mother, and had only the consent of her 
 father. Mrs. Schney had an inner guide which served 
 her well through all her days of deep poverty, and was 
 now leading her with wonderful wisdom through all the 
 novel experiences of sudden prosperity. She recalled 
 daily the patient example of her mother, whom she re 
 membered as a silver-haired old lady, with a soft, round 
 face, and a gentle, pathetic voice, who was always scrupu 
 lously neat and never idle Pauline Boom, the baker s 
 widow and successor to his business. She remembered 
 the little shop over which her mother presided, and how 
 respectful were all the customers who came to buy. 
 Though but a little thing when her mother died, she had 
 seen that there was in her something which prevailed 
 over her poverty and which commanded the respect of 
 all her neighbors, rich and poor. Then she recalled her 
 mother s hatred of dirt and squalor, and her heroic fight 
 with all the downward tendencies of poverty. All tne 
 motherly counsel of her own childhood came back in 
 misty fragments, and with patient effort she reshaped it 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 19 
 
 all, beautified it with her own added love, and pressed 
 it upon her daughter. And so the old woman, who had 
 been good and true and brave, but who had not been 
 spared to guide her own child, was laying hold of the 
 grandchild and shaping her character and destiny. 
 
 The odds were against the girl. The mother, though 
 ready to make any sacrifice for her, was compelled to 
 submit passively to the slightest whim of the father, 
 whose desire for indepedence and freedom from toil had 
 now become insatiable greed for money and furious and 
 impatient desire for recognition as a man of energy and 
 business sense. As is too often the case with far better 
 men, Schney was all smile-: and good humor to his cus 
 tomers and the public, but absent, irritable, and unreason 
 able with his family. He had a secret fear that his wife 
 would never concede his greatness, and that she would 
 measure him always by a standard rather different from 
 that which the public would apply. He would have com 
 plained of Mina s advantages, and would probably have 
 put an end to them, but for the fact that he imagined 
 himself rapidly rising in favor with the world, and there 
 fore without occasion for envy. Mina, he thought, would 
 be pretty and accomplished, but her father would be rich. 
 Having thus made himself comfortable, he allowed the 
 mother to go on with her plans. 
 
 While the father with feverish energy pushed his 
 trade, and in the foul atmosphere of his place laughed 
 and joked with his polluted customers and victims, the 
 
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 mother, seated in the quiet of a chamber as neat as toil 
 could make It, strove to weave about her children a strong 
 defense against the future. Mina, though she did not 
 know why, felt that her mother was her only and indis 
 pensable friend, and was never dissatisfied when gazing 
 into her face, and listening to the magic tones of her 
 voice. She loved her father, too, and was always ready 
 to give him the sweetest evidence of it, but he could not, 
 being the man he was, give her in return anything which 
 was fully the love she craved. And here were the first 
 fruits of the determined, and so far successful, effort of a 
 man to rise by throwing aside the burden of principle : A 
 silenced wife and a daughter studying the mystery of her 
 unwilling estrangement from her father. 
 
 Mina welcomed the return of music day, and went 
 gladly to the chamber of the old professor, where she had 
 always a hearty welcome. The old man complimented 
 her in French or Italian or German, as the fancy struck 
 him or the language seemed most expressive, and loved 
 her more and more. Then he loaned her his choice c t 
 books, and by adroit conversation induced her to read. 
 Sometimes she met at his bedside well-educated men, 
 friends of the professor, who had travelled in foreign 
 lands, whose conversation revealed to her the extent and 
 variety of the world and of life, and created in her the 
 hope that change of some sort and new forms of happi 
 ness would soon be hers. 
 
 At home, resting her head on her mother s knee, she 
 
MINA AND HER INDISPENSABLE FRIEND. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 21 
 
 told with childish satisfaction all she had heard, and de 
 scribed all the people she had met. Her mother listened, 
 and though some of the things so new and inspiring to the 
 child were old memories to her, she never tired of the 
 dreamy talk or the eager hopes it betrayed. 
 
 Sometimes the mother feared it might be treason to 
 Conrad to let her aspirations loose, and worse than trea 
 son to train his daughter for a life which he could never 
 share. She did not know that he had his reward, and 
 that he would never feel, much less charge to any one, 
 the defection. In fact, his life was already revolutionized 
 so completely that the simple comforts which had form 
 erly satisfied him so that he scarcely had a wish beyond 
 them were now merely distasteful interruptions to the 
 continuous excitement of gain. His daughter pleased and 
 interested him, but was more a part of his future glory 
 than of his present comfort. 
 
 Mina innocently compared herself with the people who 
 lived immediately about her own home, and with those 
 who frequented her father s place, and wondered why 
 their poverty and degradation should be so great while 
 her father s family lived in ease and enjoyed abundantly 
 the comforts of life. In a dim way she felt that possibly 
 her father ought to live elsewhere, but never suspected 
 that they were located by his deliberate choice. Having 
 seen but a single point of the better life outside of her 
 circle, and being familiar with the scenes about her, 
 she did not feel very sharply, nor was she moved to the 
 
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 point of remonstrance, but only pondered the matter. 
 Music, and occasional contact with the outside world at 
 the Professor s home, and what she saw and felt and 
 appropriated at school, rather than what she learned there, 
 had stimulated inquiry and comparisons, and had, more 
 over, forever destroyed that happy illusion that there is 
 no place like home. She had never seen the homes of 
 the rich, and had no clear conception of what they might 
 be; but, seeing and feeling the charm of the manner of 
 those she had met, and noticing that they always dwelt 
 upon the pleasures of life rather than the grinding de 
 mands of it, which was the theme at her home, she imag 
 ined, poor thing, that they were happy always, and that 
 their homes must be not only beautiful, but scenes of con 
 tinuous affection and peace. 
 
 Schney was doing, for want of sense, what many others 
 do and call it wise. He was preparing his child to despise 
 him and to pity her mother. It may be, possibly is, an 
 incalculable advantage to the State and to the people at 
 large to have all the people lifted out of ignorance, but 
 the first decade of universal education in any land must 
 produce a youthful community whose first assertion of 
 self and of superiority will include shame at the mention 
 of their parents and contempt for all recorded wisdom. 
 A man who despises his mother will steal. A girl who 
 despises her father and pities her mother s ignorance may 
 be saved. But what must be the anguish of a mother 
 when she sees the glitter of contempt in the eyes of her 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 23 
 
 daughter? The people of England have had some ex 
 perience of life. They discourage rapid transition from 
 one condition in life to a higher or even better one. They 
 establish levels of existence and populate them with as 
 sorted masses who tread the level, father and son, for 
 generations in peace and contentment. In rare cases ex 
 ceptional qualities shoot a man or woman from a lower 
 to a higher plane; sometimes to an eminence. But the 
 rule is life on a level. 
 
 America has experimented for a century with the oppo 
 site extreme, and has as a result millions of common 
 place people, who never stop to ascertain their present 
 worth, or even to cleanse themselves, but ask, with breath 
 less impatience, from day to day: "What shall I be?" 
 And so the poor struggle and die; the rich envy the great, 
 and are miserable ; the great are belittled, and rush out of 
 life followed by shouts of derision and volumes of cal 
 umny. No man dares to rest or be contented. The uni 
 versal demand is that every man must better his condition. 
 The man who is in repose is a burden; a contented man 
 an imbecile. Men with millions of money apply their 
 whole stock of nerve-power to the acquirement of more 
 money, and actually starve to death. Others drop dead 
 suicides. The decree has gone forth that no man shall 
 rest. Contentment is branded as un-American. Enter 
 prise, grown to monster size, feeds insatiably on every 
 other virtue. He who was once the slave of his master 
 has a nation of wild men to drive him an d scourge him 
 
24 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 with restless and merciless opinions out of his lazy content 
 into a life and a strife which must fill him with new 
 and strange suffering, anid make him soon the most 
 pathetic object on earth. 
 
 If men, who seem to be the chief victims of the new 
 civilization, were the only victims, Heaven might spare 
 the nation; but Mina and her mother, once the serene 
 girl, Pauline Boom, are entangled in the life of the hus 
 band and father, and will not escape without a burden of 
 memories which will present themselves unbidden and 
 mingle persistently with thoughts entitled ordinarily to 
 select company and safety from intruders. Unfortunately, 
 when men and women rise to exclusiveness and bar the 
 door to repulsive and unwelcome people, their past lives, 
 secreted within, ramble about the house and grin and 
 chatter, and even step out and join the dance and play 
 familiar with the guests a sort of licensed ghosts. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 A SUSPICION. 
 
 SUNDAY was Schney s gala day. He went "regularly 
 to church in the morning, and afterwards walked 
 from place to place receiving the congratulations and the 
 admiration of less fortunate people. He congratulated 
 himself on the shrewdness he had displayed in the selec 
 tion of a business, and often wondered why more people 
 had not followed his example. He felt constantly that 
 he had made a wonderful escape from poverty, and that it 
 was simple stupidity and lack of enterprise on the part 
 of others which gave him the field. Consequently he was 
 careful to speak in a rather depreciatory manner of his 
 prospects, and quite modestly, with a humorous sugges 
 tion to the contrary, of his gains. He bore with him, as 
 it were, the great secret of success. 
 
 Mr. Schney was therefore greatly chagrined when, on 
 stepping out one bright Sunday morning, he found both 
 the front and side door of his place sealed and guarded, 
 and the rear door in charge of a policeman, who treated 
 his anxious inquiries with great indifference. His move 
 toward the door with the intention of entering it was 
 promptly checked, and for once in his life he felt that he 
 had suffered an indignity. During the day, by persistent 
 inquiry, he gathered the facts, and finally went home. 
 
26 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 His wife and daughter, already informed by the gossips 
 of the neighborhood, had abandoned the house, leaving a 
 note to the effect that they had fled to the shelter of Pro 
 fessor Snuff s house. Schney was too much alarmed to 
 follow them, and yet miserable and lonely. He was tor 
 tured by conflicting desires to stay and guard his premises, 
 to go and look after his wife and daughter, and to escape 
 from the fearful thoughts which the place engendered. 
 The police, he thought were unusually calm and indif 
 ferent. He knew all the facts as far as ascertained, and 
 fairly writhed with forebodings sitting all alone in his 
 chamber. 
 
 The night before a woman, abandoned and forsaken by 
 humanity in general, lay dying, attended by a physician 
 who at this crisis was her only friend. Only a man in 
 spired, as some physicians are, with superhuman pity, 
 could feel the awful misery of a wretch who died and 
 could not frame or imagine an apology for her life, and 
 who accepted without remonstrance the most cruel fate 
 Omnipotence even could impose on flesh and blood. 
 Counting heaven and earth, she had two friends to hear 
 and pity her the doctor on earth, and in heaven the 
 sinner s Friend. These two attend all who die, whether 
 king, emperor, or pauper, and are partners. They are 
 always in place to be leaned upon. 
 
 The physician sat in the disordered, shabby room 
 almost in darkness, gazing upon the poor disfigured face, 
 and listening to the muttered ravings of his patient. At 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 27 
 
 last he found that she repeated constantly and with won 
 derful accuracy of detail the same story. With all his 
 skill on the watch, with a vast experience behind it, he 
 could not decide whether the story was a revelation of 
 fact or the mere phanatasies of a dying brain. He im 
 mediately sent for a magistrate, who came at once, bring 
 ing with him the chief of police. 
 
 The trio concluded that the narrative was too explicit 
 and realistic to proceed from a disordered brain, and as 
 they strove by questioning to extract every detail the 
 patient seemed to be more and more rational. They noted 
 carefully the whole story. 
 
 The woman had been a frequenter of Schney s place, 
 and was evidently familiar with the worst characters who 
 assembled there. She had witnessed many violent scenes, 
 and had more than once been cruelly beaten and thrust 
 into the street, more dead than alive. She described min 
 utely the appearance of a stranger who entered the place 
 at midnight, and asked for information of a kind which 
 betrayed his ignorance of the city and of the place he had 
 entered. He was invited into the back room on some 
 pretense, and detained there by some of Schney s friends 
 until they had a conference. Very soon he became visibly 
 uneasy and restless, and with an awkward apology rose to 
 go. At that instant he received a blow on the back of his 
 head, and fell, without a word or a groan, dead on the 
 floor. She could not say who struck the blow. The bar 
 was overturned, a pit dug under the floor, and the body 
 
28 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 buried. Everything was arranged as before, and all de 
 parted, she being warned that her life depended on her 
 silence. Here the story ended. 
 
 The chief of police hurried away, and by day-break 
 the ominous seals were on the doors and the officers on 
 guard. Idlers surrounded the house and gazed with tire 
 less interest at the sealed doors and the serene policemen. 
 Within could be heard the rumble- of moving furniture, 
 the ripping and splitting of planks, and steady strokes of 
 pick and shovel. The evening came, and darkness, but 
 still the work went on, the gas-jets within the bar blazing, 
 and the small openings in the blinds allowing occasional 
 glimpses of the workmen and partial views of glass and 
 silverware. One lewd picture stood out prominently 
 under the brilliant light, and mocked, with painted smiles, 
 the ghastly scene. 
 
 Schney remained in his room all through the weary 
 day, and, despite the presence of his boys and their brave 
 efforts to cheer and comfort him, felt that his business was 
 ruined. When night came on his fears increased. He 
 made determined efforts to exclude the horrors of the 
 day from his thoughts, and to plan his future, but failed. 
 At last he confessed that he was helpless and afraid, and 
 made his boys come into his room, and] sleep there. In 
 the morning he consulted the boys about everything, and 
 was happy when they decided for him. He ate his break 
 fast with some effort, and it was plain he tasted nothing. 
 Afterwards he smoked and waited. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 29 
 
 About midday the chief of police called for Schney, 
 and made him happy in a moment. With a cheerful and 
 rather jovial air he said: "Well, Schney, it was all a lie. 
 The woman must have been crazy. We dug a well, al 
 most, under your place, and not a bone or a rag can we 
 find. Go down and open your shop, and don t bother 
 about it any more. You are all right now, old fellow. 
 Good-bye!" 
 
 "Good-bye! I thank you very much," said Schney. 
 "Come and have something?" 
 
 "Not on this particular occasion," said the chief, with 
 a compound smile, as he turned and walked away, whist 
 ling softly, and absorbed in a matter not in the remotest 
 sense connected with the events of that day. 
 
 Schney was greatly relieved. He expected to resume, 
 business at once, and, though in a rather dejected way, 
 he commenced to re-arrange his place of business, but by 
 bed-time his courage had forsaken him. The absence of 
 his wife and daughter, and their evident determination 
 not to return, depressed him and made him astonishingly 
 susceptible to the disgraceful insinuations and suspicious 
 inquisitiveness of the heartless wretches who were on the 
 most familiar terms with him. 
 
 He closed his place with a sense of relief, and went 
 directly to consult his wife and daughter. His wife met 
 him with passionate sobs and an affection free from sus 
 picion. Mina with one kiss extracted the pain from 
 his heart. He announced his resolve to move his business 
 
30 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 to a better place and to provide a home elsewhere for his 
 family. 
 
 The next day he sold out. The papers all declared him 
 innocent, and deplored the strange conduct of the 
 dying woman and the consequent unjust suspicion of 
 Schney. After a few days the man who was supposed to 
 be dead, and who had been missing, reappeared, explained 
 his absence, and joined the multitude who were inquiring 
 into the mysterious cause of the dying woman s statement. 
 Schney once more assumed a business air. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ENTERPRISE. 
 
 A MAN relieved of a burden straightens himself and 
 immediately forgets how he groaned under the 
 load. Torn by force from the old surroundings which 
 had seemed so securely fixed, Schney s pain would have 
 been great but for the presence of awful fears. When 
 these were relieved he found that he was not, after all, 
 ruined, and was possibly benefited. There was at least 
 time to look about, and a chance for new ventures, with 
 possibly greater success. 
 
 The return of his wife and daughter, Schney felt, was 
 a pre-requisite to any further plans for life, and this 
 decided him to please and astonish his wife by revealing 
 to her a fact which he had sedulously kept from her 
 knowledge. 
 
 "Pauline/ he said, "do you remember the house where 
 the people lived named Braxton? It is mine!" 
 
 "Why, papa," exclaimed his wife, "you are now only 
 dreaming. That fine yard, with trees and flowers, and 
 such a house, is worth a fortune." 
 
 "So," replied Conrad, "but I have it paid for already, 
 and you and Mina must come home to that place, in which 
 is now all the furniture and many other things." 
 
 Mina was sure that all this joyful news had been fore 
 shadowed by the hopeful words of her mother. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 33 
 
 The house was once the abode of a man of means, who 
 had built it with more regard to comfort than show, but 
 had made it beautiful on the interior with the carving 
 and metal work of half a century ago. It was in its 
 day a notable home, but had long since been abandoned 
 on account of its unfortunate location. The neighborhood 
 had fallen into bad repute, values had steadily declined, 
 and Schney became its owner for an amount scarcely 
 equal to the original cost of the wood-work of the main 
 staircase and carved mantels. Old trees swung their huge 
 arms around the eaves, and as they rolled and turned in 
 the wind seemed to wring their hands over the changes 
 they had witnessed. Flowers bloomed in the yard as 
 much out of date as knee pants or cocked hats, their 
 names even unknown to the modern passer-by. Shrub 
 bery grew in profusion, and gave forth strange, old-fash 
 ioned odors, which, drifting into the nostrils of any 
 decrepit old lingerer in the town, transported him at once 
 to the gay scenes of his youth, and recalled the rosy 
 cheeks of the sweetheart and wife mouldered into dust a 
 quarter of a century ago. 
 
 Schney and his family were no sooner fixed than they 
 had the pleasure of enjoying the respect of the neighbors, 
 which was plainly to be seen, without feeling at all the 
 envy which was concealed. This purchase, and a few 
 timely suggestions from an energetic real estate man, 
 called the attention of the new owner to the possibilities 
 of judicious investments in that line, and he resolved that 
 
34 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 in the future he would not allow a bargain to escape him 
 without a reasonable effort to capture it. 
 
 A long-neglected corner, around which a stream of 
 people constantly flowed, now became the scene of action. 
 It was evident to every observant man who passed that 
 capital had seized upon the spot, and was enamored of it. 
 Brick-masons knocked the front into a pile of ruins, and 
 replaced it with the airy and graceful work of the iron- 
 founder and glazier; cunning workmen touched every 
 point on the inside with skill and taste; fountains of 
 water gushed out wherever wanted, and light streamed 
 over all ; birds sung in gilded cages ; rare plants bloomed 
 everywhere, and light-hearted customers came and wenr. 
 The place was complete in all its appointments. Schney, 
 his features somewhat refined by responsibility and 
 thought, more subdued in manner and more dignified, 
 presided. He was sober, indisposed to light conversation, 
 attentive to every detail. He realized that he was in the 
 front rank of the trade. It may not be easy to account 
 for or describe, but every one knows that prosperous 
 people soon possess a sort of surface refinement which not 
 only affects their carriage with confidence and ease of 
 manner, but slowly and by some mysterious means effaces 
 physical blemishes and tones up the countenance. Schney 
 was by this time a man of rather unassuming manners, 
 quietly but richly dressed not unwilling to be considered 
 influential, and decidedly interested in public affairs. His 
 friends were numerous and influential, and many of them 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 35 
 
 were practically his property. Men once distinguished 
 for learning and ability, dragged by vice from their ex 
 alted positions, flattered him and patronized him, and 
 imagined that Schney, overpowered by their dignity and 
 importance, would never press his bills. Schney under 
 stood the scheme perfectly, and in turn knew that the 
 unpaid bills and the slowly accomplished familiarity of 
 his great customers would eventually yield him a harvest 
 amply remunerative. His great card in a social way was 
 a man of fine appearance once a lawyer of acknowledged 
 ability called by courtesy "the Judge," but now reduced 
 by his habits to poverty and mental wreck. It was a 
 queer sight to see this pair of worthies fencing. Each 
 imagined the other in his power. One vain of dignities 
 long since and forever passed away, and the other sniffing 
 the aroma of distant but approaching honors. 
 
 "Well, Conrad, how are you?" the Judge would say, 
 "How is your good wife and Mina? Well, I hope?" 
 
 "Ah, Judge, come in, come in; have a seat, please, 
 and Charlie! Bring some ice and Apollinaris to the 
 Judge, quick, please what will you have with me? It is 
 my treat no. no, you shall not pay; old friends, ha, ha, 
 ha ! Quite well, all at my house ; and Mina ! why, you 
 should see that little girl. Take a cigar, and here is a 
 light. So!" 
 
 By this time the Judge is quite settled. His face wears 
 an expression as varied as any landscape. Benevolent 
 condescension, modest appreciation of the elegance and 
 
36 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 comfort of his surroundings, conscious dignity, and slight 
 reserve, all play over his rather damaged countenance. 
 
 "Schney, you rascal," says the Judge, now with a pain 
 ful effort to be playful, "you have a fine place and you 
 are doing well. I am glad to see it glad to see it. I 
 wish you well, my man ; indeed I do ! Thank you, that 
 will do; but a little water, please. Ah! ha, ha, ahum!" 
 
 "Yes ; but I have a large expense to keep up, Judge a 
 large expense. And taxes are quite immense enough to 
 drive a man out of such a business. I am working always 
 for the city government," said Schney, "and have now 
 not much saved by a lifetime. Have a light." 
 
 "It is true," the Judge replied, "our taxes are enormous. 
 We need good practical business men in the Council. 
 You are an intelligent, wide-awake man, and you have 
 property. Why not run?" 
 
 "Do you think so that I have some chance to come in 
 with those fellows?" 
 
 "By all (hie) means; why, certainly, friend Conrad. 
 I should welcome you to public (hie) life with pleasure; 
 why, yes !" 
 
 Schney threw an admiring glance at the Judge, and 
 was about to enter into a more confidential chat, when a 
 firm friend of his came briskly in, exclaiming: 
 
 "Ho ! Conrad, my boy, and Judge, I salute you ! A 
 pocket full of items, but still needy, gentlemen. Charlie, 
 a schooner for me and whiskey for the Judge ! Have you 
 heard the latest? Filter dropped dead an hour ago, and 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 37 
 
 all the pious snobs declare it was whiskey that killed 
 him/ 
 
 "What nonzens," answered Schney; "it must be a 
 heart disease, or some such thing." 
 
 "Why, certainly," said the reporter. "What kills the 
 pious people do they live any longer? I will have a 
 good local to-morrow, anyway. I am sure of that, at 
 least." 
 
 "A good liquor will not hurt a man," said Schney. 
 
 "And my good friend here keeps no other. Gentie- 
 men, good evening. Conrad, my regards to Madame." 
 And so saying, Judge Dragg walked slowly out, his gait 
 suggesting the idea that he wore rubber cushions or 
 feather pillows under his shoes; a soft, slow step, be 
 traying uncertainty as to the exact moment when his feet 
 touched the floor; a sad, aimless movement, made all the 
 more pitiable by fragments of the old dignity which 
 dangled about him like dead leaves awaiting the next 
 blast of winter. 
 
 Next came a troop of handsome boys, all the bravery 
 of evening dress hidden under huge spring overcoats, 
 homeward bound. Oysters, beer, cigars a merry laugh 
 the ring of silver coin upon the marble counter voices 
 dying away in the distance. 
 
 "And so Filter is dead," said Schney, approaching the 
 reporter. 
 
 "Yes, dead as the devil! You have lost a customer, 
 Conrad." 
 
38 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 "Of course, yes. I am glad I was always friendly to 
 him, Mr. Bursting," said Schney, and added with a pa 
 thetic air, "I never could refuse that poor fellow a drink." 
 
 "He is an independent man now, dryly remarked the 
 reporter. 
 
 "How so?" said Schney. 
 
 But the reporter was too busy with his notes to answer, 
 and Mr. Schney slipped quietly into a big easy chair and 
 a reverie. 
 
 Only the scratch of the reporter s pen, the singing of 
 the gas-jets, and the occasional snapping of the arc light, 
 until the melancholy tolling of a distant bell came stealing 
 softly in with stately steps, announcing, as though re 
 luctantly, that the record of another day was now com 
 plete, and illustrating the ability of a cracked station- 
 house bell and a sleepy policeman to produce very weird 
 effects when aided by the necessary accessories of mid 
 night and an uneasy conscience. 
 
 Filter, coffined, lay peacefully in his little parlor, while 
 a few of his intimates kept a silent watch in the adjoining 
 room. Death was not in their line, and conversation was 
 impossible. Their friend had indulged in a novelty which 
 they could not appreciate or even discuss with any degree 
 of satisfaction. He had gone off on a solitary expedition, 
 and seemed for once to be really indifferent about his old 
 chums. It seemed rather mean and awkward, but they all 
 agreed that they would have to leave him in the hands of 
 the preacher. Upstairs the widow wrestled with alternate 
 grief and despair. Schney thought of these things. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 39 
 
 The reporter calmly wrote up his account of Filter s 
 sudden death, and, feeling that he had done a neat piece 
 of work, sprang from his seat and gaily departed. The 
 double-hinged doors flapped restlessly in and out for a 
 moment and then quietly closed. 
 
 Schney walked thoughtfully homeward. The death of 
 Filter insisted upon having his attention. He considered 
 such a death as that rather undesirable, and to be avoided 
 if possible. In fact, Mr. Schney concluded that death in 
 any form was not a reasonable thing, and especially un 
 reasonable and annoying to people like himself, busy and 
 prosperous, and willing and anxious to live. It occurred 
 to him that possibly, very probably, these people who die 
 are not so anxious to live as they ought to be, or perhaps 
 they would go on living as he did. He was unwilling to 
 admit that people would die so constantly and with such 
 apparent ease unless they were careless on the subject. 
 When the thought struck him that possibly after all death 
 was a compulsory affair, and that the time might be fixed 
 and near, he sought to comfort and encourage himself 
 by resolving that he would make it known at once that 
 he was for long life and prosperity. Filter, he decided, 
 must have been a great fool to die that way. 
 
 And so, the world over, men who are deluged with 
 blessings, and guarded on all sides from the countless ills 
 of the multitude, gradually learn to flatter themselves, and 
 console themselves with the thought that those who fall 
 into disgrace and death, or live in humiliation and pain, 
 
40 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 are people more or less indifferent about life, and very 
 careless about comfort. They walk serenely a flowery 
 path, which in their wisdom they have chosen, and won 
 der that so many choose the rocky way and death over 
 the precipice. They steadily and even cheerfully agree 
 that death may be a great relief to some people, and have 
 no doubt that there is some mysterious charm in calamity 
 and in anguish which draws weak people irresistibly. Pre 
 ferring the happier modes of life, they wisely shun dis 
 agreeable things, and regret briefly and occasionally the 
 wilful misery of the people about them. It annoys them. 
 Sometimes they become indignant at its persistence, and 
 impatient at the thought that it hovers about their path 
 way, casting shadows and uttering doleful cries. As a 
 last resort they harden their hearts. 
 
 Schney, when he closed the door of his house behind 
 him, and thus shut out the world, resolved that he would 
 as effectually, if possible, shut out of his life every thought 
 of yielding to death. If the choice of ease and a firm 
 resolve to live would help matters at all, then he wanted 
 it understood that Conrad Schney was no sentimental 
 candidate for death, or believer in the imaginary content 
 of poverty and obscurity. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 A MUNICIPAL CAMPAIGN. 
 
 TWO men, whose dress and carriage gave instant 
 proof of their position, walked side by side, en 
 gaged in earnest conversation. At short intervals they 
 looked each other intently in the face and emphasized their 
 words with smiles or frowns. Once, carried away by the 
 importance and fervor of their talk, they halted, faced 
 each other, reached a satisfactory understanding, and then, 
 plunged in thought, resumed their walk in silence. They 
 were good citizens, agitated and distressed at the political 
 outlook, and resolved at any sacrifice of time and preju 
 dice to strike for the welfare of the community. They 
 were worthy representatives of the party in power, and 
 that party the only hope of the city was in danger of 
 complete overthrow. The better element of the city had a 
 small and decreasing majority, now about to be destroyed 
 by the defection of hitherto loyal adherents, who imagined 
 that their peculiar interests were about to be sacrificed 
 for victory. The varied interests of the people were in 
 collision and emitting heat at every point of contact. Con 
 ciliation was demanded everywhere. At such a time every 
 influence of sufficient extent to effect results must have 
 recognition. It matters not if it is in itself what is com 
 monly called an evil influence. The question is simply 
 
42 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 whether it carries with it votes, and holds them in a thral 
 dom greater than the party feeling. Men who represent 
 an interest are therefore to be recognized and valued, not 
 so much with reference to personal worth as to their pos 
 sible control of others. 
 
 Schney s house being in the centre of disaffection, and 
 its owner a warm party man, had been selected as the 
 place for a meeting of leaders called for the settlement of 
 vexed questions and the conciliation of those whose alarm 
 had turned to active rebellion. It was evident that the 
 illiterate, the poor, the foreign element, and the vicious 
 classes of the community had by some means been con 
 vinced that the party of their allegiance was drifting away 
 from sympathy with them, and lending itself too freely 
 to the advancement of those whom fortune had favored 
 already quite liberally. Such a condition of affairs called 
 for an immediate cure. The party must be saved. Men, 
 therefore, whose main reliance for support and whose 
 only chance of aggrandizement rested upon party life and 
 party success, were ready to make any concession which 
 would avert the threatened disaster. Others, who had no 
 political aspirations, but yet felt the necessity for party 
 success left the matter in the hands of the active workers, 
 and were willing (to accept favorable results without 
 severe scrutiny of the means to the end. The indifference 
 of the people disgusted the leaders, and the interminable 
 turmoil and strife stirred up by the leaders exhausted the 
 patience and the interest of the people. The liquor in- 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 43 
 
 terest was on the alert, and ready to strike down any 
 suspicious wanderer about the camp. It demanded the 
 pass-word from all, and urged its friends to decorate 
 themselves with its colors and bear themselves bravely. 
 Temperance men and fanatics denounced the liquor trade, 
 and lovers of religious freedom defended it. Labor glared 
 at Capita], and Capital buttoned itself up to the chin, and 
 with lofty strides and puffed cheeks passed by uncon 
 scious of the rage it had stirred. 
 
 The two men slowly making their way to Schney s 
 house were alike only in that they were politicians. Mr. 
 Grit was a young lawyer with a good practice, learned and 
 safe, betraying energy in every movement. He was quiet, 
 cool, and quick. He believed in direct action and success 
 at any cost. His companion was a Mr. Estimate, who 
 was gradually retiring from business and devoting more 
 and more of his time to public affairs. Though compara 
 tively a young man he wore a solemn aspect, walked 
 slowly along with bent head, and seemed either older or 
 wiser than most men of his age. He thought much and 
 deeply, was always willing to hear, and could remain 
 silent without an effort. It was pretty generally under 
 stood that Mr. Estimate was a reliable man in a public 
 emergency, and that when necessary, he could use per 
 suasion with irresistible effect. The two combined in an 
 effort, rendered success almost certain. 
 
 As they neared the house, Grit seemed to be a little 
 reluctant, and finally said : 
 
44 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 "See here, Estimate, that place is brilliantly lighted, 
 and I see women at the windows. My visit here is strictly 
 for business, and " 
 
 "That is so," replied Estimate, "but we must take 
 things as we find them, and shape them up afterwards, if 
 we can. If the new statesman is bent on an entertain 
 ment, we must turn it to some account." 
 
 "Dem it!" said Grit. 
 
 Estimate would wade through difficulties and succeed 
 where his legal friend would fail. He regarded the pos 
 sibility of a- supper and company as an annoyance which 
 demanded patience, but, at the same time, afforded a com 
 petent man innumerable opportunities ,to advance his 
 cause. 
 
 Our friends were late. In the handsome parlor they 
 found an interesting circle of gentlemen, representing 
 every creed, trade, business, profession, and secret order 
 in the city, each impressed with the idea that he was there 
 to play some important part. Mr. Estimate, though ap 
 parently a guest, had aided the host in compiling the list 
 of invitations. Schney introduced each comer to the com 
 pany, and was unusually happy and proud. At length he 
 said, with some embarrassment: 
 
 " Gentleman, before we go to business, let us come to 
 supper first." 
 
 At the words, the heavy doors rolled out of sight and 
 exposed to view in an adjoining room of handsome di 
 mensions a long table artistically dressed and bearing a 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 45 
 
 really grand supper. Mr. Grit groaned inwardly, and 
 cast anxious glances towards the outer door, as though 
 he would gladly escape, while Estimate swept the scene 
 with a glance and braced himself for the task before him. 
 
 The supper was an example of the skill of the fine cooks 
 at Schney s restaurant, extended and elaborated by the 
 confections and taste of Monsieur Pitchin, a professional 
 caterer, indispensable in fashionable circles. Schney s 
 bright mulatto waiters, who had served in years gone by 
 as butlers in gentlemen s houses, now dressed in snowy 
 white, moved noiselessly about, dispensing the grand fare 
 and obeying, with graceful speed, the slightest nod or 
 wink or cough of the host. All were captured. Mina 
 had welcomed every guest, laying a soft hand in the palm 
 of each one as he entered, and shooting happy glances 
 from half-closed eyes in every direction. When all were 
 seated, she vanished. 
 
 Mr. Estimate adroitly directed the conversation into 
 the desired channel, and Mr. Grit helped him to keep it 
 there. Mr. Schney appeared to be simply drifting with 
 the current. 
 
 At the conclusion of the supper, an alderman of some 
 years experience, proposed the health of "our host and 
 worthy friend," to which all responded heartily, and the 
 company returned to the parlor for cigars and business. 
 
 "Make yourself at home, gentlemen/ said Schney; 
 "smoke as much as you please and do not fear my wife 
 has given me the house for one night. I move, gentle- 
 
46 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-LITIZEN. 
 
 men, Mr. Estimate take the chair ; all right ? all agreed ; 
 very well. Mr. Estimate, please take it." 
 
 On taking the chair, Mr. Estimate said: "I am very 
 glad to meet my friends here to consult together for the 
 best interests of our party and of our beautiful city. I 
 am sure that we all desire the same thing, and that we 
 only need to understand each other in order to have per 
 fect harmony. It is necessary, in order to carry this 
 large and intelligent ward for our party, that we should 
 have as our standard-bearer some well-known citizen of 
 character and influence. If we could agree upon some 
 one here to-night, I think we would take a step in the 
 direction of victory !" 
 
 Mr. Estimate was not accidental chairman, nor was it 
 spontaneous patriotism which brought Mr. Grit to his 
 feet the moment the chairman sat down. Grit fearlessly 
 denounced anybody and everybody who allowed any sel 
 fish interest to affect their party allegiance and closed with 
 the assurance that he "felt safe in the use of strong 
 language in the company of men all tried and true, and 
 ready t6 sacrifice anything save honor for the triumph 
 of the grand principles for which they were contending." 
 He wanted, he said, "a thorough party ticket, with thor 
 ough party men on it, so that the great triumph, now al 
 most certain, might be beyond question, a party triumph." 
 
 Estimate listened with rapt attention, so the company 
 said, but was really so near asleep that he started, like a 
 man waking from a trance, when Grit concluded his re 
 marks. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 47 
 
 These brief addresses were followed by some lively dis 
 cussions, perfectly natural on the part of those engaged, 
 but carefully manipulated by a few of the initiated. After 
 a moment of silence the alderman again rose and said in 
 a voice as musical and soft as Erin s harp : 
 
 "Mr. Charyreman, I believe, upon my soul, I do, in 
 deed, that we could not do a wiser, or I might say, sor, 
 a more prudent thing, than to nommynayte our worthy 
 friend who has so handsomely entertained us to-night, sor, 
 in his palatial ho residence. Schney, sor, and victory is 
 the same thing identically in this place !" 
 
 There was a soft clapping of hands. Grit swallowed 
 something which seemed to be large, and cleared his 
 throat in a manner almost equivalent to saying damn!" 
 and then perspired. Estimate, with a cat-like glide, got 
 to Schney in an instant, took him by the hand, and in 
 about eight, certainly not more than ten or twelve words, 
 expressed his congratulations and conviction that all 
 would be well. 
 
 At the door Schney s carriage waited for the two 
 leaders. Estimate glided in, and was seated instantly; 
 but Grit hesitated, and would have insisted on walking 
 home, but for the fact that Schney was there to see and 
 push him in. As the vehicle rolled away, Grit said, be 
 tween his teeth: "Hell!" 
 
 Estimate asked, in a rather drowsy way: "What did 
 you remark ? 
 
 "I say," answered Grit, "that we are in a devil of a 
 
48 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 mess. Won t all the temperance people stir around and 
 raise a storm if we insist on using Schney ?" 
 
 "Why should they? They were represented to-night. 
 Old man Febrile is one of their leading men, and Major 
 Borax is a paid lecturer. They both seemed to be sat 
 isfied." 
 
 "But the preachers, Estimate, and the church people. 
 How will you hold them down? They will see through 
 the whole thing, and " 
 
 "Submit to it," broke in Estimate with energy, straight 
 ening up, and getting really interested. "The churches 
 dare not go into politics. I have thought over that matter 
 thoroughly." 
 
 "Can we hold Schney to party measures after we put 
 him in?" 
 
 "We must hold him." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "By advancing him, by flattering his vanity, and, if 
 necessary, by really recognizing and rewarding his influ 
 ence. By the way, you must see that he is properly 
 noticed by the press, and added to our committee. 
 
 "What? put him on the committee?" 
 
 "Why, certainly; he is irresistible in his ward that is 
 to say, so long as the better people there keep their dis 
 gust for politics." 
 
 "He is a thoroughly low dog, is he not?" 
 
 "Well, yes, his enemies say so; but think what he has 
 accomplished. Do you know that his wealth is consid- 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 49 
 
 erable, and that he is a large real estate owner? You 
 must admit that Schney is not so bad as he is painted. 
 His success must mean something." 
 
 Grit retired, feeling dissatisfied with himself, and in 
 spite of determined efforts to compose himself and sleep, 
 reviewed, criticised, approved, and disapproved the work 
 of the night, until he felt as if he was on the verge of in 
 sanity. 
 
 Estimate calmly disrobed, deliberately laid away each 
 garment, slipped in smoothly between the sheets, adjusted 
 his head, made a slight change in the position of his weary 
 legs, moved one elbow just a little, and fell asleep. 
 
 It is only in romances that the intriguer or the villain 
 tosses on a sleepless bed. In real life it is the man of 
 tender conscience who does the rolling, magnifying in the 
 mysterious hours of night every failing of the day into 
 crime, and longing for the return of another day in which 
 to fight more desperately for the attainment of his high 
 ideal. Possibly the most marked characteristics of accom 
 plished rascals are composure, cheerfulness, and confi 
 dence, or utter indifference. Virtue, integrity, and fidelity 
 furnish the world with tears and guard the sleep of 
 criminals. 
 
 The next day the party paper announced that "at a 
 meeting of some prominent citizens held last night at the 
 residence of one of the leading business men of the Seven 
 teenth ward, Mr. Conrad Schney was urged to announce 
 himself for the Council, and has, we are glad to learn, 
 
5o OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 consented to allow the use of his name. Mr. Schney is 
 one of the most successful merchants in that thriving por 
 tion of our city, and is recognized as a man of sterling 
 integrity, tireless energy, and any amount of good busi 
 ness sense. We are glad to know that he is a staunch 
 party man, and well deserves his good fortune as well as 
 the hearty support of all good citizens." 
 
 During the day, counting both private and public 
 perusals, Schney read the notice fifty times, and went to 
 bed at last with the beautiful sentences at his tongue s end. 
 
 Estimate and Grit laid aside law and business on elec 
 tion day, and each in his own way, went to work to keep 
 everybody and everything in smooth working order. 
 They knew well enough that the decent people would 
 gladly spurn their candidate, who was simply a bait for 
 the malcontents, and that they must be held together by 
 the usual party prophecies that defeat meant ruin. The 
 people showed some disposition to meddle, as it is called, 
 with the arrangements which the leaders had so labori 
 ously made, and were discussing, in their usual helpless 
 way, the candidates and the combinations, always con 
 cluding that they must submit either to their terrible 
 enemies or the terrible candidates of their friends. 
 
 Old Febrile, the temperance leader, whose fortune con 
 sisted of large interests in several lodges and circles which 
 had never even proposed to pay any dividends, crawled 
 around, giving his hands a constant dry wash, and be 
 wailing in quavering tones, the fearful demoralization of 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 51 
 
 the day. Having nothing whatever to lose, and having 
 long since abandoned every hope of gain, he boldly and 
 truthfully denounced the nomination of Schney as an out 
 rage upon the community. Of course, nobody listened 
 to him. 
 
 Major Borax, decorated with a large, rich ribbon, the 
 brilliancy of which brought out quite effectually the shab- 
 biness of everything else he wore, stood in one of the 
 largest precincts, somewhat in the attitude of the sentinel 
 at the gate of Pompeii, and with an expression of counte 
 nance which indicated his cheerful purpose to snatch 
 victory or be buried in the ashes of defeat, and wait there 
 a few centuries quite patiently for exhumation and life in 
 immortal verse. 
 
 Judge Dragg rode from point to point in a handsome 
 carriage, with Schney, Alderman Howley, and the pros 
 pect of a constant succession of drinks, and was appealed 
 to at every turn to settle disputed questions bearing on 
 the election laws. The solemnity with which he delivered 
 his opinions made them as satisfactory as they were 
 worthless. 
 
 Grit had but one answer for all the grumblers: "Vote 
 for the devil if you find him on our ticket ! Damn the 
 man who don t vote or scratches his ticket!" This he 
 repeated everywhere in a soft, low, but emphatic tone. 
 When alone, and able to think for a moment, Tie con 
 gratulated himself on the fact that, thanks to Estimate s 
 good work, the temperance men were voting the ticket 
 
52 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 straight in one ward to beat the liquor interest, while the 
 money and great influence of the liquor dealers were at 
 work to carry another ward for the party, with the as 
 surance that victory meant security for them and their 
 trade. Labor and Capital were shaking hands at the 
 polls, each satisfied that the other was being completely 
 sold out. 
 
 The unprincipled people of the community were voting 
 to suit themselves, and generally for what they considered 
 their interests, while the intelligent and worthy men of 
 the town, of both parties, were voting, with hesitation and 
 even disgust, the ticket prepared for them by their respec 
 tive leaders. 
 
 Mr. Estimate was compelled to be on the move all day. 
 He had built up, by years of careful work, a most 
 astonishing reputation for wisdom, and had become a 
 positively unique specimen of human nature, being re 
 garded as eminently friendly to every sort of interest 
 and to all sorts of people, and in some way managing to 
 take an active part on both sides of every question without 
 giving offense. He had a limit to his benevolence, how 
 ever, which was well defined. Anything whatever which 
 his party for the time approved, he most heartily endorsed, 
 while anything outside of his party enclosure he de 
 nounced with measured solemnity, in a deep baritone, 
 accompanied by gestures painful to see. At such a time 
 his admirers felt creeping sensations about the spine, and 
 sudden tendency of blood to the head, and would say how 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 53 
 
 distressing it was to see such an able man rapidly and 
 wilfully destroying himself in the service of an ungrateful 
 people. Everybody consulted Mr. Estimate and felt 
 obliged to go away greatly comforted, except Deacon 
 Impetus, the son-in-law of Major Borax. He was evi 
 dently on bad terms with himself, and disposed to quarrel 
 with politics. Meeting Estimate in a quiet place, he spoke 
 out, saying: "So you are for that vile man, Schney! the 
 man who, as Iodine, my wife, says, is responsible for the 
 death of poor Filter, and who knew more about the mur 
 der in his place than he ever told. And still in the trade ! 
 I will scratch him, the old brute, if we lose the whole 
 town." 
 
 Mr. Estimate felt the force of these remarks, and dur 
 ing their delivery gave the strongest evidence of feeling 
 that he ever allowed himself went through the motion 
 of choking with a painful smile on his face. Having, as 
 it were, cut the rope and let himself down, he replied : 
 "You forget, my brother, that there was no murder after 
 all ; and that the doctor s certificate ascribed Filter s death 
 to malaria, and not to liquor, as you were told. Mr. 
 Schney keeps a restaurant, it is true, but, my dear sir, 
 you must not allow your prejudices to cause you to over 
 look the fact that Mr. Schney is a large property-owner 
 and tax-payer ; that he is a public-spirited citizen, and as 
 true as steel ! Now, think a moment : My friend Schney 
 and I am proud of his friendship is a self-made man; 
 has been remarkably successful in business; has had a 
 
54 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 large experience, and is practically independent. Besides 
 all that, he is very popular, and of course, represents a 
 large class in the community." 
 
 Deacon Impetus shrivelled and discolored under this 
 like sliced apples in the sun. The poor fellow had only 
 one symptom of prominence, caused by his fondness for 
 church affairs his title as deacon. He was so poor, and 
 had been poor so long, that he had abandoned all hope 
 except the one hope that he might outlive the other dea 
 cons and become senior deacon. But he had strong op 
 position. Having no home on earth, he took a premature 
 and, some wicked people thought, an exaggerated interest 
 in his prospective home, and was trying to be as humble 
 and as honest and as much of a Christian as he possibly 
 could be without actually starving to death or suffering 
 arrest as an imbecile vagrant. 
 
 Estimate s warm defense of Schney scarcely moved the 
 deacon until he caught the words "success," "tax-payer," 
 "experience" and "independence," and was made to feel 
 how poor and shiftless and dependent he was himself as 
 compared with the energetic and successful Schney. He 
 flushed with shame as he recalled the fact that he had 
 actually spoken of a prominent and rising citizen Mr. 
 Estimate s friend, too as "the old brute." Then he be 
 gan to wonder what Mr. Estimate, the wise and prudent 
 person, would think of a poor man like himself, who was 
 about to scratch a man remarkably successful and "as 
 true as steel!" 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 55 
 
 Then he almost determined that he would be a man 
 at any hazard, and tell Estimate to his face what a fraud 
 he was to be advocating the election of such a beast ; but 
 reconsidered the matter. Though he had nothing to lose, 
 he wanted everything that goes to make life endurable, 
 and amongst other things he needed friends. And so he 
 concluded that, sweet as it was to denounce evil and evil 
 men, he must forego the pleasure rather than offend good 
 men and able politicians like Mr. Estimate. 
 
 The deacon felt that in casting a vote for Schney he 
 would be giving the lie to all his past and to his Chris 
 tian profession, and that if he scratched him he would 
 be giving offense to men far better, that is to say more 
 prosperous, more respected, and more influential than 
 himself. After all, he concluded, "I am only a deacon !" 
 So the deacon, flanked on one side by a tender con 
 science, and on the other by a wholesome dread of pov 
 erty any deeper than that he endured, sneaked home with 
 out voting, and committed the unpardonable sin of 
 politics. From that day the dignities of the diaconate 
 lost their sweetness and he gradually pined away. It was 
 not Schney s grandeur or the insolence of his pretensions, 
 or even envy, that killed the deacon, but the inexplicable 
 attachment of Brother Estimate and other worthy 
 brethren in public life to his candidacy, In fact, the dea 
 con was out of date, practically null and void all his 
 coupons clipped and collected long ago. Being nothing 
 to the world but an irritating evidence of debt, his Master 
 cancelled him. 
 
56 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 A man who has nothing to recommend him but gentle 
 ness, purity, and principle, and who is handicapped with 
 poverty and a tender conscience, is not in a condition to 
 go about asserting himself. His study should be modesty 
 in all its branches. Politicians very properly maintain 
 that such characters are a nuisance and an obstruction, 
 and that the foolish prejudices which arise from religious 
 conviction and a nice sense of propriety, and even the 
 idea that a thing must be right to be admissible, ought to 
 stand aside and let the party managers illustrate the possi 
 bilities of a well-conducted campaign as a great moral 
 agent. 
 
 Some younger men, on familiar terms with Estimate, 
 gave him a few of their opinions during the day in a 
 frank and playful manner, which developed on his counte 
 nance a series of smiles painful to see. But Estimate had 
 figured up the result, and was willing to wait a day for 
 rest and reward. He knew that success would secure 
 forgetfulness of all the crooked work of the day. Being 
 thoroughly immersed in politics, he was as thoroughly 
 convinced that it was his duty to make every little scruple 
 of over-sensitive people give way, or, if necessary, to beat 
 down the carping of innocent moralists. He was fast 
 approaching a state of mind in which he would conclude 
 that, after all, the surest and quickest route for the in 
 coming of the millennium and the adjustment of the 
 world was along the line of intelligent statesmanship. 
 As he walked slowly along a street recently opened and 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 57 
 
 not yet built up, he was hailed by two brothers who had 
 voted and were returning to their work powerfully-built 
 fellows, and by trade stone-masons. They were known 
 to their friends and neighbors as "the Harmony broth 
 ers." Rubble, about thirty-five, and Ashler, twenty-nine 
 years of age ; honest, straightforward fellows, rather con 
 fident, owing to their great strength, and as independent 
 a pair as ever toiled for food and raiment. Rubble seized 
 Estimate by his coat with the gentle grip of a giant and 
 said, without any introductory words : "So we are to 
 have old Schney forced on us, are we, by you managers? 
 Not so easily, though, Mr. Estimate, as you might sup 
 pose. Ashler here and I have put in two solid shots for 
 the other side. We are with you until you try to ride us 
 with such stuff as Schney, but right there we kick." 
 
 It was a lonesome place. Mr. Estimate s countenance 
 was better adapted to solemnity and a sort of stolid dig 
 nity than to any light or variegated work, but the cir 
 cumstances and surroundings stimulated him to the pro 
 duction of a series of pleased expressions quite creditable 
 to one of such limited ability. He really appeared to be 
 pleased with the hearty raillery of his stout friend, and 
 actually laughed in such a way as to almost say: "I half 
 agree with you, that I do." 
 
 Ashler, the younger and more fiery of the two, added 
 with a quiet air, that he didn t care a damn for the party 
 or the managers, or the candidates, either, and would 
 vote as he pleased. He wanted, he said, all the chances 
 
58 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 he could get to down such villains as Schney, and, for 
 that matter, the rascals who were helping him. 
 
 Mr. Estimate laughed a gentle approval of these re 
 marks, and, thanking them for their deep interest in the 
 election, departed, touching his hat and saying: "Gentle 
 men, I am glad to have met you like to have sugges 
 tions glad to meet my friends ; ah, good day, good day ; 
 ha, ah, ha !" 
 
 At the next corner the pair encountered Mr. Grit, who 
 engaged them in conversation, and soon, in a thoughtless 
 moment, let slip the remark about the devil and scratching 
 which had served him so well during the day. It proved 
 to be injudicious, inasmuch as it aroused the indignation 
 of the younger Harmony, who struck him a blow which 
 was wonderful in that it was not instantly fatal. Grit 
 sustained his remarks with all the strength at his com 
 mand, but, of course, was soon a wreck. He managed 
 to get to the meeting that night, but the false proportions 
 of his head and the overdone shadows of his countenance, 
 added to the languor of his movements, made him scarcely 
 recognizable. Mr. Estimate was really distressed when 
 he saw him. 
 
 Judge Dragg, Alderman Howley, Mr. Estimate, old 
 man Febrile, and many other leading citizens, were there, 
 laboring under intense excitement, a heavy supper, and in 
 numerable drinks. It was soon evident from the returns 
 that Schney had been elected by a handsome majority. 
 Mr. Estimate seized the occasion to speak of Mr. Schney 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 59 
 
 as the man who "had, by the liberal expenditure of his 
 energy, time, and money, and by the application of his 
 splendid abilities, done more than probably any other one 
 man to save the city from ruin; that he deserved the 
 thanks of the whole community, and especially of those 
 who had been by necessity in the midst of the fray/ Next 
 morning the papers printed these remarks under the 
 head : "Mr. Estimate Speaks For Us All !" 
 
 Later in the evening Mr. Schney himself arrived at 
 headquarters, bringing the very latest intelligence from 
 his ward, and the modesty and delicacy with which lie 
 referred to his own success gave indisputable evidence of 
 his capacity and willingness to learn when he had a 
 chance. 
 
 It seems to be a rule of fate or a law of nature to 
 soften every triumph of man by the prompt introduction 
 of a tragedy. Or, perhaps, fate is artistic and blends light 
 and shade, or heightens joys by a dash of pathos, merely 
 to indulge a pretty fancy or try new effects. Or, it may 
 be, fate is a grim humorist, who distorts life into a cari 
 cature, and retires to laugh. Be that as it may, however, 
 in the midst of general rejoicing and hilarity Judge Dragg 
 became unaccountably silent. When playfully chided for 
 his very unusual lack of interest, he made no response, 
 but gazed fixedly and appealingly into the faces of those 
 about him. Some one noticing the pallor of his face, and 
 supposing he had fainted, offered him a flask. He did 
 not make the slightest motion to receive it, or even turn 
 
60 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 his eyes wistfully towards it. At this every one became 
 alarmed; those who looked at him from one side were 
 struck with the awful solemnity of his face, while others, 
 viewing him from the opposite side, thought they de 
 tected a smile. To many questions he answered nothing. 
 Febrile, who had seen hundreds of sick and dying people, 
 seized the left hand of the Judge, raised it to the level of 
 his head and released it. It fell like a clod to his side. 
 
 "Paralysis," said Febrile. 
 
 In a few minutes a physician appeared, and ordered the 
 instant removal of the patient to his home. As the doc 
 tor passed out he said to Grit, who had questioned him, 
 "Oh, yes, deterioration of the tissues blood-vessel given 
 away free effusion on the brain. Progressive, and nec 
 essarily fatal. No hope. Bye-bye!" 
 
 Febrile and Borax renewed their pledges to each other, 
 and determined to say something impressive at the next 
 meeting of the "Cool Spring Division." All things con 
 sidered, they got home with remarkable ease and precision. 
 
 Mr. Schney walked home with his triumph badly hob 
 bled by the untimely and ghastly conduct of his friend 
 the Judge, and with occasional thoughts of the unreason 
 able death of Filter. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 A PUBLIC SLAVE. 
 
 FOR a few days Schney carried himself with a sort 
 of suppressed pride. A close observer might have 
 detected scintillations of vanity sweeping over and illum 
 inating the general air of modesty which he was culti 
 vating for public effect. Occasionally his pride got the 
 ascendancy, and his gait became suggestive of too much 
 strain between the crupper and the kimbal jack of his 
 physical organization. At home, exhausted by the strain 
 of carrying himself well, he relaxed into comfort. As he 
 settled himself for the first time in the arm-chair provided 
 for him in the Council chamber, the same struggle might 
 be observed expressing itself in more subtle and inter 
 esting forms. The beautiful and almost pathetic weari 
 ness with which, after a day of private anxieties, he 
 assumed the burden of public cares, could not fail to 
 impress the intelligent observer ; and after he was seated 
 it was positively painful to see with what patient fortitude 
 he listened to the unimportant details of the familiar 
 routine. 
 
 There is nothing more distressing to a benevolent mind 
 than to observe the steady accumulation of cares which 
 comes to all men who are so unfortunate as to be torn 
 from the composure and serenity of private life, and 
 
62 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 forced, by the exacting demands of public necessity, into 
 positions of responsibility and labor to be raised, as it 
 were, to a dreary, solitary eminence, and there overlook 
 the struggles and agonies of the surging masses of hu 
 manity. 
 
 Surely nothing but a just appreciation of the sacrifices 
 he had already made, and a clear conception of the bur 
 dens which must in the future be laid upon him, coufld 
 have converted the heretofore cheerful and hopeful Schney 
 into the man he now seemed to be. It was evident that 
 during the short time he had occupied his seat he had im 
 bibed an amount of information concerning the complex 
 interests of government sufficient to be a burden to him, 
 and to cause him to be amazed that so many people man 
 aged to live and be so ignorant and so indifferent to the 
 tremendous issues which he was now compelled con 
 stantly to consider. 
 
 At times he was startled by the thought that but for 
 the self-sacrificing labors of himself and his associates, 
 and their wise and patient care, a whole community 
 virtuous and innocent, but helpless and careless might 
 fall into irremediable ruin. 
 
 It is thus that Providence, seeing that the children of 
 men are wilful and prone to neglect the great concerns of 
 life, raises up, in due time, men of a sterner mould and of 
 finer intuition than their fellows to be the leaders and 
 guardians of helpless thousands. Schney often pon 
 dered the mystery of his rapid promotion, and sighed 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 63 
 
 when he was compelled to admit to himself that it could 
 be explained only on the presumption that he was sadly 
 needed in the councils of the people. He saw that he was 
 doomed to a life of servitude, and, with a courage com 
 mensurate with the solemnity of his convictions, resolved 
 to accept the manifest leadings of Providence. 
 
 This resolve, firmly made, restored almost instantly 
 the light-hearted and hopeful temper of the new friend of 
 the people, and removed at once all danger of his retire 
 ment and its fearful consequences. 
 
 Estimate, now chairman of the local committee, and 
 Grit, his adviser, took a rather different view of the causes 
 of Schney s election, and had mapped out his future to 
 their own satisfaction. They had failed to take into 
 consideration, however, the fact that a man once raised 
 to a position out of all proportion to his ability and 
 character, rapidly convinces himself that he is fully equal 
 to it and finally aspires to greater heights. They did not 
 weigh the yet stranger fact that the man actually takes on 
 some elevation, by reason of new opportunities, and 
 finally approaches a development which, in appearance 
 at least, fits him for honors which at first only exposed 
 his incapacity; and this without any necessary improve 
 ment in that part of the man which the world calls his 
 character, and by which he must finally be estimated. 
 And so the man base by nature, forced by fortuitous 
 events or elevated by careless voters into a high position, 
 not only defiles the place of dignity, but from it steps to 
 
64 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 yet higher places, from which he serenely views the 
 labors and unrewarded toil of his fellow-men. To rise 
 above those that surround him, to be sought for and 
 pleaded with and to dispense authority these are the 
 impulses which move the man emerging from obscurity. 
 Though Schney had been elected partly to satisfy the 
 business interests, which he, to a certain extent, repre 
 sented, he was yet more distinctly understood to represent 
 the masses, including the poor and the ignorant; but in 
 this capacity he was a failure, because he had never been 
 in any true sense, a poor man, and had no feeling for the 
 pains of poverty. When he was himself a common la 
 borer, his sensibilities being undeveloped, he escaped by 
 indifference the most bitter portion of the poor. It was 
 his insensibility to the awful squalor at his home which 
 enabled him, by saving in coin the comforts due his 
 family, to collect his first means, and his heartless cruelty 
 and selfishness which made it possible for him to keep 
 his material interests in advance of his mental and moral 
 improvement. When poor he did not, could not, feel it; 
 and by the time his susceptibility to pain was developed 
 he had left and had forgotten the land of dependence and 
 fear and foreboding. The poor cannot be considered, 
 with any justice, as a mass of level people. They are 
 sub-divided, as other classes are, into sufferers and great 
 sufferers. Some of them, possibly, never feel anything 
 sharper than mere physical pain, while others know the 
 poignancy of those inner pains which we try to sum- 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 65 
 
 marize in the word anguish. In the great mass of the 
 poor whom the new or modern statesman tries to repre 
 sent, are many who have quietly fallen from affluence 
 into an obscure comfort, which asks no help in material 
 things, but craves a return of old associations, old friends, 
 and old surroundings. 
 
 Others, descended, remotely it may be, from an ances 
 try of noble qualities, who for centuries perhaps enjoyed 
 all the rare culture which wealth and rank combined can 
 confer, feel a mysterious and irrepressible desire to escape 
 from a life which does not satisfy, and find if possible 
 that which their natures crave. 
 
 And others still, conscious of powers or of gifts which 
 have not been discovered, or which the world refuses to 
 recognize in such shabby attire, groan within themselves 
 as they view the ready recognition of insolent sham 
 clothed in the elegance of questionable prosperity. 
 
 If the great problem were simply how to supply the 
 demand for food, raiment, and shelter, the world would 
 scon solve it and poverty would vanish before the abund 
 ance which benevolence would supply ; but the want which 
 presses itself upon the notice of the world, and which de 
 mands relief, is the cry of the people for the recognition 
 of the best qualities of humanity and for protection from 
 the ever increasing insolence and tyranny which results 
 from the elevation of vice, incapacity, and vanity to place 
 and power. Thousands who are self-contained, who have 
 not the remotest desire for the fictitious elevation of politi- 
 
66 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 cal life, and are therefore not ooen to the charge of en 
 vious disparagement, are compelled to submit to the rule 
 of men who have long ceased to be representative, and 
 are simply politicians by trade and the partners of other 
 politicians. Their business is to sustain each other, and 
 their capital consists of a great mass of voters swayed by 
 constant appeals to hopes and fears previously implanted 
 for that very use. 
 
 The official position of Schney compelled men infinitely 
 superior in every sense to approach him deferentially, pre 
 senting their requests and pretending to hear his views 
 with great interest and humble approbation. In propor 
 tion to their respectability and worth Schney s importance 
 increased. He actually began to believe that he was neces 
 sary to these proud but helpless people, and that they 
 were reluctantly consenting by their appeals to his wis 
 dom and ability. While he consoled himself with this 
 pleasant idea, vainly trying at the same time to grasp the 
 meaning of the varied schemes presented to him, the 
 simple-minded citizens laughed at his stupid pomposity 
 and quietly arranged to capture his vote. 
 
 And so, gradually enlarged by a vanity which fed on 
 delusions, Mr, Schney drifted away from many who were 
 ignorant enough to honestly admire him and became the 
 associate of others who flattered, used, and despised him. 
 He rapidly lost all interest in the poor and struggling 
 classes, who had pushed him out of obscurity with their 
 votes, and when appealed to in their behalf, only advised 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 67 
 
 them to emulate his example and rise. He was already 
 convinced, as many another prosperous fellow before him 
 has been, that he had raised himself by his own energy 
 and industry, and that his old friends still left in the mire 
 of poverty were shiftless and worthless, and therefore 
 poor. He readily excused his attitude of superiority on 
 the very reasonable ground that he was a superior man, 
 and that he had demonstrated the fact. He was not alone 
 in this conclusion, for thousands of really worthy men, 
 made limp and hopeless by years of honest struggle 
 against poverty, abandoned practically all faith in Provi 
 dence and in virtue and made their obeisance in due time 
 to the prosperous criminal. Good and brave men began 
 to discover that it was useless to denounce a man so 
 solid financially and so well supported by his political 
 allies, and learned to their sorrow that persistence would 
 result in nothing but their own serious hurt. 
 
 And yet it is said we are a kingless people. Perhaps 
 a man might bend low before a sovereign crowned and 
 enthroned, and yet not so profoundly bow as when before 
 these monstrous accidents he pleads for right or seeks 
 redress for wrong. 
 
 A hundred years of liberty, perfect as a dream wjien 
 compared with any sovereign s reign, has given the cities 
 of America to thieves and whiskey, commonwealths to 
 aliens and strangers, and the President s chair to the 
 highest bidder. And the great mystery which rolls un 
 solved over a continent is the fact that a free, prosperous, 
 
68 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 and enlightened people, despising the royal prerogative, 
 and amused at the superstition of the divine right of 
 kings, puts slaves of unknown ancestry in ruler s chairs 
 and bows to the decrees of unlettered mobs. 
 
 At the end of one term this man, once so humble, was 
 convinced that he possessed qualities which entitled him 
 to recognition as a man of affairs, especially fitted for the 
 work of guiding and governing the helpless respectability 
 and aimless morality of the city. He sincerely pitied the 
 numberless men about him who were deluding them 
 selves with the idea that their characters alone entitled 
 them to respect. He was utterly unable to understand 
 why men who had never been in the Council, who had no 
 property and no such business ability as he had, and no 
 influence in ward politics, should go about acting as if 
 they were really good citizens and even treating him with 
 amused indifference. In fact, Mr. Schney secretly en 
 tertained the belief that he was far more patriotic and 
 decidedly more American than the quiet natives of the 
 city, who seemed, he thought, to have grown weary of 
 citizenship and all its glories. 
 
 This thought inspired him to hope that a man as re 
 solved as he was to rise in public life might greatly bene 
 fit himself and at the same time stir the dull indifference 
 of the old inhabitants sufficiently to make them feel some 
 interest in their country. Mr. Schney began to see that 
 the most intelligent man in the community, if he had never 
 been in the Council, really needed the watchcare of men 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 69 
 
 like himself. It shocked him to think how many people 
 there were who really did not know all the things he had 
 learned. He felt that he was at last and forever separated 
 from the great and level mass of unknown people. 
 
 In his new place of business Mr. Schney met, as he 
 supposed, the very best people of the city, many of them 
 his warm friends, and many others whose habits com 
 pelled them to meet him on terms of social equality or 
 else, refusing, condemn themselves. Frequenters of bars 
 cannot justly claim superiority to the proprietor. An 
 honest man cannot despise another who ministers to his 
 pleasure or to any habit of his, however base, and retain 
 his respect for himself. A man s customers are his 
 friends or his slaves. 
 
 Mr. Schney widened his circle of friends and extended 
 his influence when he became himself a valuable customer. 
 The wholesale men saw some fine traits in him. They 
 found him a prompt and cheerful payer, an energetic, 
 pushing man ; anything which secured a place at his bar 
 and his endorsement had an immediate and constant de 
 mand. But these things, important as they might seem, 
 were as nothing compared with the fact that he was one 
 man whose faith in the perfect innocence of the business 
 never wavered. This beautiful confidence was apparent 
 at all times, and made his presence in the office of a 
 gloomy self-accusing dealer a benison. While he lingered, 
 chatting and chuckling, evil forebodings could not press 
 with their usual weight. 
 
70 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 It is worth something to have a friend near who will 
 tell us that our fears are childish and our crimes only 
 ugly dreams. 
 
 Danger, and even death, may be met with some com 
 posure if a brave companion grasps our hand and looks 
 with fearless eyes upon that which made us tremble and 
 choke with fright. A conscience void of offense may 
 bring easement where any other messenger could not 
 come. Schney was a good comrade of the wholesale 
 dealers and, like a good soldier, occupied the exposed out 
 post while they revelled in the fortified respectability of 
 the main line, sending, as the service required, all neces 
 sary supplies and words of cheer to the front. 
 
 With an ever-widening circle of friends, a growing in 
 fluence, and increasing wealth, Schney was drifting into 
 importance. People who thought they despised him, be 
 gan to discover that it was scarcely reasonable to do so 
 any longer. In fact, they found it exceedingly difficult 
 to hold on to their honest convictions concerning the man. 
 How was it possible, they reasoned, to reconcile thdir 
 opinions and his wonderful success and popularity. Many 
 who had innocently imagined themselves far more worthy 
 of the respect and confidence of the community, found it 
 necessary to retire into silence and to assume modest atti 
 tudes when the prosperous and rising Schney, the valu 
 able and enterprising citizen, was mentioned. He was 
 successful; failures would please be humble. The com 
 ments of the general public, and especially of the politi- 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 71 
 
 cians, being always apologetic and frequently laudatory, it 
 was considered in bad taste, and even an evidence of a 
 sour, misanthropic, or fanatical disposition, to speak the 
 truth about the man. He was entrenched behind his prop 
 erty and his strange hold upon the most unmanageable 
 portion of the voting population. Thousands who would 
 have been glad to see him returned to appropriate ob 
 scurity, began to fear that he was already master of tne 
 situation. 
 
 It is a strange fact, and a fact which may yet be made 
 to throw some light upon practical politics, that the bar 
 rooms and liquor interests of nearly all, if not all, the 
 large cities of this country exert more influence in deter 
 mining nominations and elections than all the churches of 
 all the denominations combined. It would be extremely 
 interesting to inquire, also, why it should be true, if it is 
 true, that a well-established reputation for piety is quite 
 as damaging, if not really more fatal, to a man s political 
 ambition than acknowledged and chronic immorality. It 
 is astonishing what a load of crookedness and debauchery 
 can be overlooked in an available candidate, and how ex 
 tremely difficult it is to secure any extra consideration 
 for unquestioned Christian virtues. It seems that the 
 professional politician either must go down or prefers to 
 go. The danger of any admixture of politics and religion 
 is doubly guarded by the fact that religion would be al 
 most as fatal to politics as politics would be to religion. 
 The politician and the preacher are agreed. The shepherd 
 
72 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 and the goatherd combine their strength to build the wall 
 which separates their flocks, and together patrol the neu 
 tral ground. 
 
 As the time drew near, preparations were made for 
 another election. Estimate and his political associates, 
 including, of course, Lawyer Grit, made a careful survey 
 of the field, and concluded that they were now in a con 
 dition to do without the influence of the powerful repre 
 sentative of the Seventeenth ward. 
 
 "It is time to let old Schney down," said Grit. 
 
 "Yes," replied Estimate ; "he would not help our cause 
 this time. We are pretty well harmonized now, and he 
 would be too pronounced might create the idea that he 
 represented something and stir up opposition." 
 
 "The State election is on us in the fall," added Grit, "and 
 we must be careful to hide away all our specialties and 
 show staple goods only." 
 
 Mr. Estimate thought over this, or something else, for 
 a moment or two, and finally said, with a far away, 
 dreamy look, and in a tone about as musical as the raps 
 of a cobbler s hammer, "I ah yes, I agree with you." 
 
 Mr. Schney was therefore quietly dropped from the 
 Council. Not because unfit to be there, or because he 
 desired it, or because his constituents desired it, but be 
 cause the policy of the little band of devoted citizens 
 called "the leaders" and the interests of the party de 
 manded it. The same hands which had crowned him were 
 about to push him under the knife and, when the work 
 was done, hold up his ugly head that all might see. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 73 
 
 Mr. Schney seemed to submit, and expressed himself 
 as if wounded rather than angry ; a faithful and loyal man, 
 sadly maltreated, but resolved to exhibit to the world a 
 most unusual and admirable case of good behavior under 
 galling and mysterious wrong. Of course, a man like 
 him, conscious of his great usefulness, and made ac 
 quainted with his abilities by a brief opportunity to use 
 them, could not fathom the conduct of his treacherous 
 associates. 
 
 In thus retiring for a while from the distressing re 
 sponsibilities and the unsought honors of public life, Mr. 
 Schney was not without some very considerable consola 
 tion. Many people who had never heard of him until 
 his appearance in the Council, now not only knew him, 
 but knew him as a far more important individual than he 
 really was. The mere fact that he had been in the Coun 
 cil in some way added to his importance, although it was 
 well known that his election was a mere makeshift, and 
 his presence there utterly useless. Others, who knew 
 nothing of his character, thought of him as a man who 
 could have pavements laid by the mile, innumerable gas- 
 lamps set up, or parks opened and improved by a word or 
 a nod. Others still imagined that he was a master of the 
 art of finance, and that city bonds would never sell as 
 well again as they did when he directed, with silent wis 
 dom, their issue and redemption. Even the shrewdest 
 and most intelligent people had imbibed the idea that, 
 notwithstanding his utter lack of the most ordinary 
 
74 
 
 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 ability and the commonest attainments, he yet had that 
 very desirable but intangible thing called influence. In 
 fact, Schney s brief possession of power and his flagrant 
 prosperity had blinded the intelligence of a whole com 
 munity. All of this pleased Schney, who was still the 
 same stupid fellow, and forced him to the conclusion that 
 he was a truly wonderful specimen of a self-made man. 
 
 Mrs. Schney was the envy of 
 all her poor neighbors. Her kind 
 ness and charity, her amiability, 
 her almost apologetic manner 
 nothing could atone for her pros 
 perity. She was envied and 
 hated, poor thing, simply because 
 she was able to do good and was 
 constantly doing it. She made 
 her home a model of comfort, and 
 her daughter made it elegant. 
 This made Schney happy and 
 comfortable. 
 
 Mina, growing constantly more 
 beautiful, and, in spite of her 
 surroundings, more lovely in 
 character and disposition, had enjoyed a great triumph 
 before the people by a remarkable rendition of "The 1 
 Angel s Serenade," in which she had played with such 
 skill and effect that the people and the press long after 
 wards continued to sound her praise. Her father was 
 flattered. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 75 
 
 The boys were travelling in the grandest regions of the 
 West under the care of a tutor, and wrote home letters 
 full of happiness. 
 
 Thus from the base conduct of the father come, appar 
 ently, honors for himself; ease and comfort for a faithful 
 wife and mother; culture, safety, luxury, and triumph 
 for his daughter ; the delights of travel and the benefits of 
 education for his boys. (But how fares Filter s widow 
 and her babes?) The greatest consolation of all the 
 one which appealed most strongly to Schney himself 
 was a skilfully-drawn map hanging in the sitting-room 
 of Mr. Schney s comfortable house, and entitled " Schney s 
 addition." On it were broad streets and avenues, alleys, 
 and building lots, laid off with the beautiful precision of 
 the engineer, streets and avenues named, squares and lots 
 numbered, and here and there suggestions of fountains, 
 monuments and flower-beds. 
 
 While Mr. Schney was engaged in the public service 
 he learned some things which he thought might be useful 
 to a man who desired to do well, and, by accident pos 
 sibly some said by design consulted Mr. Tinkle, a rea] 
 estate agent, who was said to be a very clever and utterly 
 unprincipled man, and who did an immense business for 
 people who hoped that he would use his shrewdness for 
 their benefit and bestow his rascality on some one else. 
 The result of the conference was a purchase of lands at 
 the growing end of the city, and this beautiful map. 
 
 Schney bought the land and laid it off for the purpose 
 
76 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 of making by it all the money he possibly could, and it 
 never occurred to him that he had been influenced by any 
 other motive until the papers all declared that he had 
 done a very liberal and public-spirited thing. Seeing 
 this statement in print, he very properly concluded that 
 it was true, and instantly believed it. Almost anybody 
 will believe a thoroughly agreeable lie. He then gradually 
 convinced himself that he was a benefactor who deserved 
 to be remembered, and finally decided to embalm his name 
 in the principal street of his plan "Schney avenue." At 
 the suggestion of Mr. Tinkle, who had kindly consented 
 to continue to be his agent, he added, with some justifi 
 cation, "Pauline avenue" and "Wilhelmina fountain." 
 Mr. Tinkle planted trees; the best engineers graded the 
 streets; fashionable people bought lots. It was a gold 
 mine. 
 
 How is a poor fellow who feels that he is poor, and 
 that he must continue to be poor, to preserve his self- 
 respect and his faith in the dignity of labor and the worth 
 of character, when he sees the deference bestowed upon 
 the Schneys and hears constantly their praises sung, 
 and compares it all with the desolate neglect and indiffer 
 ence Which it is his lot to endure? Is he not more than 
 human if his heart is not made bitter when called upon 
 to be cheerful, contented and humble and honest, while 
 the Schneys in the community push their way to wealth, 
 influence, and a very satisfactory sort of respectability? 
 The awful question which faces the people is simply 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 77; 
 
 whether honesty will continue to be honest and suffer, or 
 turn rascal and prosper. 
 
 It is already quietly admitted that a thoroughly honest 
 man, modelled on the old plan, may be very ornamental 
 a desirable sort of bric-a-brac but can hardly be a busi 
 ness man, and certainly not a reliable man for political 
 emergencies. Such people have a very hopeless and 
 simple air to "live" men. Sometimes a rascal fails; his 
 associates laugh at him pleasantly, and, believing in his 
 shrewdness, soon set him on his feet again with substan 
 tial aid. Then they give him good cheer. Good, cool con 
 tempt is reserved for the fellow who persists in upright 
 ness at a terrible loss. 
 
 The most pitiable object after all is the man who, no 
 matter how, manages to get poor and stay so. Chronic 
 poverty has pity occasionally and contempt constantly. 
 Judged by the treatment it receives from humanity in 
 general it is a most inexcusable crime. There may be 
 some hope for a man who is low, mean, shrewd, and pros 
 pering ; but let it once be known that a man is hopelessly 
 poor, and his fate is sealed. What can be done for such 
 a man ? He is beyond help ! 
 
 Schney (had thought much about money, and had 
 learned all these things. He knew that his position in the 
 community was viewed from different standpoints, and 
 that he was variously estimated at everything from a 
 nuisance to an ornament. He was engaged in an old 
 business, called the pursuit of happiness, and thought he 
 was on the right trail, but he was really fighting his way 
 to a place in life which would put an end to rest. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 THE DEATH OF GRIT. 
 
 f I AHE new Council, with Schney left out, was hardly 
 .JL organized before Mr. Grit began to develop that 
 peculiar, restless energy which in him always fore 
 shadowed the approach of an election. His soft felt hat 
 got turned up behind and turned down before ; his hands 
 got deeper in his pockets, and his step quick and short. 
 People began to stop him in the street and ask questions, 
 which he answered with a bark and almost with a bite. 
 He allowed his shoes to run down at the heel and his 
 clothes to get shabby. Occasionally he chewed tobacco, 
 to which he was not accustomed, with the expression of a 
 dog eating grass. Every few days he consulted Mr. 
 Estimate, watching him anxiously when he spoke. There 
 was nothing ornamental about Grit, but he was practical 
 utility compressed. People who knew him well said that 
 in an emergency he was simply cooler and braver than 
 usual. When the active spirits met for consultation Grit 
 led the meeting. 
 
 Estimate was preparing in his own way for the con 
 flict. He was rarely seen anywhere, though he was really 
 everywhere, and those who met him were amazed at what 
 they supposed to be his utter indifference to the approach 
 ing storm. As he glided around with a sort of invalid 
 air, abstracted or sleepy, he would be the last man a 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 79 
 
 stranger would suspect of any schemes. He, nevertheless, 
 had a few schemes, and the patience to wait for the proper 
 time to launch them. He had already consulted privately 
 with the leading men of every faction of both parties, and, 
 without dispensing a single item of information, had 
 learned more probably than any other one man knew. 
 His habit of learning without dispensing, and asking 
 without answering, was so fixed that it was a torture for 
 him to meet Grit and be compelled to part with one or 
 two facts. For work on the suburbs Mr. Estimate used 
 an old vehicle, which, by some mysterious means, was de 
 prived of the rattling characteristics of old vehicles gen 
 erally, and which could turn a corner, on cobble stones, 
 in the shades of evening, as smoothly and as noiselessly 
 as a flat-bottomed boat glides around the curves of a 
 canal, the ample flapping wings of the top concealing 
 meanwhile the solitary driver. Late in the night this 
 strange machine, drawn by a horse whose feet seemed to 
 be muffled with velvet, would dart around the corners and 
 frighten the police and the belated citizens homeward 
 bound. 
 
 That the approaching fight would be close and hard, 
 everybody admitted. Estimate was for soothing every 
 faction of his party and winning all of the enemy possible. 
 Grit wanted to raise the party colors, demand a rally of 
 the faithful, and show defiance to the enemy. Grit ani 
 mated the pronounced and uncompromising, while Esti 
 mate tenderly nursed the fearful and timid of his own 
 
8o OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW- CITIZEN. 
 
 party and encouraged desertions from the other side, 
 saying, with an indescribable air of generosity, that, after 
 all, the difference was slight, and that he could almost 
 wish he was on both sides. 
 
 It soon became apparent that the leaders were not 
 agreed on a plan of campaign. Indeed, it was pretty gen 
 erally known that they were hopeless of success and on 
 the verge of despair. Their only hope seemed to be to 
 fool themselves or the enemy, but just how they could not 
 tell. After the expenditure of a perfectly frightful 
 quantity of wisdom, a proceeding which was, to say the 
 least, extravagance, it was decided "to count the enemy 
 and count our friends; if the majority on our side was 
 dangerously small, arrange to increase it, and if the enemy 
 appeared to have a majority, arrange to cancel it." 
 This idea was so entirely novel that everybody departed 
 full of enthusiasm and hope, and all went willingly to 
 work. Two brass bands, in the habit of making big fees 
 at election times, offered their services free, and they 
 were declined with thanks. 
 
 A full month before election day Mr. Estimate knew, 
 practically, what the result would be, provided nothing 
 unusual happened. But something unusual did happen. 
 Mr. Schney announced himself a candidate for the Legis 
 lature, without taking the trouble to say which party he 
 desired to represent. He knew that neither party could 
 afford to have him in the field as an independent, and that 
 a simple announcement would enable him to determine 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 81 
 
 at his leisure which party should have the honor of elect 
 ing him. He preferred to be with the better elements of 
 the city, and was secretly convinced tliat he could compel 
 Estimate and his friends to accept him, but was prepared, 
 if it became necessary, to go over to the enemy. Knowing 
 that success was certain if he sided with the lower ele 
 ments and carried with him the liquor influence, and that 
 on the other hand, the endorsement of Estimate s com 
 mittee would give him the support of the dominant party 
 and elect him. he serenely waited to be approached. The 
 man who had been used as a bait had learned to cast a 
 line for himself, had determined to do it, and had no 
 favors to ask. 
 
 The liquor dealers all desired, like Schney, to vote with 
 the decent people and the dominant party, but were al 
 ways suspicious and uneasy, and ready at a moment s 
 notice to desert to the enemy if there were any signs of 
 danger to their interests in the party movements. They, 
 like other business men, felt that, after all, their allegiance 
 was due first to business ; nothing so sacred as that ! The 
 business man, whether he has time to utter it or not, 
 thinks everybody else, and especially politicians, practi 
 cally useless. He tolerates a few other men, in the kind 
 ness of his heart, such as preachers, lawyers, chemists, en 
 gineers, physicians, and so on, but after all, feels, in a 
 sort of fatherly way, that it is well for all these that they 
 have him to lean upon. He is also inclined to the opinion 
 that everything will work around all right if business 
 
82 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 prospers, and he rather thinks that the best way to keep 
 politics, religion, and morals on their feet is to build up 
 trade; consequently he votes, with a sort of supermoral 
 air, for the best interests of business. 
 
 In announcing himself, Schney had at one stroke, 
 proved himself unworthy of confidence, and demanded 
 for himself the support of the people, fixing a penalty to 
 their refusal defeat. There was nothing to be done 
 but to make terms with him, and do it promptly. Ac 
 cordingly that mysterious and wonderful body called "the 
 committee" got hurriedly together, and after another per 
 fectly reckless expenditure of the very rarest kincf of 
 wisdom, authorized Mr. Estimate to treat with Schney 
 and guarantee him the party nomination. 
 
 Nobody has yet discovered why it is that ten or twelve 
 men, whose individual opinions and characters have no 
 weight whatever with anybody, can get together in a 
 political committee and become the centre of wisdom 
 and influence, and sway the destiny of a community. But 
 so it is; at least people have gotten in the habit of sub 
 mitting to their dictation as completely as if it was so. 
 It is simply amazing, when one stops to think of it, what 
 insignificant fellows do their own good pleasure with the 
 helpless voters. 
 
 Mr. Estimate dropped in the next morning, and was 
 cordially received by Mr. Schney, who invited him to a 
 cozy place, well back from the street, and quite private. 
 Some very fine beer was handed to Mr. Estimate, who 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW- CITIZEN. 83 
 
 could drink it with the most innocent and; orthodox air 
 possible. To see Mr. Estimate drink beer was to confess 
 that nothing could be more innocent. He handled his 
 glass in a manner so gentle and caressing and so deferen 
 tial that Schney himself was convinced of his sincere 
 attachment to its contents, and determined to send him a 
 dozen or two bottles that very day. And yet beer was 
 one good thing in the world that Estimate could not learn 
 to like. 
 
 In a few minutes everything had been arranged, and 
 Mr. Estimate was walking wearily along, exasperating 
 everybody by appearing hopelessly indifferent and stupid. 
 When approached by anxious inquirers, he displayed two 
 lustreless eyes, and opened his mouth with a dry explosion 
 suggestive of fever and thirst. Instead of answering, he 
 questioned all. 
 
 Everything, it is said, has its uses. Men like Mr. Esti 
 mate are therefore useful, and deserve to be protected in 
 the enjoyment of their peculiar gifts. People who are of 
 simpler construction sometimes envy them and sometimes 
 fear them, and, if they can muster up manhood enough, 
 despise them. They are apt to be influential and mean, 
 and when they add ambition to their other qualities, they 
 either curse or bless, to its circumference, the circle of 
 their influence. They make good politicians. 
 
 It was now a fixed fact that thousands of men had to 
 vote for Schney, and that he was going to the Legislature 
 to represent the greatest city in the State. Where uni- 
 
84 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 versal suffrage prevails it is impossible to nominate and 
 elect men to representative positions on the ground of 
 suitability, or capacity, or worth of any sort. Probably 
 the greatest difficulty is experienced in the nomination, 
 which is generally controlled by professional politicians, 
 rather than in the election, which is simply a ratification 
 by the people of the candidate of the politicians. The 
 determination of each party to win, subordinates every 
 thing else. It is useless to object. When a poor helpless 
 private citizen cries out and declares his unwillingness to 
 choose between two rascals, he is instantly held up to 
 scorn as a man who thinks himself better than his party. 
 Possibly he may be ! Nobody has as yet declared in favor 
 of the idea that parties are governed by any moral sense. 
 When Schney became the nominee everything was con 
 sidered settled, and everybody was expected to acquiesce. 
 The men who decided that he was the man had but one 
 argument to support their action he would be elected, 
 of course ! But such victories bring inevitable defeat. 
 
 Schney s opponent was a man greatly superior to him 
 in every sense, being a man of education, of fine natural 
 ability, and of unimpeachable moral character; but he 
 was in the wrong party, he was fearless, and he was ag 
 gressive. His election, desirable as it might be for some 
 reasons, would endanger the civilization of the com 
 munity. On the other hand, it appeared that the election 
 of Schney would insure good government. The dan 
 gerous party had strengthened its cause with a good can- 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 85 
 
 didate, and the party which ought to triumph was loaded 
 with Schney. 
 
 Mr. Estimate knew that his formidable opponent would 
 poll the full vote of the opposition, and that many of the 
 temperance men would scratch Schney. Altogether the 
 outlook was so discouraging that he resolved to be satis-- 
 fied with a majority of one for his candidate. 
 
 Grit was duly notified that every possible vote for 
 Schney had to be polled, and that no time, money, or 
 labor was to be spared to reduce the voting strength of the 
 enemy. Victory was to be secured if toil and strategy 
 could produce it. He was ordered to go to every strong 
 hold of the enemy and to man every precinct with brave 
 and determined challengers. He cheerfully undertook the 
 heavy task, distributed his men skilfully, and finally took 
 personal charge of the most dangerous precinct in the 
 city. 
 
 Grit had worked unceasingly through the night pre 
 ceding election day, and when the sun rose, was pale and 
 haggard and nervous. Friends supplied him an abundant 
 breakfast, spoke cheering words, and wished him success. 
 
 When the polls were opened a great throng of ignor 
 ance, black and white, was seen waiting in orderly silence 
 to deposit its vote. It was a solid column of the enemy. 
 Every voter was carefully questioned and the ballots 
 slowly deposited, Grit protesting, arguing, and threaten 
 ing. But still the little ballots slipped in, one by one, and 
 the number waiting to vote was increased rather than 
 diminished. 
 
86 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 These people had no use for Schney, and were not 
 respectable enough to be dragooned into voting for him. 
 Their place in the world was so obscure that they were at 
 liberty to suit themselves, and thought they were doing it. 
 They thought so because they had resisted all appeals 
 made to them by the dominant party ; but they overlooked 
 the fact that, as a result, they had only the poor privilege 
 of voting for the other side. 
 
 The Constitution and laws under which we live 
 which we fondly suppose to be the things which govern 
 us are mutable things, which take on and execute with 
 fearful and irresistible force the wishes of one majority 
 to-day and of another to-morrow. Two great parties 
 govern the country, and are in turn themselves governed 
 by a few professional politicians. The citizen who is not 
 a politician votes, it is true; but the issues are made for 
 him, and his vote is demanded for the issue by his party, 
 whatever it may be, as confidently as the government de 
 mands taxes. The citizen grows less and less. The poli 
 tician wields a sort of elephantiasis of power diseased 
 power but yet power. "Private citizen" has got to mean 
 a man who must vote and keep his mouth shut must 
 not presumptuously meddle with the country. Schney 
 is at the helm, and the ship of state will be brought safely 
 to harbor! The people will, therefore, please go below 
 and allow the hatches to be battened down. 
 
 As the day wore away discontent manifested itself here 
 and there by grum and sour looks and low mutterings in 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 87 
 
 the crowds about the polls. It was evident that a number 
 of votes would be shut out. Active politicians glided in, 
 injected a little bitterness, and glided out again. 
 
 As the hour of closing drew nearer the crowd pressed 
 closer and closer upon the polling-place, some of the 
 bolder sovereigns loudly expressing their dissatisfaction 
 at the deliberate manner of the challengers. Grit, nearly 
 exhausted, but firm and patient, stubbornly challenged 
 every doubtful vote, and sighed when compelled to yield. 
 Suddenly a crier announced that the hour had arrived to 
 close the polls that the polls were closed! A growl as 
 cended from the crowd as the door was closed. Imme 
 diately a squad of police swept around the corner, and 
 with soft, low words, and gentle but suggestive pressure, 
 began to move the disappointed voters away from the 
 precinct. In a few moments the street was cleared, and 
 silence reigned. 
 
 As Grit entered the precinct to superintend the count 
 and returns, he shook hands with a friend, and received 
 from him something with a silvery glimmer (which his 
 friend told him was "a hammerless, calibre 38"), and 
 dropped it in the pocket of his spring overcoat. It was 
 understood that the work would consume the night, and 
 that it was dangerous. Several of Grit s friends, besides 
 policemen, lingered near, ready to aid him in any emer 
 gency. 
 
 For hours the slow and tiresome work went on inside. 
 Those on the outside could hear the monotonous count 
 
88 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 one, two, three, four, tally! or the candidates names re 
 peated over and over again, or Grit energetically protest 
 ing. At last, when the hour was past midnight, loud and 
 angry words were heard a mean fellow, a leader of the 
 opposition, gave Grit the lie flatly. Instantly a gigantic 
 policeman pressed the door with his shoulder until it 
 flew open and hung trembling by one hinge. He saw 
 Grit plant his fist, backed by every pound of his weight, 
 square in the face of the man who had assaulted him, and 
 then fall lifeless to the floor. A negro bar-keeper and 
 politician, degraded even in the estimation of his own 
 race, a known thief and libertine, had resented the blow 
 received by his friend by firing a ball into the brain of 
 the young lawyer. As soon as it was known that Grit s 
 wound was fatal, silence settled upon all in the room. 
 The murderer, speechless and trembling, walked away be 
 tween two policemen. 
 
 Grit lay stretched upon the floor, bis bleeding head 
 supported upon the folded coat of a friend who loved him 
 like a brother, and who hung over him with mixed agony 
 and wonder. His pain and grief, though great, did not 
 prevent a deep feeling of regret that he had not been 
 quick enough to get in and at least stand by his brave 
 friend at the critical moment. When he looked upon him, 
 and realized for a moment that he was actually dead, he 
 felt ashamed to be alive, and wondered how he would be 
 able to endure himself. 
 
 It was a simple thing after all a vote and a pistol in 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 89 
 
 the hands of a brute. Intelligence, virtue, patriotism and 
 courage cancelled by ignorance and a second-hand anti 
 quated pistol ! And yet if Grit had promptly pulled out 
 his "hammerless 38," silver-plated and new, and had 
 saved his own valuable life by killing a worthless scoun 
 drel, he would have been denounced, in all probability, by 
 thousands who sincerely mourned over his death and ad 
 mired his heroic behavior. 
 
 It is still the fate and the duty of some people to die. 
 Generally speaking, good men the best men are called 
 upon to submit to the fate or to perform the duty. The 
 commonplace man all over the country has long since 
 abandoned the idea that anything like a mere theory or 
 even a principle should interfere seriously with a man s 
 happiness or damage him materially, or for a moment en 
 danger his life. He pities or despises the fanaticism and 
 impractical folly of a man who gives his life for anything, 
 and he is for yielding or compromising or surrendering, 
 rather than have his peace and prosperity disturbed, or his 
 precious person put in jeopardy. Therefore, an occasional 
 death which illustrates the fact that there are fears and 
 hopes more potent than the love of life itself is a useful 
 stimulus to principle and a valuable suggestion to the 
 community in which it occurs. 
 
 Every people needs a man dead who died for his fellow- 
 citizens and in the manly pursuit of their rights as they 
 interpret them. A grave which contains a sacrifice is an 
 inspiration to all who view it, and, when properly adorned, 
 
QO OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 an invaluable object-lesson worthy of the care of genera 
 tion after generation. 
 
 When people get to be thoroughly unwilling to die for 
 their principles, and violently opposed to the death of 
 others on their account, they are on the way to hopeless 
 corruption. Nothing more promptly clarifies the moral 
 atmosphere than the tragic death of a great and good man, 
 personifying a great and good cause. Heaven once used 
 a scene like this to convince the world of sin. God 
 spurns and men despise a cause which cannot furnish 
 great spirits to be consumed by the conflict which it wages. 
 
 In the morning the papers announced a victory shorn 
 of much of its joy by the untimely death of Grit. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE MODERN FOOL. 
 
 PEOPLE like to account for a man s good fortune, 
 and everywhere they inquire into its cause and 
 wonder at its manifestations. We are told in one proverb, 
 and no doubt truly, that fortune favors the brave, and 
 in another, with equal confidence, the philosopher ex 
 claims, "A fool for luck." 
 
 In romances good fortune follows the author s favorite, 
 and the reader is made happy by the cunning fiction. In 
 picturing the career of the Honorable Conrad Schney, 
 however, no such deception is necessary. His fortune is 
 as real as himself. That he was fortunate in business and 
 in politics was so plainly to be seen that men ceased to 
 wonder, and concluded that there must be in the man 
 some mysterious and as yet undiscovered qualities that 
 made him naturally and almost necessarily a leader of 
 men. It was now pretty generally understood at least 
 the Daily Spatterer said so that at certain places and 
 times when it became necessary for him to speak, he had 
 astonished his hearers by the fluency, power, and grace 
 with which he had delivered himself. 
 
 The impression was growing that Schney was another 
 instance of the accidental discovery and fortunate devel 
 opment of great mental powers, destined to wield a power- 
 
92 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 fill influence in the community, and possibly throughout 
 the Commonwealth. It was already wise to speak of 
 him with great respect, and foolish and damaging to do 
 what was most natural, and laugh at him. It is useless, 
 however, to laugh at a man retired from business, residing 
 in a palace, having a handsome fortune well in hand and 
 an established reputation for rare sagacity and great ex 
 perience in public affairs. Mr. Schney had already quietly 
 retired from business, his successor was in possession and 
 doing well, and the public had, with its usual accommo 
 dating spirit, forgotten that he was ever anything but a 
 polished gentleman and born statesman. A man who 
 dared to hint that the Honorable Conrad Schney was not 
 thoroughly admirable, simply strained the public faith in 
 his own veracity. 
 
 A man so wealthy, so active, and so prominent as Mr. 
 Schney must have detractors, and so Mr. Schney secured 
 a few at small cost mean fellows, sour, misanthropic, 
 and envious, such as can be found in every community, 
 ready to pull down honorable aspirants by any foul slan 
 der heavy enough. These assassins of virtue strike at 
 every rising man, impugn the motives of every patriot, 
 and gradually accumulate such a store of venom, that men 
 avoid them until they need poison for an enemy. Such 
 people, enraged by the wealth and rapid promotion of 
 Mr. Schney, exhausted every art and all their deviltry in 
 their efforts to damage him in the estimation of the pub 
 lic, but only embittered their own lives and exposed the 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 93 
 
 inherent meanness of their characters. Schney, serenely 
 insensible to it all, grew daily in favor with men. 
 
 The Governor, seeing the popular demand for some 
 recognition of the distinguished services of Mr. Schney, 
 and wiling to do what he could to silence the villainous 
 attacks of his enemies, and for other reasons, no doubt, 
 appointed him on his personal staff, with the rank of colo 
 nel of cavalry. Of course, the soreheads and the insigni 
 ficant people who make up the rank and file began to 
 insinuate that the Governor was acting from selfish mo 
 tives and trying to secure the influence of Schney and 
 his wealth in aid of some future schemes ; but those who 
 were best informed and most influential soon crushed this 
 slander. 
 
 It leaked out, from what or from where was never 
 known, that Schney was no novice in military matters, 
 had even won distinction in foreign fields years ago, and 
 was no small acquisition to the staff. Unprejudiced peo 
 ple readily accepted this view of the matter, and began 
 ;o have a suspicion that the Colonel had been hiding a 
 brilliant military record under a thick, heavy, long cloak 
 of curiosity-proof modesty. Indeed, the Colonel s ex 
 treme reticence about all his past, and especially the suc 
 cess with which he avoided any vain allusions to his mili 
 tary exploits, excited the admiration of the large and 
 brilliant circle in which he moved, and convinced all of the 
 best people that he was a man of rare strength, with pos 
 sibly an interesting history behind him. One ride through 
 
94 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 crowded streets, clad in glittering uniform, sitting in an 
 open carriage by the side of the Governor, his sword re 
 clining against his side, his countenance properly ar 
 ranged to create an impression and he was Colonel in 
 deed. 
 
 It might seem a simple thing to ride in a carriage with 
 a proper expression and maintain it unbroken for an hour 
 or two, and possibly to a Governor accustomed to the 
 arduous duty of always looking distinguished, it is an 
 every-day, easy affair ; but Colonel Schney, not being ac 
 customed to the work, found that it was no small matter 
 to look like a colonel, without a moment s escape from the 
 gaze of the multitude for nearly two hours, and was glad 
 when the parade was over and he could once more bend 
 a little and rest his countenance and his spine. It re 
 quired several days time, however, to thoroughly eradi 
 cate the fierce and determined expression engendered by 
 the stern necessities of the occasion. It may seem inexpli 
 cable that a ride in a carriage under military circumstances 
 should affect a man s walk, but, strange and unaccount 
 able as it may be, from that day the Colonel had a de 
 cidedly soldierly bearing and responded promptly, with a 
 brisk salute, to all who addressed him by his military 
 title. There were some old, rather shabby American colo 
 nels who watched Schney with inexpressible amusement. 
 They did not find it possible to say anything, or necessary, 
 but simply pointed at the Colonel, punched each other in 
 the ribs, and then chuckled. All this was done privately, 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 95 
 
 of course, because these old soldiers had learned that, 
 while titles of a military sort are very desirable and very 
 useful when presented to some gentlemen absolutely inno 
 cent of any right to them, and serve admirably to confer 
 a little dignity or help on an aspiration, the genuine rank 
 gained by arduous duty and heroic conduct should be 
 careful, being somewhat antiquated, not to flaunt itself 
 in the face of a peaceful era or presume to compare its 
 honest but ancient record with the brilliant career of a 
 modern patriot. These old fellows had heard it said that 
 it was unreasonable to expect able men like Colonel 
 Schney to wait for honors until all the real soldiers were 
 dead, and that the eulogy "good soldier" had been suffi 
 ciently rewarded. And so it has come to pass that it is 
 decidedly presumptuous to expect any consideration on 
 account of a military title unless it can be clearly shown 
 that the title was not earned honestly in war, but con 
 ferred especially for immediate business purposes. When 
 thus conferred it is eminently proper to make the most 
 of it, and nobody expects any modest behavior from the 
 fortunate recipient. It is, of course, quite a different 
 thing when a man goes about allowing people to call him 
 "colonel" when the title calls public attention to what he 
 has really done and suffered. Such conduct is inexcusable. 
 The "House" had been organized only a few days 
 when Mr. Tinkle dropped in to see Colonel Schney on a 
 little matter of business, and was received as cordially as 
 even a confidential friend can hope to be received by a 
 
96 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 man accustomed to the consideration of the great and the 
 admiration of thousands of plain, humble, people. A 
 private room, wine, cigars. The wine was for Mr. Tinkle 
 only, for Schney was no more tempted by liquor to drink, 
 knowing as he did its power over men, than an under 
 taker would be to die and be buried by the sight of a 
 handsomely-trimmed and expensive burial casket. 
 
 "I congratulate you upon your triumphant election, 
 my friend," said Tinkle, "and I am glad to be the bearer of 
 still more good news. How would you like to become 
 the owner of the Stemmery mansion ?" 
 
 "The Stemmery mansion? To own it, did you say? 1 
 
 "Yes, my dear sir, and live there!" 
 
 "Why, my good friend, you are quite wild, and think 
 I am a millionaire already, to talk about such a thing. " 
 
 "Never was more in earnest, Colonel. Will you buy 
 the place?" 
 
 "But I am not able; my place at Braxton s is a good 
 home yet." 
 
 "Suppose I offered you the Stemmery mansion in ex 
 change for the Braxton place?" 
 
 "Then I would say you were losing your senses 
 gone c-r-r-razy." 
 
 "Say the word then," said Tinkle, "and the exchange is 
 made! I will arrange everything; write your deed, take 
 your signature and the madame s, and in exchange give 
 you a perfect title to the new place." 
 
 "Why, of course; if such a thing is possible, why, of 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 97 
 
 course. If I can have the Stemmery house I will take it, 
 ha ! ha ! of course ! ; 
 
 "To-morrow, then/ said Tinkle, scarcely able to hide 
 his pleasure, and hurrying away; "to-morrow the papers 
 will be signed and recorded." 
 
 Mr. Schney knew that Mr. Tinkle was credited with 
 having performed some miracles in real estate, and that 
 his fame as a brilliant operator saved him from any lack 
 of patronage on account of the almost universal suspicion 
 that he was a rascal, and would not have been much 
 surprised if Tinkle had! sold some of his lots for him at 
 five times their value; but this proposition overpowered 
 what the Daily Spatterer called his "great mental powers," 
 and rushed with resistless fury upon his "reserve force," 
 scattering it to the winds. Nothing in legislative experi 
 ence had ever so taxed his splendid powers. It was in 
 vain that he sought some reasonable explanation. 
 
 Schney s home was a plain, substantial, roomy old 
 house, comfortable enough, but not well situated. The 
 surroundings could not be agreeable to a man of Mr. 
 Schney s position and tastes. The Stemmery mansion 
 had been recently completed, at a great expense, in the 
 most fashionable and delightful part of the city. Its 
 owner, a comparatively young man, who had inherited a 
 handsome fortune, had tried to build the quietest and at 
 the same time the most elegant house in the city, and had, 
 it was generally admitted, succeeded in his effort. The 
 exterior was an almost perfect success, and the interior 
 
98 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 simply palatial. But the owner, seized by an almost un 
 accountable prejudice, was anxious to try a new architect 
 and new effects in stone. He desired to sell. 
 
 When Tinkle approached him with an offer, Stemmery, 
 supposing it to be only a move in some sharp game, named 
 his price, signed an agreement to sell, and soon obliterated 
 the transaction with a game of billiards. The next day, 
 to his great surprise, he was asked to sign the deed. A 
 certified check for the whole of the purchase-money ac 
 companied the request. The same day Schney s home, the 
 old Braxton homestead, passed by deed to the P. and Q. 
 Terminal Company, and the mystery was solved. The 
 counsel of the company had ascertained that there were 
 some serious difficulties in the way of condemnation. It 
 happened to occupy a spot absolutely essential to the 
 success of the great tunnelling scheme of the P. and Q. 
 Terminal Company, and hundreds of thousands, if not a 
 million dollars, depended upon its possession. The man 
 agement determined to take no risks. Mr. Tinkle became, 
 almost as a matter of course, the efficient agent of the 
 company, completed the task assigned him, and received 
 his reward. 
 
 At the end of six months the Spatterer had announced 
 the removal of "The Honorable Conrad Schney" to his 
 new residence in the "court" end of the city, and fifty 
 Swedes were toiling over the ruins of the Braxton house, 
 now laid low by a dynamite cartridge. The tunnel was well 
 under the hill. Mr. Tinkle had in the meantime made 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 99 
 
 another very satisfactory arrangement. The trustees of 
 the fund for the erection of the great "astronomical tower" 
 having accepted a site in the midst of "Schney s addition," 
 the grandest structure of its kind in the world was slowly 
 rising from the centre of a miniature park. It was almost 
 a certainty that the tract would soon be the scene of 
 costly improvements and the value of it a million. Choice 
 lots were eagerly sought, and, of course, very reluctantly 
 sold. The Legislature, always keenly alive to the inter 
 ests of the great commercial centres of the State, was 
 seriously considering a bill to extend the corporate limits 
 around this valuable tract. 
 
 Colonel Schney, in addition to his arduous duties as 
 representative of the metropolitan city, undertook service 
 on important boards, to which he was from time to time 
 appointed by the Governor, giving to them all the benefit 
 of his great skill and experience in business affairs and 
 stimulating his associates by the display of almost super 
 human energy. At least, so said the Spatterer, and for all 
 practical purposes so it was. 
 
 The end of a long and tedious session left the Colonel 
 free to seek the repose to which his eminent services en 
 titled him and his natural inclination invited him. He 
 realized with pitiful force the awful weight of the re 
 sponsibilities of a man viewed by a great community as 
 the natural guardian of their rights and of their liberty, 
 and secretly cherished the hope that the people would 
 find some one else to assume the burden he had laid down. 
 
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 His great trouble, at this time, was a gnawing fear that 
 possibly no one could be found ! 
 
 During his retirement Colonel Schney rapidly ac 
 quired some of the marks peculiar to men who have had 
 their great qualities acknowledged by the world. Though 
 he had a reputation for overwhelming power in oratory, 
 he was a man of few words in the private circle, often 
 expressing his approval or dissent by a single exclamation 
 of the kind most aptly called a grunt. This single mode 
 of expression was peculiarly effective at the meetings of 
 a large and fashionable church, of which he was a promi 
 nent and valued member, and rarely failed to produce 
 almost phenomenal results. Other men there argued, il 
 lustrated, and pressed with fervor their views, only to 
 be annihilated by the portentous grunt of the man of 
 affairs and of means. Whenever a presumptuous or vain 
 fellow was laid low by the magic mumbling of the Colonel 
 the plainer brethren gazed long and wistfully at his heavy 
 countenance, and then, with a sigh indicative of mixed 
 wonder and humility, turned and looked at each other, 
 nodding their heads, with wide-open eyes and dropped 
 jaw, saying as plainly as pantomime could : "Ah ! brethren, 
 there wisdom spoke!" Then the pastor would say he 
 "was sure the brethren felt under heavy obligations to 
 Brother Schney for his well-timed and forcible words," 
 and that "he hoped our dear brother would be spared 
 many years to guide us by his wisdom and teach us by 
 his beautiful example." 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 101 
 
 The great veneration of the people for the Colonel was 
 manifested in many ways, but probably nowhere else 
 could it be so plainly seen as when he sat as director of 
 the Hide and Bones Bank and passed upon great piles 
 of commercial paper. In order to turn down a very large 
 loan it was sometimes necessary for him to grunt, once, 
 vigorously; but he usually settled the fate of the smaller 
 offerings by spitting in an exasperated manner. This 
 style of comment was instantly recognized by the board 
 to mean "rejected," and always caused a general smile, 
 designed to express, as nearly as possible, full assent to 
 the decision and keen appreciation of the Colonel s hu 
 morous manner. 
 
 The Colonel had now reached that degree of distinction 
 which is marked by a desire for a better style of atmos 
 phere than cities can generally supply. Atmosphere 
 which had answered his purpose pretty well for many 
 years, and which was still used with entire satisfaction by 
 numbers of people who could not afford a better article, 
 he found at times very unsatisfactory. Sometimes, un 
 able longer to restrain himself, he complained of it in 
 bitter terms. It was really distressing. At last, con 
 vinced that the atmosphere was hopelessly bad, the Colo 
 nel hurried away to the sea-shore, determined to have, at 
 any cost, the very best air the market afforded. 
 
 Colonel Schney actually believed that he had deter 
 mined to escape from public life andi seek that quiet en 
 joyment of his ample means which is the dream of all 
 
IO2 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 men who spend their lives in the pursuit of wealth. He 
 felt that his past activity had made him too well known 
 for his escape to be easy, and that nothing but good man 
 agement and ingenuity and persistence in retirement could 
 preserve him from fresh entanglement in public matters. 
 The man had learned more than his most ardent admirers 
 supposed he had, and actually began to realize that po 
 litical honors could not add much comfort or pleasure to 
 his life, and might be a positive discomfort. He was al 
 most resolved to do the smartest thing of his life : Retire 
 into obscurity and comfort. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 MINA S REFUGE. 
 
 IN HIS home, elegant in all its parts, Colonel Schney 
 enjoyed the constant affection and humble devotion 
 of a wife so greatly his superior that many people, not 
 yet blinded by his wonderful career, wondered how two 
 such people had ever blended into man and wife and 
 then lived so peacefully and happily together. The wife 
 had grown in grace and gentleness even more rapidly than 
 the husband had grown rich, and amid all the splendor 
 of the home there was nothing more attractive than the 
 quiet Pauline. Abundant means had put into visible 
 effect her innate taste, and she was in manner and attire 
 the mistress of her home. 
 
 Mina filled the house with music and songs so rare 
 as to be almost a mystery. Mixing the artlessness of a 
 child with the skill of a woman, she petted and fondled 
 and controlled her mother and constantly mystified her 
 father. She had never approved of her father s public 
 career, but was yet proud of his success, and even ad 
 mired him, in the sense that the public did, without yield 
 ing to him any greater credit than he deserved. She had 
 not forgotten her childhood or her father s past, and her 
 honest heart compelled her to review, with a mind now 
 capable of close analysis, all of the old life. She recalled 
 
104 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 with inexpressible pain the pathetic life of her gentle 
 mother and the awful surroundings amidst which her 
 own life began, and even proved to herself that much of 
 it all resulted from her father s deliberate choice. And 
 so she loved her father, and at the same time studied him 
 as a mysterious relative close to her by the ties of nature, 
 yet infinitely removed. 
 
 Thus most cruelly does a man s crime punish him, 
 using as instruments of torture those for whom he sacri 
 ficed his virtue and those whom he strove to bless to 
 illustrate his failure. 
 
 Mina could not understand her father, because in her 
 narrow and brief experience of life, she had not dis 
 covered how one serious fault, or one conscious surrender 
 of principle, or even one serious indiscretion, warps and 
 disfigures a man. She could not know that her father, 
 slowly perceiving what manner of man he was, began to 
 suspect his own worthiness and exaggerate the worthiness 
 of others. She did not know that some men even some 
 considered dull recognize and evade men or women of 
 superior virtue, and are humbled in the presence of a 
 strong character, which they admire and would gladly 
 imitate if they could. She had yet to learn that men are 
 repulsive and ridiculous, not because of many faults, 
 but because some one sin or misfortune or weakness 
 twists and distorts everything in their lives. 
 
 She did not know that under a calm exterior her father 
 carried a heavy load of care, nor was it possible for her 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 105 
 
 to know how depraved his ambition and his success had 
 made him. 
 
 Every soul confesses to itself at least, and does ample 
 penance in secret. Men are vainer on the surface than 
 anywhere else, and, though generally anxious to have the 
 good opinion and the good will of others, do not, so 
 commonly as some suppose, think too highly of them 
 selves. It is only the great fools who are thoroughly de 
 ceived and permanently conceited. An ordinary man can 
 not be an extraordinary fool. 
 
 The truth is, that many a brave man accepts the esti 
 mate of himself which his honest mind makes, and, man 
 fully refusing to be deceived by others, lives contentedly 
 in the condition and in the pursuit for which he is fitted. 
 When the strong motives to self-assertion and the great 
 rewards it brings are considered, the wonder is that so 
 many are contented to be themselves. 
 
 The men most in danger are those who occupy posi 
 tions, comparatively humble they may be, which confer 
 upon them a sort of right to criticise, and at the same time 
 protect them from the same ordeal. Pointing out con 
 stantly the faults or failure of many others, who are for 
 bidden to reply, gradually exalts a man in his own esti 
 mation, if in no other way, by contrasting the small num 
 ber of his own faults with the number and variety of 
 faults in the multitude he overlooks. 
 
 Schney, by abject surrender to the idea, first, that he 
 must make money and then that he must have honors, 
 
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 was led into a life full of perils for himself and for his 
 family. Those perils which surrounded him in the old 
 life, though numerous, were palpable and more readily 
 avoided by a simple-minded man. The higher life 
 swarmed with insidious evils which none but the strong 
 est could resist. 
 
 Schney knew that his darling daughter, the pride of 
 his house, was inexorably honest, and that her love for 
 him was a constant triumph of natural affection. He 
 trembled at the thought of her utter estrangement, and 
 was never so happy or so humble as when she laid her 
 head on his bosom and thanked him for some thoughtful 
 kindness. 
 
 One evening Mina sung, with a depth of feeling almost 
 painful to herself, a song of ravishing beauty, which filled 
 her mother s heart with vague distress and brought un 
 willing tears to her eyes. The father, generally indif 
 ferent or simply vain, listened with unusual interest, and 
 when the song was ended exclaimed : "It is beautiful ! I 
 will give you anything!" Then, turning to his wife, he 
 said : "Pauline, I have been a great fool !" 
 
 As the three sat looking at each other with tearful eyes 
 Mr. Curbing was announced. Mrs. Schney and Mina 
 welcomed him with evident pleasure, and the Colonel with 
 all the politeness he could command. All that pertains to 
 the manner and character of a gentleman came in with 
 Mr. Curbing. Mina had discovered him at the Profes 
 sor s house, and had, without external aid, discerned his 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 107 
 
 worth. She felt a quiet confidence in his goodness which 
 made her wish to have him for a friend. He soon felt 
 the power of her confidence and trust, and though a man 
 unwilling to yield to the appeals of others for sympathy, 
 and still more unwilling to accept it for himself, could not 
 resist this appeal from a girl who was beautiful and in 
 telligent and musical, and who seemed to be strangely 
 alone in the world. He made rapid discoveries also, and 
 was compelled to admit that beauty and music had intro 
 duced him to a character well worth his attention and 
 study. 
 
 A man of rare purity and gentleness had met a woman 
 who compelled him to admit to himself, of course, and 
 only to himself that it would be a blessed thing to have 
 a secure place in her heart. Her surroundings and her 
 family had no effect upon him, because he had the happy 
 faculty of regarding men and women, whether his friends 
 or enemies, as separated from all their kin and all their 
 friends, and as having relations with him only. He had 
 never allowed his estimate of any one to be affected by 
 any characteristic or any act of a relative of any degree. 
 Neither was his estimate of himself changed one degree 
 up or down when he considered his own kin. 
 
 Curbing was a man of a kind rather rare, who insist 
 upon separateness of life, and live, without reproach, in 
 their own way. When he made Mina his friend he felt 
 that he had enlarged his very small circle of friends con 
 siderably, and that he had made a move as satisfactory 
 
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 as it was bold. If any of his half-dozen of intimates had 
 insinuated that he was in love with Mina he would have 
 felt that it was his duty to avoid her at any sacrifice; but 
 no one made the charge, and he was left to enjoy undis 
 turbed the luxury of her society. She was his only female 
 friend. Even now, though he strove to deceive himself 
 and think otherwise, he would have abondoned every 
 other friend and relative rather than Mina. 
 
 Colonel Schney was not much interested in Curbing, 
 and stayed only long enough to hide his anxiety to go. 
 Business furnished an ample apology. The scene was 
 brighter when he went out, because he left together three 
 people who, though they differed in some things, were in 
 close sympathy in many. They were all pure, all simple- 
 hearted, and all in love with the best things in human 
 nature. 
 
 Greatly to the disgust of his more practical friends, Mr. 
 Curbing had devoted a large part of his time to music, 
 and was master of the piano. There were times when he 
 realized that his skill as a musician was rather damaging 
 to him in certain quarters, and if he had been dependent 
 upon patronage of any kind for support, he would have 
 been obliged to abandon or hide his talent. As her father 
 closed the door behind him, Mina rose and took her 
 violin from its case, while Mr. Curbing advanced to the 
 piano, rubbing his hands together and smiling, and im 
 mediately struck the first notes of an accompaniment. 
 Mina, standing close beside him, played with a face 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 109 
 
 radiant with pleasure. The mysterious sweetness of the 
 violin seemed striving to escape impatient to be gone 
 and be free while she restrained it with the measured 
 movements of the bow and soothed it with the soft touch 
 of her fingers. Every note from the piano hastened, in 
 gorgeous livery, to join the train of some beauty escaping 
 from the violin. Curbing answered the appealing tones of 
 the violin by robbing the key-board of all its choicest 
 treasures. 
 
 It was the perfection of music, made perfect by the 
 sympathy of the players, and all its weird language was 
 interpreted by the unspoken love in the heart of the 
 woman. 
 
 One of Mr. Curbing s peculiarities was his ability to go 
 where he would and do what he would without exciting 
 curiosity. A journey from home, lasting a week or a 
 month, never suggested a farewell, and he could return 
 without the slightest intimation that he had been away. 
 If he had ever had a trouble he had never mentioned it. 
 His pleasures seemed to be complete without exposure or 
 mention to his nearest friends. He belonged to that small 
 and mysterious class of men who enjoy thinking without 
 speaking ; can be alone and not lonely ; full of information 
 without imparting it; intelligent and capable without 
 showing it; known to everybody and intimate with no 
 body; without grievous faults or striking virtues; without 
 enemies and with few friends, and exasperatingly con 
 tented. 
 
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 Everybody supposed but nobody knew that Mr. Curb 
 ing had an income sufficient for his support, which came 
 from some source which he had never taken the trouble 
 to mention, and, as he never asked questions, nobody had 
 ever questioned him on this point. His friends knew him 
 too well to do it, and other people did not know him well 
 enough. 
 
 People who did not know Mr. Curbing regarded him 
 as a painfully peculiar man, and in return, Mr. Curbing 
 looked upon the bulk of mankind as unbearably peculiar. 
 But even that immense fact did not disturb for a moment 
 his equanimity. He was so determined to be unruffled 
 that he never consented to the idea that he was hungry 
 until he found himself enjoying a good meal, and though 
 quite a traveller, never had his destination so fixed in his 
 plans that he could not with perfect comfort take a train 
 going in the opposite direction. It was said that his 
 hour for retiring was when he was irresistibly sleepy, 
 and that his hour for rising was determined on about the 
 same principle. Everything he had belonged to him and 
 was his servant never his master. When he had smoked 
 his pipe he laid it down where he was and trusted to luck 
 to find it again. If he didn t find it he didn t care. He 
 read his books, but never worried about them. In his 
 own apartments he left things disarranged to suit himself. 
 
 Of course it was not difficult for Mr. Curbing to walk 
 about, the day after his musical evening with Mina, look 
 ing as if he had never paid a visit in his life, and never 
 
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 would. Occasionally he halted on a corner to let himself 
 strike out in a new direction, without positively selecting 
 it or determining how far he would go, and sometimes 
 after he had started, looked as if he might stop at any 
 moment. 
 
 Mr. Curbing seemed to have been made for the very 
 purpose of showing that it is possible for a man to be 
 comfortable. If there was a man anywhere prepared to 
 marry a fortune and get all the good out of it without 
 any of the worry, he was the man. Of course if he mar 
 ried Mina it would come about, in some way, without any 
 very decided resolution on his part. He had an idea that he 
 would marry her, and on one or two occasions came so 
 near fixing on a definite time for it that he was positively 
 excited. 
 
 Thus warned, he persisted afterwards in thinking of 
 the matter without reference to time or place. Sometimes, 
 in order to be perfectly composed, he found it necessary 
 to remind himself that it was not absolutely certain that he 
 would marry anybody, anywhere, at any time ; and then, 
 as if to illustrate the uncertainties of life, would commence 
 to light a cigar, change his mind and take a pipe, fill it, 
 lay, it down, and, instead of smoking, drink a cup of 
 coffee. 
 
 All that was needed to make the peculiarities of Curb 
 ing perfectly excusable was that the public should be 
 thoroughly satisfied that he was independent. As long 
 as there was any room for doubt on that point it was 
 
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 proper to regard him as a rather worthless sort of fellow, 
 doomed to experience, sooner or later, the sorrows of a 
 man who had wasted in indecision the best years of his 
 life. Many careful estimates of Mr. Curbing s real value 
 as a man, and many wise prophecies concerning his fu 
 ture, were rendered worthless by the fact that no one had 
 considered the possible effect, in his case, of marrying an 
 heiress. 
 
 The wise men and the prudent were all wasting their 
 fears. This man without a purpose, who despised order 
 and hated decision, was already selected by Providence 
 to illustrate the value of some traits of character which 
 the world despises as long as possible and worships when 
 it must. 
 
 The public objected to Mr. Curbing because he seemed 
 to live without giving the slightest attention to those 
 practical affairs which enslave most men, and because, 
 notwithstanding this evident and serious fault, he suc 
 ceeded in being quite as comfortable and happy as the 
 most practical and industrious man of business. 
 
 Mr. Curbing s eccentricities had a simple and honest 
 origin. He had looked about him very carefully, and 
 had concluded that the practical people were conducting 
 their affairs in a manner perfectly satisfactory to him; 
 that the world in general was getting along pretty well, 
 and that no wisdom or skill such as he possessed was im 
 peratively needed anywhere. He thought, of course, that 
 if anybody had thought he was needed anywhere, he 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 113 
 
 would have been told about it. It had never occurred to 
 him that he was of any importance whatever. He was 
 thoroughly worthy and modest, and therefore an un 
 explained mystery. If he had been as poor as many sup 
 posed he was, he would have died from want and neglect, 
 leaving, perhaps, as a legacy to mankind, a song, or a 
 poem, or a story, to live forever. But he had an income, 
 and lived, and wrote nothing. It is probable that he was 
 so happy that fame had no attractions for him. 
 
 It is said that men who are to be destroyed are first 
 made mad. It might be said with as much truth, that 
 men who are to be famous are first made miserable. All 
 men who earn the title "great" sweat, as it were, blood. 
 
 Mr. Curbing was so determined to be contented and 
 happy, and so much opposed to being destroyed, that he 
 kept himself in a good-humored sanity all the time, and 
 positively declined the most flattering invitations to be 
 miserable. There were times when he had such a realiza 
 tion of the near approach of his wedding with Mina, 
 and felt so certain of it, that all his old tricks failed to re 
 store him to his usual state of uncertainty. Driven to his 
 last resort, he would go out and hunt up a few slight ac 
 quaintances, and for two days at a time conduct himself 
 very much like the balance of the world. This always 
 satisfied him that there was still an element of uncertainty 
 in life and in matrimonial intentions, and for a while, at 
 least, relieved him of the feeling that he had absolutely 
 determined to be married. Then he could enjoy a smoke. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 THE PUBLIC HORRIFIED. 
 
 COLONEL SCHNEY having for a long time per 
 sisted in actively retiring from public notice, and 
 having energetically refused to take the slightest risk of 
 being nominated for anything whatever, was beginning 
 to be sought after. All intelligent observers could see 
 that there were great vacancies in every direction which 
 could be rilled only by the very largest and best men, and 
 that the very best sort of men were unusually hard to 
 find. In such a state of affairs, it was natural that the 
 mention of a vacancy or the necessity for a nomination 
 should suggest at once the fitness of the Colonel. 
 
 The Colonel s friends were greatly perplexed by the 
 simple fact that there were several important positions to 
 fill, all needing the best ability, and only one man who 
 seemed designed by Providence to fill either of them, and 
 that man trying his very best to retire into that delightful 
 obscurity which all men, weary and wealthy, crave. 
 
 Everybody seemed to be agreed that the Colonel must 
 be again put in the service of the people, the only thing to 
 be decided being in what capacity he could serve to the 
 best advantage. Some very wise men, who had been 
 particularly struck with the wonderful natural powers of 
 the Colonel, thought that he was eminently fitted for the 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 115 
 
 bench, though not a trained lawyer, and that if placed 
 there he would be almost invaluable. Others, captivated 
 by the eloquence and logical force of the Colonel s 
 speeches, as described by the Daily Spatterer, were furious 
 at the idea of muzzling him by making him a judge, and 
 warmly in favor of sending him to the Senate. These 
 two wings of the Colonel s army of admirers pushed their 
 respective schemes, and though both propositions were 
 well received by the public, there was a mysterious in 
 difference about the matter which was never explained 
 until it became known that still another influential circle 
 of public-spirited gentlemen had decided that the Colonel 
 must be made to accept the nomination of the party for 
 Governor of the State. 
 
 When the suggestion came out it created a wild burst 
 of enthusiasm old inhabitants said the wildest they had 
 ever known which extended as far as the utmost circu 
 lation of the Spatterer could carry it. The man and the 
 occasion had met. The enthusiasm of the people was ab 
 solutely uncontrollable. Meetings were held to protest 
 against the necessity for a convention, and urge the Colo 
 nel to announce himself at once. All other aspirants 
 promptly withdrew, and some even declared it would be 
 criminal for any man to oppose a candidate who seemed 
 to be nominated by heaven to save the State from immi 
 nent, irretrievable ruin. What could the Colonel do ? 
 
 For once in the history of the State the political ma 
 chinery came to a stand-still. All idea of a convention 
 was abandoned. 
 
ii6 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 At a grand dinner, arranged by the leading men of the 
 
 State, the Colonel was naturally the centre of interest. 
 
 In a practical, business way, the situation was discussed 
 
 and all present were made to feel the necessity for a 
 
 candidate who could command money and who could 
 
 quiet the fears of all the sensitive factions of the party. It 
 
 was clearly shown by able speakers that the great mass of 
 
 intelligent and patriotic people in the State would vote 
 
 for any one who should happen to be the nominee and that 
 
 the important thing to do was that which would satisfy 
 
 the lowest element in the State those who stubbornly 
 
 vote to suit themselves and their own interest. Practically 
 
 the meeting determined to rely upon the conscientious 
 
 people to do whatever the politicians required, in spite of 
 
 their personal feelings and interests, and to secure the 
 
 votes of the wavering and unprincipled by any concessions 
 
 necessary. As usual, the decent people were requested to 
 
 abandon their unreasonable prejudices in order that the 
 
 big-necked and low-browed workers of the leaders might 
 
 not have their feelings hurt. 
 
 The Colonel was unanimously requested to announce 
 himself at once, in order that a vigorous campaign might 
 be immediately planned. It even appeared, from occa 
 sional remarks by the speakers, that the campaign was to 
 be a campaign for the education of the people, and that 
 it was to be directed against those people who imagined 
 that they knew things the intelligent and conceited peo 
 ple who would always object to some political methods. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 117 
 
 People, for instance, who objected to Colonel Schney on 
 any ground whatever, were to be "slam-banged" and ridi 
 culed by the soft and youthful canvassers until they were 
 thoroughly humiliated, if not absolutely ruined. It was 
 intimated that scores of young men, who hoped some day 
 to be candidates for something on their own account, were 
 ready to take the stump and educate the ignorant people 
 all over the State to such a degree that they would see 
 the importance of a victory though it should be necessary, 
 in order to secure it, to sink every principle of the party 
 and of morals, and elect to the offices of the Common 
 wealth the scum of the earth. The amount of personal 
 sacrifice that could be secured for use in the campaign was 
 said to be enormous. 
 
 All of this enthusiasm was in the papers, whose editors 
 wrote that there was enthusiasm, and read in other papers 
 that there was enthusiasm, and amongst the politicians, 
 who said there was tremendous enthusiasm, and heard 
 other politicians make the same assertion. The editors 
 read each others writings, and the politicians heard each 
 others talk, until they thought the whole State was in a 
 ferment. Then the people read the papers and listened to 
 the politicians until each man, feeling utterly indifferent 
 himself, wondered why everybody else was so worked up. 
 
 One of the marvels of the century is the fact that mil 
 lions of perfectly indifferent people, who know they are 
 indifferent can be worked up to a frenzy of excitement 
 simply by being told every day persistently that they are 
 
ii8 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 in a wild state of enthusiasm. It does not seem strange 
 that a man will believe anything he hears about another, 
 but it is a little remarkable that a man will believe a lie 
 about himself and gradually conform himself to a lie 
 which is only another form of the old proverb : "You may 
 as well kill a dog as give him a bad name." 
 
 At a subsequent dinner the Colonel reluctantly con 
 sented to assume the arduous and distasteful duties and 
 responsibilities so persistently thrust upon him, and in a 
 speech "replete with wisdom, calm, dignified, and im 
 pressive" (Spatterer), announced his intention to go to 
 work at once, and, if possible, to lead in the effort to 
 educate the helpless thousands of the Commonwealth into 
 some appreciation of the sagacity and patriotism of those 
 engaged in the campaign. 
 
 The fact of the Colonel s acceptance was telegraphed in 
 every direction, and caused another tremendous burst of 
 enthusiasm in the newspapers. When a plain, simple- 
 hearted citizen got his hands on a paper, and read in big 
 type, "SCHNEY ACCEPTS!! UNBOUNDED ENTHUSIASM!" 
 he immediately felt ashamed of himself to find that he 
 was outside of the unbounded enthusiasm, and wondered 
 why he had been made so utterly different from thousands 
 of good people around him. Then possibly he dashed 
 away a tear and resolved to be a better man. 
 
 Colonel Schney walked home from that dinner filled with 
 tangled thoughts of the past, the present, and the future ; 
 the past dim and shadowy, the present mysterious, and the 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 119 
 
 future full of uncertainty and dread. No gleam of bright 
 ness entered his heart. The great honor he was about to 
 receive he now knew was more than he could accept with 
 any possible satisfaction to himself. He knew that the 
 honor would be a hollow sham, and that he would be an 
 unhappy fraud, compelled to laugh or to sneer at himself. 
 He actually began to see that his honors were only so 
 many certificates of his willingness to be the tool of others 
 who had discovered and used his weakness and vanity. 
 At the hour when he thought his ambition would be 
 crowned, and his life would open before him in .all the 
 beauty of realized hopes, and bid him walk in scented and 
 shady ways from dignity to dignity, he felt instead the 
 clanking irons hammered on by conscience, and lay a 
 prisoner, bereft of hope, in a narrow cell built of his own 
 convictions. With this vision of truth compressing his 
 heart, the Colonel fell asleep to wake no more. 
 
 Between midnight and morning a man clad in a work 
 man s garb young, active, and strong entered the sleep 
 ing man s room, and with two or three long strides, placed 
 himself by the bedside of his victim. He calmly surveyed 
 the Colonel, noting apparently his exact position, gave a 
 careful look at his throat, and then with a firm, slow, heavy 
 hand, drew a wire-edged shoemaker s knife across his 
 throat just above the collar-bone, and on one side, sever 
 ing like a flash the great artery. Death was instantaneous. 
 In the morning the bed and the man made a sight ghastly 
 enough to shock a coroner. 
 
120 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 It is useless to attempt any description of the distress of 
 his poor wife and daughter. Fortunately Mrs. Schney 
 was so prostrated that unconsciousness came to her relief. 
 Mina suffered with every faculty aroused. After doing 
 all she could for her mother, she dispatched a messenger 
 for Curbing, who soon arrived, and was shown without 
 delay into Mina s own sitting room. What was said in 
 that interview nobody will ever know. In the afternoon 
 they were married in the parlor in the presence of two or 
 three witnesses. That night Mina and her mother occu 
 pied apartments at a hotel. Curbing was their guardian. 
 Neither of the women ever entered the old home again. 
 
 The papers made every effort to express the horror and 
 indignation of the people at such a cold-blooded piece of 
 butchery. The editors vied with each other in the pro 
 duction of feeling and impressive editorials The Spat- 
 terer probably doing as well as any in the following : 
 
 "The shocking death of the Honorable Conrad Schney 
 fills the community with grief and apprehension and in 
 expressible indignation. The mere announcement is more 
 solemnly impressive than any comments of ours could be. 
 How a man of such singular purity and gentleness can 
 rouse the hatred of anything human must remain always 
 a mystery. If such a man, whose whole life has been an 
 illustration of the possibilities of goodness in humanity 
 can fall a victim to diabolical hatred, who of us is safe 
 from the assassin s knife ? 
 
 "We cannot refrain from expressing the hope that the 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 121 
 
 cold-blooded miscreant who perpetrated the deed may 
 have swift justice meted out to him. 
 
 "In a future article we hope to do full justice to the 
 distinguished life and services of our lamented friend. 
 
 "In the meantime the vital interests of a great Common 
 wealth go unguarded a prey to the first adventurer who 
 discovers the absence of the great-hearted leader of her 
 cohorts. 
 
 "For the particulars of this terrible affair, we refer our 
 readers to our local column." 
 
 The opposition paper very briefly announced that "Colo 
 nel Schney, the leader of our friends of the other side, 
 well known on account of his wealth and his ability to 
 win by fair means or foul, and who was recently nomi 
 nated for gubernatorial honors in opposition to Judge 
 Transient, has been murdered in bed at home. Requiescal, 
 etc. 
 
 "Particulars in telegraphic column." 
 
 While the police hunted for the murderer, arrange 
 ments for the funeral were pushed forward with diligence 
 until everything was complete. It was a great success. 
 
 It was quite pleasant to be a pall-bearer, because, of 
 course, only the most prominent men in the community 
 would do. For a long time afterwards, if a man said 
 "Brown," and some one said "What Brown?" the answer 
 would be, "Why, Brown, you know, who was pall-bearer 
 for Honorable Conrad Schney." The plumes on the hearse 
 were tall and black, and nodded, so the papers said, with 
 
122 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 remarkable solemnity. Four white horses drew the hearse, 
 stepping, neighing, and tossing their heads in perfect 
 unison with all the other beautiful arrangements. In 
 consideration of the passage of the procession the sun 
 stopped behind a large bank of clouds and allowed the day 
 to be singularly gloomy. 
 
 The preacher did his part manfully in a sermon on 
 national calamities and the lessons they ought to convey. 
 
 When the funeral was all over almost everybody was 
 convinced that there must have been some good reason 
 for such a general demonstration, but no one man could 
 be found who was willing to say that he knew what the 
 reason was and that he was actuated by it when he fol 
 lowed the crowd. 
 
 Though the Spatterer had expressed the fear that the 
 Colonel s death might result in some awful and unprece 
 dented disaster to the Commonwealth, everything moved 
 along with wonderful regularity. 
 
 Within a week after the funeral, tlianks to the kind 
 heart and cool head of Curbing, Mina and her mother 
 were in a hired house of their own, far away from the 
 Stemmery and its horrible associations. 
 
 Anybody could see by the pleased expressions on the 
 faces of the police that the murderer was safely in jail, 
 with a good case against him. Suspicion, arrest, and con 
 finement had been followed by such an accumulation of 
 evidence, that the daily papers had tried and condemned 
 and were ready to hang the man in their columns right 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 123 
 
 away. They had all they wanted except the prisoner s 
 name. This they could not discover, and the prisoner 
 quietly refused to divulge it. The reporters denounced 
 him for keeping his mouth shut and refusing to assist 
 them in their vigorous prosecution. Some of them would 
 go down every day to see him, feed him, treat him to 
 cigars, chat with him, shake hands with him, and be 
 sociable generally, and the next day give the diameter of 
 his neck, his weight, the probable fall necessary to break 
 his neck, and the chances of his choking to death, and 
 wind up with a technical description of the rope and the 
 gallows. 
 
 Some one unknown paid the keeper of a restaurant to 
 furnish the prisoner three abundant and luxurious meals 
 every day. He ate them regularly, and three times a 
 day said, Thank God ! Some one sent the prisoner clean 
 underclothes of good quality and provided regularly for 
 his washing. He had from the same mysterious source 
 a clean bed and snow-white sheets. Flowers came to him, 
 and books and papers, all evidently from the same person. 
 A lawyer, experienced and able, whose large fee was al 
 ready paid, visited him regularly. The only emotion 
 the prisoner displayed was intense gratitude to his un 
 known friend. There was no remorse, no fear, no anger 
 about him. And there was no curiosity or anxiety about 
 his own fate. He was thoughtful, serene, reserved, and 
 quiet. 
 
 Soon after his arrest, his counsel called on him, and 
 
124 O UR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 being struck with his handsome and youthful face, ques 
 tioned him in a very gentle and sympathetic way. 
 
 "My son/ he said, "are you guilty of this crime?" 
 
 "Do you command me, as my counsel, to answer?" said 
 the man. 
 
 "No ; you will answer or not, as you please." 
 
 "Then I will not answer." 
 
 "What is your name?" , 
 
 "My name ? I will not reveal it as long as there is any 
 chance for life." 
 
 "You think you will be convicted ?" 
 
 " Yes I think I am satisfied I will be." 
 
 "Have you any friends ?" 
 
 "Not one that is to say, none who will know that I 
 am here or who will come to me." 
 
 "Do you desire to see any one that you love ?" 
 
 "Yes, I would give the world to see my mother, and I 
 would kiss the feet of the man who sent me clean clothes 
 and who feeds me." 
 
 "Is you mother living? Do you know where she is?" 
 
 "If I did not know I would not be here. Yes, she is 
 alive!" 
 
 "Would you let me bring her to you?" 
 
 "Not for my life. I would not have her or any friend 
 to suffer with me for one moment or see me here. I 
 will bear this alone." 
 
 "How has your past life been? You do not talk like 
 a hardened man or a wicked man." 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 125 
 
 "No, not wicked, but inwardly stormy. I have suf 
 fered, and have grown to be what I am under pain. I 
 am as free from malice and vice as a child. I have no 
 unkind feelings towards any one." 
 
 "Do you appreciate the danger of your position feel 
 the the that your chances for escape are hardly worth 
 considering? I cannot encourage you to hope; you must 
 not expect too much from me." 
 
 "I will never blame you. Indeed, I thank you now 
 in advance for all you will do. The only help I need is a 
 messenger who will carry my grateful thanks to those 
 who have sent me comforts." 
 
 "Do you propose, in the event that you are convicted, 
 to explain yourself at all ?" 
 
 "Possibly I may tell who I am, but no more. I must 
 be satisfied with the judgment of the world. / understand 
 it all but cannot hope to be understood. In my own de 
 fense I will be silent. To say the only things I could say 
 would be more painful than death." 
 
 When the prisoner was brought before the police court 
 he got a pretty good idea of the intense feeling against 
 him in the community. He had sense enough to see that 
 the public had determined to prosecute him with vigor 
 and dispatch. The police justice, who was a pompous 
 ignoramus, decided legal points with an easy, off-hand 
 facility which would have been amusing if the issue had 
 not been of life or of death. Besides being naturally in 
 tolerant and rather brutal, the justice felt that the dignity 
 of the victim justified the roughest treatment of the pris- 
 
126 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 oner which it was in his power to inflict. He conducted 
 the examination with an ominous frown on his massive 
 brow, keeping the corners of his mouth well drawn down, 
 and succeeded, several times, in making the venerable 
 counsel feel very much ashamed of himself and of the 
 law. 
 
 The prisoner s counsel was glad when he escaped from 
 the place, because, as he said, neither common sense or 
 law had any show there. The prisoner remarked on his 
 way back to jail that he might be hanged, but it was some 
 consolation to know that he had been to the police court 
 for the last time. He said he could stand his part of the 
 outrage, but hated to see his old friend, the lawyer, so 
 shamefully battered about by the insolent justice. 
 
 The Spatterer, in its capacity of leading journal and 
 general exponent of everybody s views, was clearly of 
 the opinion that a blood-thirsty villain like the prisoner 
 ought to be tried promptly and hung as soon as conve 
 nient. It sent out reporters to look for second-hand gal 
 lows and to hunt up good rope ; published expert com 
 ments on slip knots, traps, necessary drop, comparative 
 chances for strangulation and broken neck, and even sug 
 gested the proper disposition of the body. It did not 
 know exactly or positively, but it had no doubt that the 
 prisoner s past life had been one unbroken series of 
 abominable crime. It was convinced that a man who 
 could eat and sleep and look as serene as the prisoner did, 
 must be a heartless monstrosity. 
 
 The Spatterer also held up daily for public admiration 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 127 
 
 sketches of the life of the distinguished 1 victim, dwelling 
 with irresistible pathos upon his unprecedented purity and 
 gentleness, and telling, with every appearance of quiet 
 truthfulness, of splendid deeds of charity now for the 
 first time made public. But all these things were nothing- 
 compared with the fact that this man, so richly endowed, 
 had spent a long life in unselfish service of the people, 
 forgetful of everything but the public good. In fact, this 
 murderer had just gone and, with one stroke of a shoe 
 maker s knife, made the public a perfectly inconsolable 
 and helpless orphan! The Spatterer thought that the 
 trial ought to be, and would be, a mere form, to be fol 
 lowed by the satisfactory reality of a well-arranged 
 hanging. 
 
 Of course, with everything arranged beforehand, the 
 trial was a simple affair. The jury knew what they were 
 expected to do. The witnesses were few and their testi 
 mony brief and convincing. When the points of law 
 made by counsel were difficult, and the judge did not 
 know what to do, he adjourned the court until next day 
 and asked somebody who did know. The next day he 
 would decide with a promptness almost startling. 
 
 The prisoner convinced every one who saw him, ex 
 cept those who were resolved to hang him, that he was 
 a modest, rather gentle, quiet man. As he sat in court, 
 as calm as the judge himself, his face was read by thous 
 ands who came and went. No one read anything there 
 but deep sadness. His whole figure suggested lonesome 
 helplessness. Of all the throng that pressed him, not 
 
128 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 one stretched a hand to help him; there was no eye that 
 pitied him; not one word of sympathy fell on his ear. 
 Murderer though he was, there must have been some 
 tonic in his heart which enabled it to beat on in the midst 
 of almost brutal indifference. Excepting his counsel, he 
 had not been approached by a single friend. Though 
 he might deserve the penalty in store for him, it is doubt 
 ful if he deserved this cruel isolation. The verdict was 
 guilty. 
 
 The trial fixed the crime upon the prisoner beyond a 
 doubt. His counsel abandoned the idea of appeal, and 
 urged him to prepare at once for the final scene. 
 
 When the prisoner was -arraigned to receive sentence, 
 and was asked if he had anything to say why sentence 
 should not be pronounced, he turned to the crowd in the 
 court-room and searched every face within reach of his 
 vision, his countenance growing rapidly sadder and sad 
 der. Having finished his survey, he turned again to the 
 judge and said: "My heart is full of strange emotions 
 new and startling. I would, but cannot, express them. 
 There is no language for what I feel. I think if I could 
 lay my head on my mother s bosom she would interpret 
 my tears. No other heart but hers is worthy or able to 
 know my anguish now. I am done." 
 
 The prisoner disappeared, and was only of occasional 
 interest until the fatal day arrived and launched him into 
 eternity. 
 
 The Spatterer reluctantly published nine columns of the 
 details. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 CONCLUDING WITH A MEDLEY. 
 
 THE information which the public received from the 
 time the prisoner was sentenced until his execution 
 was derived mainly from the columns of the Spatterer. 
 The able reporters of that journal, feeling that they had 
 arrested, tried and convicted the prisoner, and would prob 
 ably be compelled to keep the officials up to the duty of 
 hanging him, paid regular visits to the jail, and did all 
 in their power to keep the indignation of the public 
 warmed up. They said that the prisoner s assumption of 
 gentle manners was the most superb acting it had ever 
 been their pleasure to study, and that his personal cleanli 
 ness, politeness, and serenity were only the cute tricks of 
 villainy. One reporter stated positively that he had seen 
 him eating as naturally as the most innocent man in the 
 community. Another member of the staff informed the 
 public that he had tested the prisoner s feelings by giving 
 him a graphic description of the last bungling execution 
 in the jail, in which the man was cruelly strangled, and 
 that at the conclusion the prisoner smiled. 
 
 All of the reporters agreed that the prisoner had never 
 shown a symptom of fear; that he had never asked a 
 favor or courted the sympathy of a single human being. 
 Nobody had noticed a word or a look that indicated the 
 
130 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 slightest interest in his own case. The reporters all 
 omitted to say that the prisoner had politely snubbed 
 them every one, and that all their efforts to bully him 
 and break down his self-respect had signally failed. 
 
 The prisoner was repeatedly urged to prepare a state 
 ment for the press, but regularly declined, saying, by way 
 of explanation, that the conduct of the reporters who had 
 visited him demonstrated the fact that any statement he 
 might make would be remorselessly used against him. 
 
 It was evident that the prisoner had a thorough appre 
 ciation of the bitterness of the public, realized fully that 
 he was abandoned, regarded his fate as fixed, and was 
 waiting without impatience or weariness for the end. 
 To the last he refrained from uttering a word of com 
 plaint or regret. 
 
 As the day for the execution drew near, the Spatterer 
 became more and more anxious to have a full confession 
 from the murderer to lay before its readers. The editors 
 and owners evidently felt that they owed it to their thous 
 ands of subscribers, and ought to have it if it could be 
 obtained. After writing several very able editorials in 
 tended to whet the appetite of the public in which they 
 set forth the great value of confessions in general, and of 
 murderers confessions in particular, they prepared one 
 more, which was clearly intended to convince the pris 
 oner that he owed it to the community now about to 
 choke him to death to vindicate their wisdom and justice 
 by a full confession of his bloody crime. The editor 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 131 
 
 thought it would be really mean for the man to allow him 
 self to be hung without relieving the community of a 
 certain feeling of uncertainty which oppressed it, and 
 therefore urged him to lay aside his morbid interest in 
 his merely personal affairs, and write something really 
 satisfactory for the columns of the Spatterer. In conclu 
 sion, the editor thought that after a little reflection, the 
 prisoner would see the reasonableness of their request. 
 
 Finding that their appeals to the public spirit of the 
 prisoner had no effect, and that he persisted in his selfish 
 determination to remain silent, the Spatterer flatly de 
 clared that it was done with him, and would print nothing 
 from his pen except at full schedule rates. He was also 
 informed by indirect remarks that his ingratitude to the 
 press had convinced the people of his guilt as thoroughly 
 as if he had written and signed his confession. 
 
 According to the account of the Spatterer, the execution 
 was a very ordinary affair. The members of the staff 
 said they had tried very hard to feel some interest in the 
 prisoner, but that he had been so distant and reserved, 
 and had manifested such lack of confidence in the justice 
 and fairness and consideration of the press, that they 
 really found it unpleasant to write up the details. But for 
 the fact that the condemned man had, at the last moment 
 revealed his name, and thus simply justified their vigorous 
 prosecution of the case, they would have passed the matter 
 by with a simple statement that the criminal had duly 
 paid the penalty of his crime. 
 
132 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 After the black cap was drawn over his face the pris 
 oner said: "Is this the last moment?" 
 
 "Yes," said the sheriff; "do you wish to say anything?" 
 
 "Only this/ replied the prisoner, "and I beg you to note 
 it well : "My name is Filter, and you will find my mother 
 at the almshouse." 
 
 In the evening his mother came down and wept over 
 the body. As she was about to depart she took from her 
 bosom, where it had been long concealed, her engagement 
 ring. A diamond flashed upon it. Handing it to a gen 
 tleman standing by, she begged him to spend it upon the 
 burial of her boy. The next day the ring was returned 
 to her with a note to the effect that her boy had received 
 decent burial at the hands of a friend, who would not 
 forget the mother. 
 
 The Spatterer, after a brief account of the execution 
 and of the insolent appearance of the abandoned mother 
 at the jail, proceeded to unravel the motives of the wretch 
 who "so cruelly murdered our late distinguished fellow- 
 citizen, and had at last suffered the just penalty of the 
 law." 
 
 "The prisoner s announcement of his name," the Spat 
 terer thought, was exceedingly fortunate, because it re 
 lieved the whole affair of doubt and completely cleared up 
 the mystery. 
 
 "Years ago, when Colonel Schney was a prosperous 
 merchant, and before he had entered upon his brilliant 
 career as a statesman, he had lavished his means upon an 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 133 
 
 unprincipled wretch by the name of Filter. All his friend 
 ly efforts were futile. In spite of almost princely aid 
 from his noble benefactor, Filter sunk lower and lower 
 until he was recognized as a worthless inebriate utterly be 
 yond help. After he had exhausted the sympathy and 
 wasted the lavish benefactions of Colonel Schney, Filter 
 gradually conceived the idea that Schney had robbed and 
 ruined him. His bitter denunciations of his disinterested 
 friend sunk into the minds of his wife and children, and, 
 it seems, produced terrible fruit. 
 
 "Filter finally died in a drunken debauch, and his wife 
 and children disappeared mysteriously from the com 
 munity. We have since learned that the younger children 
 died ; that the eldest went to sea, and that the mother, a 
 bad woman, we are told, landed at last in the almshouse. 
 
 "A day or two before the murder a man, now known to 
 have been Filter, applied at the almshouse for information 
 concerning the woman, Filter, and her children, and was 
 informed of the death of the children. When asked if 
 he desired to see Mrs. Filter, he replied that he might 
 call again, later, to see her, but was then too busy to stop. 
 
 "The man s life, the facts developed during the trial, 
 and all that we have learned since the execution every 
 thing points to the conclusion that Filter, when he cut 
 the throat of our amiable and worthy friend, thought he 
 was avenging his father s ruin, the death of his little 
 brother and sister, and the long years of poverty and hu 
 miliation and suffering which his mother had endured. 
 
134 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 "How mysterious are the ways of that Providence 
 which permits the progeny of vice to live to gather 
 strength and venom sufficient to slay matured wisdom 
 while it snatches a few moments of rest from unselfish 
 labor ! 
 
 "Young Filter, returning from his aimless wanderings, 
 learns of his mother s distress and of the death of her 
 children. Prepared probably by a previous course of vice, 
 he resolves upon the death of his father s best friend, and 
 almost immediately proceeds to the execution of his re 
 solve. 
 
 "The public has learned from our columns how well 
 he did the ghastly work." 
 
 While the trial was progressing, the circulation of the 
 Spatterer was immense, and when the excitement sub 
 sided the proprietors found that they had secured, as a 
 net result, nineteen new subscribers. 
 
 Curbing got so tired of the paper and what it said 
 about him and his wife and his fortune, and "the distin 
 guished career of our late friend," that he got Tinkle to 
 buy the plant and good-will, sold the plant to a junk-shop, 
 burnt up the good-will, and had afterwards a few months 
 rest. 
 
 It was not long before everybody found out that Curb 
 ing, though not quite as wealthy as his wife, had a hand 
 some fortune of his own, and that many of his peculiari 
 ties, which had been regarded as ridiculous eccentricities, 
 were simply the natural manner of a man who consulted 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 135 
 
 his own pleasure and comfort, with utter indifference to 
 the opinions of a public of which he was entirely inde 
 pendent. 
 
 After the incineration of the Spatterer very little was 
 said about the deceased Colonel, but the remaining papers 
 did their best to keep Curbing and his wife before the 
 public. They called attention to the fact that Mr. Curb 
 ing, though abundantly able to conduct a handsome estab 
 lishment, was still residing in a small rented house, and 
 that he was conducting himself in a quiet, gentlemanly 
 way quite surprising. They mentioned the fact that his 
 wife was extremely modest and unassuming; that she 
 was beautiful and wealthy and accomplished ; that she was 
 charitable and pious, and , to all appearances, happy. All 
 of these things about Mina, and some few things about 
 Curbing, they repeated until they began to realize that it 
 was simply ridiculous. They tried every way to find 
 something new to say, but Curbing was too smart for 
 them. He and his wife managed almost without an effort 
 to do nothing remarkable enough to excuse a mention of 
 it in the papers. Curbing actually paid one or two of the 
 "personal" reporters to let him alone. This he did purely 
 for the benefit of his friends, because he never read the 
 local papers except by accident. 
 
 Fortunately theire Were some things which the re 
 porters never discovered which would have made good 
 items, and would have proved that Curbing was still going 
 right along doing what he considered to be the right thing 
 to do without consulting the press. 
 
136 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 Curbing was leading and Mina was following with all 
 her heart. They had so simplified the ordinarily cum 
 brous arrangements of home that they were free to go and 
 come as fancy suggested, and to devote as much time as 
 they pleased to congenial employments. They had one 
 secret. They had agreed that their joint wealth should 
 be at the instant disposal of each, without question or ac 
 count. Not a word passed between them by way of ex 
 planation, but they understood each other perfectly. 
 Every dollar they had was pledged to cure, as far as pos 
 sible, any pain or sorrow which could be traced to a 
 source in Schney s old business. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 IN WHICH WE PART. 
 
 MR. AND MRS. Curbing had their own ideas of 
 comfort. Three times each day a man servant ap 
 peared and placed a simple meal on the table. When the 
 meal was finished every trace of it disappeared. One ser 
 vant woman kept the house in order. Nobody went to 
 market or to the grocer s. The caterer who supplied the 
 table understood that he was to be paid handsomely, and 
 was expected to provide elegantly. Curbing wanted time 
 to read, time for music, and time to think. Mina wanted 
 time to pet and console her mother and run around with 
 her husband. Both of them wanted time to spend money 
 on all sorts of people. They had no time to keep house. 
 Mr. Curbing always confessed that he was not a prac 
 tical man, and had no desire to be one. With the cheerful 
 consent of his wife and her mother, he placed his fortune 
 and hers in the hands of a good trust company, and never 
 bothered himself further than to check for what he 
 wanted. His wife also learned to draw checks. They 
 literally paid their way over or around all the ordinary 
 annoyances of life, and lived for the higher pleasures of 
 mind and heart. 
 
 The old lady gave the Stemmery mansion to the trus 
 tees of "The Home for Crippled Children," and Mina and 
 Curbing endowed the home handsomely. It was soon 
 
138 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 occupied by a throng of frail orphans of both sexes, all 
 deformed or mutilated, and all as happy as love and 
 bounty could make them. 
 
 Mrs. Filter was there charged with the duty of loving 
 the children as much like a mother as possible. This was 
 all that she was expected to do. She had a separate en 
 dowment. Whenever Curbing saw the diamond he was 
 tempted to tell her that he saved it for her, but he never 
 spoke of it. 
 
 When Curbing first proposed to Mina to feed the pris 
 oner and send him clothing, she was surprised, but soon 
 recognized the suggestion as perfectly in keeping with 
 her husband s character, and finally became his active 
 partner in the work. She added books and flowers and 
 snow-white bedding. When she was told that young 
 Filter was the murderer, she fell upon her husband s neck 
 and thanked him again and again for having suggested a 
 simple charity which, she said, would make her happier 
 than she had ever hoped to be. This pleased Curbing, 
 and induced him to confess that he employed and paid 
 the counsel for the defense. A long time afterwards he 
 told Mina that he recognized Filter soon after his arrest, 
 and, being convinced of his motive, determined at once 
 to defend him and to look after his comfort in jail, be 
 cause he knew that when all was known it would be a 
 comfort to her. He said he had even then no doubt of 
 the prisoner s guilt, and no idea that he could escape the 
 penalty. 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 139 
 
 Mina was the only human being he ever told about his 
 visit to the jail to rescue the body from the anatomy stu 
 dents of the college. When he told of his good fortune in 
 receiving the ring, and the pleasure he had in restoring 
 it to Mrs. Filter, Mina was ready to fall on her knees in 
 tearful worship. 
 
 From this hour Mina s life was an unending succession 
 of happy scenes, thrown up into captivating beauty by the 
 soft background of all her old sorrows. Curbing was the 
 light of her life. 
 
 There was one room in Mr. Curbing s house which 
 would make a stranger suspect that the owner was a dealer 
 in musical instruments. But nothing there was for sale. 
 Every battered thing was an old relic dear to the master 
 and the mistress of the house. Curbing was peculiar in 
 this, that he would not, for any consideration, sell an old 
 friend even in the shape of a guitar that was warped, or 
 a violin crushed and voiceless. That room was Professor 
 Snuff s nearest approach, in life, to heaven. Curbing 
 spent large sums of money on surgeons and on appliances, 
 and held not his hand until the Professor was furnished 
 with a new aluminum spine, which, in conjunction with 
 sundry straps and devices, actually enabled the old gentle 
 man to sit up, and even to ride in Curbing s carriage to 
 Curbing s house and sit at Curbing s table and eat Curb 
 ing s fine fare. When he was the guest Mina was the 
 maid who danced attendance. Curbing was the happy 
 butler and man of all work. The Professor was himself 
 
140 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 again. Did that trio make any music? Listen! and you 
 may hear it now. 
 
 There was another room which Curbing called "the 
 chapel." It was Mina s. Those who were permitted to 
 see it said it was pure and sweet and simple. Curbing 
 never entered it without assuming the attitude and man 
 ner of a guest who knew the importance of conducting 
 himself modestly and appreciated the delicate hospitality 
 of the place. And yet it was just there that he was al 
 together at home. 
 
 There was still another room, the largest of all, which 
 was absolutely the property of Mr. Curbing. In it dis 
 order reigned. There were boxes of smoking tobacco 
 almost everywhere. Seated in any chair in the room a 
 visitor could easily reach a pipe and tobacco or pick up 
 several varieties of cigars. Match boxes of every size and 
 shape were as plentiful as if the business of life was 
 mainly to light pipes. To secure himself against having 
 to hunt for a match, Mr. Curbing kept a small gas jet 
 burning, and near by it a Japanese jar of orange wood 
 ribbons. There were chairs in the room made evidently to 
 sit in. They were ingeniously designed and well con 
 structed, and a solace and surprise to those who, for the 
 first time, tested their ability to rest the human frame. 
 Books were there, of course, and tempting magazines with 
 the leaves uncut. Pictures of small cost, in all sorts of 
 odd frames, were hung up and laid about everywhere. 
 They had merit or meaning. Whenever Mr. Curbing be- 
 
OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 141 
 
 gan to feel that he was certainly married, and that Mina 
 was no longer his sweetheart only, but his wife forever, 
 he would go to this room and spend an hour or two trying 
 to feel uncertain about it. While there he would laugh 
 right out, a thing he rarely ever did, and examine all his 
 broken pipes with evident interest and curiosity. Knowing 
 that nobody was watching him he walked from picture to 
 picture and gazed at each one until he was satisfied. After 
 assuring himself that several old books that he loved were 
 still there, and that nobody had disturbed anything since 
 his last visit, he would close the door and rejoin his wife 
 with an air of embarrassment which she always under 
 stood. He was always afraid that she might ask him if he 
 had been to his room, and that he would have to confess. 
 But Mina was no fool; she was too happy to be a fool. 
 
 Mrs. Schney slowly faded away, and died saying, 
 "Thank you, my dear." 
 
 Judge Transient gained an easy victory over Estimate, 
 who was nominated in place of Schney, and the State fell 
 into the hands of her worst foes. 
 
 All the dangerous elements of the voting population 
 which had made Colonel Schney a possibility and his can 
 didacy a necessity, went over to the opposition and did all 
 they could to bring on what now seemed to be irretriev 
 able ruin. 
 
 This overwhelming calamity revived the memory of the 
 Colonel, and caused many a disappointed politician to 
 curse the name of Filter. They all declared that if Schney 
 had lived the result would have been reversed. 
 
142 OUR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-CITIZEN. 
 
 On the same principle it might be said that if young 
 Filter, the murderer, had died when the other children 
 starved, the result might have been different. Or, to go 
 back further still, if the elder Filter had not wasted his 
 fortune, and had not died a drunkard, but had lived to 
 provide for his wife and children, that would have 
 changed the result. 
 
 Every misfortune has deep roots well buried in the 
 past. The bitter fruit of to-day comes from a seed long 
 since planted, perhaps by the hand of some one dead and 
 forgotten. Evil needs no cultivation. Good and evil 
 mixed is pure evil. Virtue never compromises; if it does, 
 it is no longer virtue, but vice. The science of compro 
 mise is the devil s specialty. 
 
 Schney cut his own throat; his party defeated itself 
 and ruined a Commonwealth. 
 
 They call the baby Pauline. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
McCarthy, 
 
 
 955 
 M1232 
 
 Our di 
 fellows it 
 
 anguished 
 
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