The Booming of Acre Hill, and Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life Part 14

"He did," said Thaddeus, meekly.

"And yet you talk about this appeal to a reasonable balance of power!

Really, Teddy, you are becoming demoralized. Politics, as I see it, is an appeal to thirst, and nothing else."

"'You never miss the voter till the keg runs dry,'" sang the candidate, with a more or less successful attempt at gayety. "But never mind, Bess.

I've had enough, and if I'm beaten this time I'll never do it again. So don't worry; and, after all, this is only a munic.i.p.al election. The difference between a grand inspiring ma.s.sive war for principle and a street riot. The supreme court of arbitration, the people, can be relied on to do the right thing in the end. They are sane. They are honest.

They are not all thirsty, and in this as in all contests the blatant attract the most attention. The barker at the door of the side show to the circus makes more noise than the eight-headed boy that makes the mare go."

"You're a trifle mixed in your metaphors, Teddy," said Mrs. Perkins.

"Well who wouldn't be, after a three weeks' appeal to an arid waste of voters?"

"A waste of arid voters," amended Mrs. Perkins.

"The amendment is accepted," laughed Thaddeus. And at that moment a telephone call from headquarters summoned him abroad.

"Good-night, Bess," he said, kissing his wife affectionately. "This is the last night."

"Good-night, Teddy; I hope it is. And next time when they ask you to run--"

"You shall be the balance of power, and decide the question for me,"

said the candidate, as, with sorrow in his heart, he left his home to seek out what he called "the branch office of Hades," political headquarters, where were gathered some fifty persons, most of whom began life in other countries, under different skies, and to whom the national anthem "America" meant less and aroused fewer sentiments worth having than that attractive two-step "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning," and who were yet sufficiently powerful with the various "balances" of the town to hold its political destinies in their itching palms.

Two months after this discussion the late Honorable Thaddeus Perkins, ex-candidate, and Mayor of Dumfries Corners only by courtesy of those who honor defeated candidates with t.i.tles for which they have striven unsuccessfully, was strolling through the country along the line of the Croton Aqueduct, trying to disentangle, with the aid of the fresh sweet air of an early summer afternoon, an idea for a sonnet from the mazes of his brain. Stopping for a moment to look down upon the glorious Hudson stretching its s.h.i.+mmering length like a bimetallic serpent to the north and south, he suddenly became conscious of a pair of very sharp eyes resting upon him, which a closer inspection showed belonged to a laborer of seemingly diminutive stature, who was engaged in carrying earth in a wheelbarrow from one dirt-pile to another. As Thaddeus caught his eye the laborer a.s.sumed towering proportions. He rose up quite two feet higher in the air and bowed.

"How do you do?" said Perkins, returning the salutation courteously, wondering the while as to what might be the cause of this sudden change of height.

"Oi'm well--which is nothin' new to me," replied the other. "Ut sheems to me," he continued, "thot youse resimbles thot smart young felly Perkins, the Mayor of Dumfries Corners--not!"

Perkins laughed. The sting of defeat had lost its power to annoy, and his experience had become merely one of a thousand other nightmares of the past.

"Do I?" he replied, resolving not to confess his ident.i.ty, for the moment at least.

"Only thinner," chuckled the laborer, shrinking up again; and Perkins now saw that the legs of his new acquaintance were of an abnormally unequal length, which forced him every time he s.h.i.+fted his weight from one foot to the other to change his apparent height to a startling degree. "An' a gude dale thinner," he repeated. "There's nothin' loike polithical exersoize to take off th' flesh, parthicularly when ye miss ut."

"I fancy you are right," said Perkins. "I never met Mr. Perkins--that is, face to face--myself. Do you know him?"

The Irishman threw his head back and laughed.

"Well," he said, "oi'm not wan uv his pershonal fri'nds. But oi know um when oi see um," and he looked Thaddeus straight in the eye as he grew tall again.

"I'm sure it is Perkins's loss," returned Thaddeus, "that you are not a personal friend of his."

"It was," said the Irishman. "My name is Finn," he added, with an air which seemed to a.s.sume that Perkins would begin to tremble at the dreaded word; but Perkins did not tremble. He merely replied,

"A very good name, Mr. Finn."

"Oi t'ink so," a.s.sented Mr. Finn. "Ut's better nor Dinnis, me young fri'nd."

Perkins a.s.sented to this proposition as though it was merely general, and had no particular application to the affairs of the moment. "I suppose, Mr. Finn," he observed, shortly, "that you were one of the earnest workers in the late campaign for Mr. Perkins?"

"Was he elicted?" asked Finn, scornfully.

"I believe not," began Thaddeus. "But--"

"Thot's me answer to your quistion, sorr," said Finn, with dignity.

"He'd 'a' had lamps befoor his house now, sorr, if he hadn't been gay wid his front dure."

"Oh--he was gay with his front door, was he?" asked Perkins.

"He was thot, an' not ony too careful uv his windy-shades," replied Finn.

Perkins looked at him inquiringly.

"Givin' me, Mike Finn, song an' dance about not bein' home, wid me fri'nds outside on the lawn watchin' him troo de windy, laffin' loike a hayeny."

"Excuse me--like a what?" said Thaddeus.

"A hayeny," repeated Mr. Finn. "Wan o' thim woild bastes as laffs at nothin' much. 'Is he home?' sez oi. 'Are yees a pershonal fri'nd?' says the gurl. 'Oi'm not,' sez oi. 'He ain't home,' says the gurl. 'Whin'll he be back?' says oi. 'Niver,' says she, shlammin' the dure in me face; and Mike Finn wid a certifikut uv election for um in his pocket!"

"A certificate of election?" cried Perkins. "And he wouldn't see you?"

"He would not."

"You were to an extent the balance of power, then?"

"That's what oi was," said Finn, enjoying what he thought was Perkins's dismay; for he knew well enough to whom he was talking. "Oi was the rale bonyfiday balance uv power. Oi've got foive sons, sorr, and ivery wan o'

thim byes is conthracthors, or, what's as good, bosses uv gangs on public an' proivate works. There ain't wan uv thim foive byes as don't conthrol twinty-foive votes, an' there ain't wan uv 'em as don't moind what the ould mon says to um. Not wan, sorr. An' they resints the turnin' down uv their father."

"That's as it should be," said Perkins.

"An' ut's as ut was, me young fri'nd. Whin oi wint home to me pershonal fri'nds at th' Finn Club, Misther Perkins had losht me. Wan gone. Whin oi tould the Finn Club, wan hundred sthrong, he losht thim. Wan hundred and wan gone. Whin oi tould th' byes, he losht thim. Wan hundred an' six gone. An' whin they tould their twinty-foive apiece, ivery twinty-foive o' thim wint. Wan hundred an' six plus wan hundred an' twinty-foive makes two hundred an' thirty-wan votes losht at the shlammin' uv the front dure. An' whin two hundred an' thirty-wan votes laves wan soide minus an' the other soide plus, th' gineral result is a difference uv twoice two hundred an' thirty-wan, or foor hundred an' sixty-two. D'ye mind thot, sorr?"

"I see," said Perkins. "And as this--ah--this particular candidate was beaten by a bare majority of two or three hundred votes--"

"It was _me_ as done it!" put in the balance of power, shaking his finger at Perkins impressively. "Me--Mike Finn!"

"Well, I hope Mr. Perkins hears of it, Mr. Finn," put in Thaddeus. "I am told that he is wondering yet what hit him, and having put the affront upon you, and through that inexcusable act lost the election, he ought to know that you were his Nemesis."

"His what?" queried the real balance.

"His Nemesis. Nemesis is the name of a Greek G.o.ddess," exclaimed Perkins.

"Oi'm no Greek, nor no G.o.ddess," retorted Finn, "but I give him the throw-down."

"That's what I meant," explained Thaddeus. "The word has become part of the English language. Nemesis was the G.o.ddess of the Throw-down, and the word is used to signify that."