The Vision Splendid

by Raine, William MacLeod

  "I only told him to mind his own business."

  "He can't. He's a born meddler. Now he's queered you with the whole place."

  "Can't help it. I wasn't going to let him get away with his impudence. Why should I?"

  Miller shrugged. "Policy, my boy. Better take the advice of Cousin James and crawl into your shell till the storm has pelted past."

  Half an hour later Jeff met his cousin near the chapel and was taken to task.

  "What's this I hear about your insulting Thomas?"

  "You have it wrong. He insulted me," Jeff corrected with a smile.

  "Tommyrot! Why couldn't you treat him right?"

  "Didn't like to throw him through the window on account of littering up the lawn with broken glass."

  James K.'s handsome square-cut face did not relax to a smile. "You may think this a joke, but I don't. I've heard the Chancellor is going to call you on the carpet."

  "If he does he'll learn what I think."

  The upper classman's anger boiled over. "You might think of me a little."

  "Didn't know you were in this, J. K."

  "They know I'm your cousin. It's hurting my reputation."

  A faint ironic smile touched Jeff's face. "No, James, I'm helping it. Ever notice how blondes and brunettes chum together. Value of contrasts, you see. I'm a moral brunette. You're a shining example of all a man should be. I simply emphasize your greatness."

  "That's not the way it works," his cousin grumbled.

  "That's just how it works. Best thing that could happen to you would be for me to get expelled. Shall I?"

  Jeff offered his suggestion debonairly.

  "Of course not."

  "It would give you just the touch of halo you need to finish the picture. Think of it: your noble head bowed in grief because of the unworthy relative you had labored so hard to save; the sympathy of the faculty, the respect of the fellows, the shy adoration of the co-eds. Great Brutus bowed by the sorrow of a strong man's unrepining emotion. By Jove, I ought to give you the chance. You'd look the part to admiration."

  For a moment James saw himself in the role and coveted it. Jeff read his thought, and his laughter brought his cousin back to earth. He had the irritated sense of having been caught.

  "It's not an occasion for talking nonsense," he said coldly.

  Jeff sensed his disgrace in the stiff politeness of the professors and in the embarrassed aloofness of his classmates. Some of the men frankly gave him a wide berth as if he had been a moral pervert.

  His temperament was sensitive to slights and he fell into one of his rare depressions. One afternoon he took the car for the city. He wanted to get away from himself and from his environment.

  A chill mist was in the air. Drawn by the bright lights, Jeff entered a saloon and sat down in an alcove with his arms on the table. Why did they hammer him so because he told the truth as he saw it? Why must he toady to the ideas of Bland as everybody else at the University seemed to do? He was not respectable enough for them. That was the trouble. They were pushing him back into the gutter whence he had emerged. Wild fragmentary thoughts chased themselves across the record of his brain.

  Almost before he knew it he had ordered and drunk a highball. Immediately his horizon lightened. With the second glass his depression vanished. He felt equal to anything.

  It was past nine o'clock when he took the University car. As chance had it Professor Perkins and he were the only passengers. The teacher of Economics bowed to the flushed youth and buried himself in a book. It was not till they both rose to leave at the University station that he noticed the condition of Farnum. Even then he stood in momentary doubt.

  With a maudlin laugh Jeff quieted any possible explanation of sickness.

  "Been havin' little spree down town, Profeshor. Good deal like one ev'body been havin' out here. Yours shpiritual; mine shpirituous. Joke, see! Play on wor'd. Shpiritual—shpirituous."

  "You're intoxicated, sir," Perkin's told him sternly.

  "Betcherlife I am, old cock! Ever get shp—shp—shpiflicated yourself?"

  "Go home and go to bed, sir!"

  "Whaffor? 'S early yet. 'S reasonable man I ask whaffor?"

  The professor turned away, but Jeff caught at his sleeve.

  "Lesh not go to bed. Lesh talk economicsh."

  "Release me at once, sir."

  "Jush's you shay. Shancellor wants see me. I'll go now."

  He did. What occurred at that interview had better be omitted. Jeff was very cordial and friendly, ready to make up any differences there might be between them. An ice statue would have been warm compared to the Chancellor.

  Next day Jeff was publicly expelled. At the time it did not trouble him in the least. He had brought a bottle home with him from town, and when the notice was posted he lay among the bushes in a sodden sleep half a mile from the campus.

  Part 2

  From a great distance there seemed to come to Jeff vaguely the sound of young rippling laughter and eager girlish voices. Drawn from heavy sleep, he was not yet fully awake. This merriment might be the music of fairy bells, such stuff as dreams are made of. He lay incurious, drowsiness still heavy on his eyelids.

  "Oh, Virgie, here's another bunch! Oh, girls, fields of them!"

  There was a little rush to the place, and with it a rustle of skirts that sounded authentic. Jeff began to believe that his nymphs were not born of fancy. He opened his eyes languidly to examine a strange world upon which he had not yet focused his mind.

  Out of the ferns a dryad was coming toward him, lance straight, slender, buoyantly youthful in the light tread and in the poise of the golden head.

  At sight of him she paused, held in her tracks, eyes grown big with solicitude.

  "You are ill."

  Before he could answer she had dropped the anemones she carried, was on her knees beside him, and had his head cushioned against her arm.

  "Tell me! What can I do for you? What is the matter?"

  Jeff groaned. His head was aching as if it would blow up, but that was not the cause of the wave of pain which had swept over him. A realization had come to him of what was the matter with him. His eyes fell from hers. He made as if to get up, but her hand restrained him with a gentle firmness.

  "Don't! You mustn't." Then aloud, she cried: "Girls—girls—there's a sick man here. Run and get help. Quick."

  "No—no! I—I'm not sick."

  A flood of shame and embarrassment drenched him. He could not escape her tender hands without actual force and his poignant shyness made that impossible. She was like a fairy tale, a creature of dreams. He dared not meet her frank pitiful eyes, though he was intensely aware of them. The odor of violets brings to him even to this day a vision of girlish charm and daintiness, together with a memory of the abased reverence that filled him.

  They came running, her companions, eager with question and suggestion. And hard upon their heels a teamster from the road broke through the thicket, summoned by their calls for help. He stooped to pick up something that his foot had struck. It was a bottle. He looked at it and then at Jeff.

  "Nothing the matter with him, Miss, but just plain drunk," the man said with a grin. "He's been sleeping it off."

  Jeff felt the quiver run through her. She rose, trembling, and with one frightened sidelong look at him walked quickly away. He had seen a wound in her eyes he would not soon forget. It was as if he had struck her down while she was holding out hands to help him.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lies need only age to make them respectable. Given that,

  they become traditions and are put upon a pedestal. Then the

  gentlest word for him who attacks them is traitor.—From

  the Note Book of a Dreamer.

  THE REBEL FOLLOWS THE RAMIFICATIONS OF BIG BUSINESS AND FINDS THAT THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY ARE NOT IN POLITICS FOR THEIR HEALTH

  Part 1

  "Hmp! Want to be a reporter, do you?" Warren, city editor on the Advocate, leaned back in his chair and l
ooked Jeff over sharply.

  "Yes."

  "It's a hell of a life. Better keep out."

  "I'd like to try it."

  "Any experience?"

  "Only correspondence. I've had two years at college."

  The city editor snorted. He had the unreasoning contempt for college men so often found in the old-time newspaper hack.

  "Then you don't want to be a reporter. You want to be a journalist," he jeered.

  "They kicked me out," Jeff went on quietly.

  "Sounds better. Why?"

  Jeff hesitated. "I got drunk."

  "Can't use you," Warren cut in hastily.

  "I've quit—sworn off."

  The city editor was back on the job, his eyes devouring copy. "Heard that before. Nothing to it," he grunted.

  "Give me a trial. I'll show you."

  "Don't want a man that drinks. Office crowded with 'em already."

  Jeff held his ground. For five minutes the attention of Warren was focused on his work.

  Suddenly he snapped out, "Well?"

  He met Farnum's ingratiating smile. "You haven't told me yet what to start doing."

  "I told you I didn't want you."

  "But you do. I'm on the wagon."

  "For how long?" jeered the city editor.

  "For good."

  Warren sized him up again. He saw a cleareyed young fellow without a superfluous ounce of flesh on him, not rugged but with a look of strength in the slender figure and the thin face. This young man somehow inspired confidence.

  "Sent in that Colby story to us, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Rotten story. Not half played up. Report to Jenkins at the City Hall."

  "Now?"

  "Now. Think I meant next year?"

  The city editor was already lost in the reading of more copy.

  Inside of half an hour Jeff was at work on his first assignment. Some derelict had committed suicide under the very shadow of the City Hall. Upon the body was a note scrawled on the bask of a dirty envelope.

  Sick and out of work. Notify Henry Simmons, 237 River Street, San Francisco.

  Jenkins, his hands in his pockets, looked at the body indifferently and turned the story over to the cub with a nod of his head.

  "Go to it. Half a stick," he said.

  From another reporter Jeff learned how much half a stick is. He wrote the account. When he had read it Jenkins glanced sharply at him. Though only the barest facts were told there was a sob in the story.

  "That ain't just how we handle vag suicides, but we'll let 'er go this time," he commented.

  It did not take Jeff long to learn how to cover a story to the satisfaction of the city editor. He had only to be conventional, sensational, and in general accurate as to his facts. He fraternized with his fellow reporters at the City Hall, shared stories with them, listened to the cheerful lies they told of their exploits, and lent them money they generally forgot to return. They were a happy-go-lucky lot, full of careless generosities and Bohemian tendencies. Often a week's salary went at a single poker sitting. Most of them drank a good deal.

  After a few months' experience Jeff discovered that while the gathering of news tends to sharpen the wits it makes also for the superficial. Alertness, cleverness, persistence, a nose for news, and a surface accuracy were the chief qualities demanded of him by the office. He had only to look around him to see that the profession was full of keen-eyed, nimble-witted old-young men who had never attempted to synthesize the life they were supposed to be recording and interpreting. While at work they were always in a hurry, for to-day's news is dead to-morrow. They wrote on the run, without time for thought or reflection. Knowing beyond their years, the fruit of their wisdom was cynicism. Their knowledge withered for lack of roots.

  The tendency of the city desk and of copy readers is to reduce all reporters to a dead level, but in spite of this Jeff managed to get himself into his work. He brought to many stories a freshness, a point of view, an optimism that began to be noticed. From the police run Jeff drifted to other departments. He covered hotels, the court house, the state house and general assignments.

  At the end of a couple of years he was promoted to a desk position. This did not suit him, and he went back to the more active work of the street. In time he became known as a star man. From dramatics he went to politics, special stories and feature work. The big assignments were given him.

  It was his duty to meet famous people and interview them. The chance to get behind the scenes at the real inside story was given him. Because of this many reputations were pricked like bubbles so far as he was concerned. The mask of greatness was like the false faces children wear to conceal their own. In the one or two really big men he met Jeff discovered a humility and simplicity that came from self-forgetfulness. They were too busy with their vision of truth to pose for the public admiration.

  Part 2

  It was while Jeff was doing the City Hall run that there came to him one night at his rooms a man he had known in the old days when he had lived in the river bottom district. If he was surprised to see him the reporter did not show it.

  "Hello, Burke! Come in. Glad to see you."

  Farnum took the hat of his guest and relieved his awkwardness by guiding him to a chair and helping him get his pipe alight.

  "How's everything? Little Mike must be growing into a big boy these days. Let's see. It's three years since I've seen him."

  A momentary flicker lit the gloomy eyes of the Irishman. "He's a great boy, Mike is. He often speaks of you, Mr. Farnum.

  "Glad to know it. And Mrs. Burke?"

  "Fine."

  "That leaves only Patrick Burke. I suppose he hasn't fallen off the water wagon yet."

  The occupation of Burke had been a threadbare joke between them in the old days. He drove a street sprinkler for the city.

  "That's what he has. McGuire threw the hooks into me this morning. I've drove me last day."

  "What's the matter?"

  "I'm too damned honest.... or too big a coward. Take your choice."

  "All right. I've taken it," smiled the reporter.

  Pat brought his big fist down on the table so forcefully that the books shook. "I'll not go to the penitentiary for an-ny man.... He wanted me to let him put two other teams on the rolls in my name. I wouldn't stand for it. That was six weeks ago. To-day he lets me out."

  Jeff began to see dimly the trail of the serpent graft. He lit his pipe before he spoke.

  "Don't quite get the idea, Pat. Why wouldn't you?"

  "Because I'm on the level. I'll have no wan tellin' little Mike his father is a dirty thief....It's this way. The rolls were to be padded, understand."

  "I see. You were to draw pay for three teams when you've got only one."

  "McGuire was to draw it, all but a few dollars a month." The Irishman leaned forward, his eyes blazing. "And because I wouldn't stand for it I'm fired for neglecting my duty. I missed a street yesterday. If he'd been frientlly to me I might have missed forty.... But he can't throw me down like that. I've got the goods to show he's a dirty grafter. Right now he's drawing pay for seven teams that don't exist."

  "And he doesn't know you know it?"

  "You bet he don't. I've guessed it for a month. To-day I went round and made sure."

  Jeff asked questions, learned all that Burke had to tell him. In the days that followed he ran down the whole story of the graft so secretly that not even the city editor knew what he was about. Then he had a talk with the "old man" and wrote his story.

  It was a red-hot exposure of one of the most flagrant of the City Hall gang. There was no question of the proof. He had it in black and white. Moreover, there was always the chance that in the row which must follow McGuire might peach on Big Tim himself, the boss of all the little bosses.

  Within twenty-four hours Jeff was summoned to a conference at which were present the city editor and Warren, now managing editor.

  "We've killed your story, Farnum," announce
d the latter as soon as the door was closed.

  "Why? I can prove every word of it."

  "That was what we were afraid of."

  "It's a peach of a story. With the spring elections coming on we need some dynamite to blow up Big Tim. I tell you McGuire would tell all he knows to save his own skin."

  "My opinion, too," agreed Warren dryly. "My boy, it's too big a story. That's the whole trouble. If we were sure it would stop at McGuire we'd run it. But it won't. The corporations are backing Big Tim to win this spring. It won't do to get him tied up in a graft scandal."

  "But the Advocate has been out after his scalp for years."

  "Well, we're not after it any more. Of course, we're against him on the surface still."

  Jeff did some rapid thinking. "Then the program will be for us to nominate a weak ticket and elect Big Tim's by default. Is that it?"

  "That's about it. The big fellows have to make sure of a Mayor who will be all right about the Gas and Electric franchise. So we're going to have four more years of Big Tim."

  "Will Brownell stand for it?"

  Brownell was the principal owner of the Advocate.

  "Will he?" Warren let his eyelash rest for a second upon the cheek nearest Jeff. "He's been seen. My orders come direct from the old man."

  The story was suppressed. No more was heard about the McGuire graft scandal exposure. It had run counter to the projects of big business.

  Burke had to be satisfied without his revenge.

  He got a job with a brewery and charged the McGuire matter to profit and loss.

  As for Jeff the incident only served to make clearer what he already knew. More and more he began to understand the forces that dominate our cities, the alliance between large vested interests and the powers that prey. These great corporations were seekers of special privileges. To secure this they financed the machines and permitted vice and corruption. He saw that ultimately most of the shame for the bad government of American cities rests upon the Fromes and the Merrills.