The Landloper Part 54

shouted a delegate. "It's plain to be seen that that man standing there is a gentleman. We are sent here to attend a meeting for the good of our party. If, as delegates, we refuse to listen to a gentleman because we're in too much of a hurry, we'd ought to be ashamed of ourselves. If, on the other hand, we're _afraid_ to listen to him, whatever it is he wants to say, then G.o.d save this party of ours!"

That was a sentiment which promptly struck fire in that a.s.semblage.

There before their eyes stood the subject of that challenge, stalwart, modest, appealing silently--the sort of appeal which won.

The galleries broke into applause first. Then the delegates took up the demonstration in behalf of fair play. They beat their hands and pounded their feet. The applause from the galleries had more or less of rebuke in it, because it began while the challenger's voice still echoed in the great hall.

The chairman's gavel thumped ferociously.

Colonel Dodd cursed under his breath. He had been on the trail of that convention, its movements, its progress, as a hound dog would follow the trail of a fox. He had seen it safely headed for the corner where it would be run to earth. He detected sudden peril in this threat of a detour.

"Good Jericho!" gasped a committeeman near him. "The chairman ain't letting this convention get away from him, is he?"

It was natural alarm in the case of a man who feared to allow any expression in a convention except such as had been arranged for previously and had been pa.s.sed upon by those in power.

"This isn't the kind of convention that will get away!" hissed the colonel in reply, bolstering his own convictions that all was safely harnessed. "But I don't want any fooling."

He caught the eye of his nephew and summoned him with an impatient jerk of the head.

Richard Dodd hastened across the platform and bent his ear close to his uncle's mouth--the colonel pulling him down.

"If your man can stop that fool now--quick--for five hundred dollars, I'll pay."

Young Dodd gulped. He needed five thousand dollars!

"He won't consider less than I told you."

"Well, let the idiot talk to us--he can't do any harm."

The colonel pushed his nephew away. In spite of that applause he still half expected that the convention would close the nominations. What else was there to do?

"The vote is upon the motion to close the nominations for governor,"

stated the chairman. "Those in favor will say 'Aye!'"

Every delegate in that hall was looking at Farr. They were staring at him with curiosity and interest. But even curiosity does not always prompt politicians to open a convention to a person who may prove to be a bomb that will upset plans and precedent.

Then Farr gave them that wonderful smile!

The "Ayes" were scattered and sporadic! Men did not relish shutting off a chap who stood there and smiled upon them in that fas.h.i.+on.

At the call for the "Noes" a bellow of voices shook the hall.

The convention had given this stranger permission to speak by that refusal to subscribe to the cut-and-dried plans. Colonel Dodd was no longer smug. He scowled ferociously.

"Gentlemen of the convention, I am grateful," cried Walker Farr. "And I will not abuse your patience."

"Platform--take the platform!" called many of the delegates.

He smiled and shook his head. "Let me talk to you standing here where I can look into your eyes, gentlemen. I feel pretty much alone in this convention. I _am_ alone! I represent no faction, no interest except the cause of the humble who have asked for help from the masters who have been set over them. Perhaps I ought to have remained silent here to-day.

My cowardice has been prompting me to keep still. It is no easy matter for me to stand up here and disturb the order of events which had been arranged by the gentlemen who have managed your public affairs for you so many years. But it would be much more difficult for some of the others here to speak, because the gentlemen who manage politics have methods by which they can discredit a man in his profession, ruin him in his business, stop his credit at banks and in other ways make him pay dearly for his boldness in speech. I have no money in banks, no business which can be ruined."

"I rise to a point of order!" shouted a delegate, obeying a nod from the stage. "The business in hand is the nomination of a governor."

"That is my business," stated Farr, calmly.

With political scent sharpened by his apprehension, Colonel Dodd narrowed his eyes, sat straight in his chair, and desperately endeavored to fathom the intentions of this rank outsider.

In spite of his bl.u.s.ter to the state committee he was worried. He had not felt comfortable since his conference with Judge Ambrose Warren.

He did not like the "feel" of political conditions. There was some indefinable slipperiness about matters.

He could not bring himself to consider the impossible idea that the convention would bolt--would run amuck, no matter who addressed it--no matter what contingency arose. But to have the convention even tolerate this brazen interloper troubled his sense of mastery; the convention had been too ready to permit the stranger to speak. It wasn't politics as the colonel had been accustomed to play the game. And this--this man from nowhere--it was preposterous!

He snapped his head around and found his nephew close behind him.

"You young whelp," gritted Colonel Dodd, visiting his anger on the nearest object, "where's your political loyalty? This isn't any time to drive bargains. If you can stop that fellow hustle and do it."

"It's another man's secret, I tell you. I've got to buy it."

"I'll make it a thousand."

Young Dodd's face was white, but he knew how desperate his case was and how vitally necessary it was to play his cards as he held them.

"I gave you final figures," he whispered.

"Where is that man? Let me deal with him."

"It must be done through me."

"If you wasn't my nephew I'd think this was blackmail."

Young Dodd stepped back to avoid the glare in his uncle's eyes.

The colonel turned away and listened. Farr's voice was raised now in solemn appeal.

"The idea of my letting myself get rattled by a crack-brained demagogue," muttered the colonel. He had been fondling the outside of his coat furtively, locating his check-book. Now he took his hand away.

"It is well to respect service and to show courtesy, gentlemen. I have listened with interest to the eulogies which have been given Governor Harwood. He is, without doubt, an amiable gentleman. But let me tell you that the next legislature is going to be asked to pa.s.s a law which will be a club with which the people will rap the knuckles of Greed till that unholy clutch on the water systems of this state will be loosened for ever."

The delegates stared at him for a few seconds when he paused, and then a tumult of applause greeted his utterance.

"I ask you, gentlemen, whether Governor Harwood--and you know him well and how he has been chosen--will ever sign a bill that will take profit from the hands of his political makers even to give that profit to the people who are the rightful owners?"

This time men were silent, but he knew what they thought from the manner in which they looked at him.

"I do not need to tell you that the veto of a bill by a governor means, in most cases, its death. Gentlemen, it would be polite and kind and gracious of you to bow low here to-day and hand up the nomination to the amiable Governor Harwood. But with the conditions as they are in this state are you going to be polite, merely, while the hea.r.s.es are rumbling down your streets? I have no way of knowing how many of you into whose eyes I am looking have seen death enter your own homes from the taps of this much-promising, little-accomplis.h.i.+ng water syndicate. But if you have seen death touch your loved ones, or if you go home from here and behold fever ravaging your community, it will be poor consolation to your soul to remember that at least you were polite to an amiable man who desired the honor of a renomination."

The faces of the convention showed that this blunt yet shrewd appeal to the individual antagonism of men had produced profound effect.

"But that is only one feature of what this state demands and needs, gentlemen," was Farr's ringing declaration. "This struggle for pure water has opened a broad avenue. The towns and cities of this state must take back into their own hands the properties and franchises which have been mismanaged by the men to whose hands unwise gift by the people has intrusted the people's own. We need a man in the Big Chair of State who will stand with the people in this crusade!"