The Landloper Part 30

Their stroll took them into the broader avenues of up-town.

As they talked, Farr caught side glances from his companion. The glances were a bit inquisitive.

"Well, Citizen Drew," asked the young man, "what is on your mind this evening?"

"Since I have known you and studied you I have been thinking that you have the spirit of knight-errantry in you," stated Citizen Drew.

Farr laughed boyishly.

"Two very nice old ladies have just got ahead of you with that accusation, my friend."

"Laugh if you feel like it. But there are so few men who can do anything unselfishly in these days that when a chap like you does come along he gets noticed--at any rate, I notice him." He stopped dealing in side glances and stared at Farr fully and frankly. "Other men who would do the things you are doing so quietly in this state have been playing politics--and I have made it my business to watch politicians. And as soon as men have been elected to office by fooling the people--well, those men have simply been set into the Big Machine as new cogs. Are you like the rest, Mr. Farr? n.o.body knows where you came from. Everybody who sees you knows you're above the jobs you have been working at. They're talking you up for alderman in our ward. But we have been fooled so many times!"

Farr replied to this wistful inquisition in a way there was no misunderstanding.

"I am not a candidate for anything, Citizen Drew. And I'll tell you how I can prove I am not. I am not a voter here. I have intentionally failed to have myself registered. Whenever you hear another man talking me up for office you tell him that. Therefore, it makes no difference to anybody where I came from or what job I work at."

Citizen Drew accepted the rebuke humbly and walked on in silence.

"You have always been fooled, you say, when you have elected men to office. Haven't you any men in this state whom you can elect to high office, knowing for sure that they'll stay straight?"

"No," returned Citizen Drew.

"I'm a stranger--I don't know your big men--you do know them, and I suppose I ought to take your word. But I don't believe you, Citizen Drew."

"But I told you the truth. We have big men who are honest men. But they won't go into politics. They feel too far above the game. Therefore, how can we elect them to office? I say I told you the truth. The men who go out and hunt for office are the ones who work the thing for their own profit--and that means they stand in with the bunch and the head boss."

It was the same old lament which is everlastingly on the lips of the voters of America! Citizen Drew had again epitomized the average politics of the great Republic!

Walker Farr smiled--and he could express in a smile more than most men can express in speech.

"An original idea has just occurred to me, Citizen Drew," he said, with humorous drawl in his tones. "I'm sure nothing like it has ever been thought of before. There ought to be a new party formed in this country--a party outside all the others. No, not a party, exactly!

What should I call it? You see, the idea has just come to me, and I'm floundering a little." His tone was still jocular. "You're right about most of the able and big men staying out of politics except when the highest offices are pa.s.sed around. Now, how's this for a scheme?

Organize a loyal band and call it--well, say the Purified Political Privateers, the Sanctified Kidnappers, the People's Progressive and Public-spirited Press Gang. Go around and grab the Great and the Good who insist on minding their private business and who are letting the country be gobbled up--just go and grab 'em right up by the scruff of the neck and fling them into politics head over heels. They would sputter and froth and flop for a little while--and then they'd strike out and swim. They couldn't help swimming! They'd know that the folks were looking on. And then a lot of the sinking and drowning poor devils, like you and me and the folks in the tenements, could grab onto the Great and the Good and ask 'em to tow us safely ash.o.r.e; and by that time their pride and their dander would be up and they'd swim all the harder--with the other folks looking on. Hah! An idea, eh? You see, I feel rather imaginative and on the high pressure and in a mood for adventure this evening! Probably because the nice old ladies called me a knight-errant."

Citizen Drew was not ready with comment on this amazing suggestion.

He clawed his hand into his spa.r.s.e hair and wrinkled his forehead in attempt to decide whether or not he ought to resent this playful retort to his lament. The next moment he dealt Farr a swift jab in the ribs with his elbow.

"Take a good look at this man coming," he mumbled.

The oncomer was close upon them, and in spite of the dusk Farr's sharp gaze took him all in.

In garb and mien he was a fine type of the American gentleman who is marked by a touch of the old school. There was a clean-cut crispness about him; the white mustache and the hair which matched it looked as if they would crackle if rubbed. His eyes were steely blue, and he held himself very erect as he walked, and he tapped the pavement briskly with his cane.

He pa.s.sed them, marched up the steps of a large building, and disappeared through a door which a boy in club uniform held open for him.

"That man," explained Citizen Drew, complacently displaying his boasted knowledge of public men in minute detail, "is the Honorable Archer Converse, whose father was General Aaron Converse, the war governor of this state. Lawyer, old bach, rich, just as crisp in talk as he is in looks, just as straight in his manners and morals and honesty as he is in his back, arrives every night at the Mellicite Club for his dinner on the dot of eight"--Citizen Drew waved his hand at the illuminated circle of the First National clock--"leaves the club exactly at nine for a walk through the park, then marches home, plays three games of solitaire, and goes to bed."

"I know him!" stated Farr.

Citizen Drew's air betrayed a bit of a showman's disappointment.

"I never saw him before--never heard of him. But I mean I know him now after your description--know his nature, his thoughts. You have a fine touch in your size-ups, Citizen Drew."

"I've studied 'em all."

"What has he done in politics?"

"Never a thing. He is one of the kind I was complaining about. Too high-minded."

"But, ho, how a man like that would swim if he were once thrown in!"

declared Farr.

"He never even tended out on a caucus."

"I know the style when I see it," pursued Farr. He did not look at Citizen Drew. He was talking as much to himself as to his companion.

"Spirit of a crusader harnessed by every-day habit! Righteousness in a rut! Achievement timed to the tick of the clock. But, once in, how he would swim!"

"Think how our affairs would swing along with a man like that at the head of the state!"

"Why hasn't he been put at the head?"

"I have been in delegations that have gone to him"--he waved his hand--"he said he couldn't think of being mixed into political messes."

"He looked on you wallowing in muddy water and you invited him in. I don't blame him for not jumping."

"He's a good man," insisted Citizen Drew. "He gives more money to the poor than any other man in town. The only way I found that out is by having a natural nose for finding out things. He doesn't say anything about it."

"How he would swim!" repeated Farr. "Steady and strong and straight toward the sh.o.r.e, Citizen Drew, and he wouldn't kick away the poor drowning devils, either."

"He probably thinks he has paid his debt to the world when he hands out his money," stated Drew. "When he looks around and sees so many other men holding the poor chaps upside down and shaking the dollars out of their pockets he must think he is doing a mighty sight more than is required of him. But sticking plasters of dollar bills onto sore places in this state ain't curing anything." He stopped. "I've walked with you farther than I intended to, Mr. Farr. But somehow I wanted to talk with you. There's a meeting of the Square Deal Club this evening at Union Hall. I didn't know but in some way we might--It was thought you might be going to run for office."

"The registration-office will prove that I'm not. Pa.s.s that word!"

"I'll go back--to the meeting. It doesn't seem to be much use in holding the meetings," said the man. "We hear one another talk--we know we are talking the truth. But n.o.body listens who can help us poor folks. Well, I'll admit that the politicians come in and listen and promise to help us and we give our votes; but that's all: they give nothing back to us."

Farr broke out with a remark which seemed to have no bearing on what Citizen Drew was saying.

"He comes out at nine o'clock, eh?"

"Who?"

"The Honorable Archer Converse. Leaves that clubhouse then, does he?"

"Regular to the tick of the clock."

"Citizen Drew, hold your club in session until half past nine or a little later. My experience with those meetings is that you always have troubles enough to keep you talking for at least two hours."