Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich

Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich Page 7

by Stephen Leacock

  CHAPTER SEVEN: The Ministrations of the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing

  "Well, then, gentlemen, I think we have all agreed upon our man?"

  Mr. Dick Overend looked around the table as he spoke at the managingtrustees of St. Osoph's church. They were assembled in an uppercommittee room of the Mausoleum Club. Their official place of meetingwas in a board room off the vestry of the church. But they had felt adraught in it, some four years ago, which had wafted them over to theclub as their place of assembly. In the club there were no draughts.

  Mr. Dick Overend sat at the head of the table, his brother Georgebeside him, and Dr. Boomer at the foot. Beside them were Mr. Boulder,Mr. Skinyer (of Skinyer and Beatem) and the rest of the trustees.

  "You are agreed, then, on the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing?"

  "Quite agreed," murmured several trustees together.

  "A most remarkable man," said Dr. Boomer. "I heard him preach in hispresent church. He gave utterance to thoughts that I have myself beenthinking for years. I never listened to anything so sound or soscholarly."

  "I heard him the night he preached in New York," said Mr. Boulder. "Hepreached a sermon to the poor. He told them they were no good. I neverheard, outside of a Scotch pulpit, such splendid invective."

  "Is he Scotch?" said one of the trustees.

  "Of Scotch parentage," said the university president. "I believe he isone of the Dumfarthings of Dunfermline, Dumfries."

  Everybody said "Oh," and there was a pause.

  "Is he married?" asked one of the trustees. "I understand," answeredDr. Boomer, "that he is a widower with one child, a little girl."

  "Does he make any conditions?"

  "None whatever," said the chairman, consulting a letter before him,"except that he is to have absolute control, and in regard to salary.These two points settled, he says, he places himself entirely in ourhands."

  "And the salary?" asked someone.

  "Ten thousand dollars," said the chairman, "payable quarterly inadvance."

  A chorus of approval went round the table. "Good," "Excellent," "Afirst-class man," muttered the trustees, "just what we want."

  "I am sure, gentlemen," said Mr. Dick Overend, voicing the sentimentsof everybody, "we do _not_ want a cheap man. Several of the candidateswhose names have been under consideration here have been in manyrespects--in point of religious qualification, let us say--mostdesirable men. The name of Dr. McSkwirt, for example, has beenmentioned with great favour by several of the trustees. But he's acheap man. I feel we don't want him."

  "What is Mr. Dumfarthing getting where he is?" asked Mr. Boulder.

  "Nine thousand nine hundred," said the chairman.

  "And Dr. McSkwirt?"

  "Fourteen hundred dollars."

  "Well, that settles it!" exclaimed everybody with a burst ofenlightenment.

  And so it was settled.

  In fact, nothing could have been plainer.

  "I suppose," said Mr. George Overend as they were about to rise, "thatwe are quite justified in taking it for granted that Dr. McTeague willnever be able to resume work?"

  "Oh, absolutely for granted," said Dr. Boomer. "Poor McTeague! I hearfrom Slyder that he was making desperate efforts this morning to sit upin bed. His nurse with difficulty prevented him."

  "Is his power of speech gone?" asked Mr. Boulder.

  "Practically so; in any case, Dr. Slyder insists on his not using it.In fact, poor McTeague's mind is a wreck. His nurse was telling me thatthis morning he was reaching out his hand for the newspaper, and seemedto want to read one of the editorials. It was quite pathetic,"concluded Dr. Boomer, shaking his head.

  So the whole matter was settled, and next day all the town knew thatSt. Osoph's Church had extended a call to the Rev. UttermustDumfarthing, and that he had accepted it.

  * * * * *

  Within a few weeks of this date the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthingmoved into the manse of St. Osoph's and assumed his charge. Andforthwith he became the sole topic of conversation on Plutoria Avenue."Have you seen the new minister of St. Osoph's?" everybody asked. "Haveyou been to hear Dr. Dumfarthing?" "Were you at St. Osoph's Church onSunday morning? Ah, you really should go! most striking sermon I everlistened to."

  The effect of him was absolute and instantaneous; there was no doubt ofit.

  "My dear," said Mrs. Buncomhearst to one of her friends, in describinghow she had met him, "I never saw a more striking man. Such power inhis face! Mr. Boulder introduced him to me on the avenue, and he hardlyseemed to see me at all, simply scowled! I was never so favourablyimpressed with any man."

  On his very first Sunday he preached to his congregation on eternalpunishment, leaning forward in his black gown and shaking his fist atthem. Dr. McTeague had never shaken his fist in thirty years, and asfor the Rev. Fareforth Furlong, he was incapable of it.

  But the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing told his congregation that he wasconvinced that at least seventy per cent of them were destined foreternal punishment; and he didn't call it by that name, but labelled itsimply and forcibly "hell." The word had not been heard in any churchin the better part of the City for a generation. The congregation wasso swelled next Sunday that the minister raised the percentage toeighty-five, and everybody went away delighted. Young and old flockedto St. Osoph's. Before a month had passed the congregation at theevening service at St. Asaph's Church was so slender that theoffertory, as Mr. Furlong senior himself calculated, was scarcelysufficient to pay the overhead charge of collecting it.

  The presence of so many young men sitting in serried files close to thefront was the only feature of his congregation that extorted from theRev. Mr. Dumfarthing something like approval.

  "It is a joy to me to see," he remarked to several of his trustees,"that there are in the City so many godly young men, whatever theelders may be."

  But there may have been a secondary cause at work, for among the godlyyoung men of Plutoria Avenue the topic of conversation had not been,"Have you heard the new presbyterian minister?" but, "Have you seen hisdaughter? You haven't? Well, say!"

  For it turned out that the "child" of Dr. Uttermust Dumfarthing,so-called by the trustees, was the kind of child that wears a littleround hat, straight from Paris, with an upright feather in it, and asilk dress in four sections, and shoes with high heels that would havebroken the heart of John Calvin. Moreover, she had the distinction ofbeing the only person on Plutoria Avenue who was not one whit afraid ofthe Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing. She even amused herself, inviolation of all rules, by attending evening service at St. Asaph's,where she sat listening to the Reverend Edward, and feeling that shehad never heard anything so sensible in her life.

  "I'm simply dying to meet your brother," she said to Mrs. Tom Overend,otherwise Philippa; "he's such a complete contrast with father." Sheknew no higher form of praise: "Father's sermons are always sofrightfully full of religion."

  And Philippa promised that meet him she should.

  But whatever may have been the effect of the presence of CatherineDumfarthing, there is no doubt the greater part of the changedsituation was due to Dr. Dumfarthing himself.

  Everything he did was calculated to please. He preached sermons to therich and told them they were mere cobwebs, and they liked it; hepreached a special sermon to the poor and warned them to be mightycareful; he gave a series of weekly talks to workingmen, and knockedthem sideways; and in the Sunday School he gave the children so fiercea talk on charity and the need of giving freely and quickly, that sucha stream of pennies and nickels poured into Catherine Dumfarthing'sSunday School Fund as hadn't been seen in the church in fifty years.

  Nor was Mr. Dumfarthing different in his private walk of life. He washeard to speak openly of the Overend brothers as "men of wrath," andthey were so pleased that they repeated it to half the town. It was thebest business advertisement they had had for years.

  Dr. Boomer was captivated with the man. "True scholarship," hemurmured, as Dr. Dumfarthing poured undilu
ted Greek and Hebrew from thepulpit, scorning to translate a word of it. Under Dr. Boomer's chargethe minister was taken over the length and breadth of PlutoriaUniversity, and reviled it from the foundations up.

  "Our library," said the president, "two hundred thousand volumes!"

  "Aye," said the minister, "a powerful heap of rubbish, I'll be bound!"

  "The photograph of our last year's graduating class," said thepresident.

  "A poor lot, to judge by the faces of them," said the minister.

  "This, Dr. Dumfarthing, is our new radiographic laboratory; Mr. Spiff,our demonstrator, is preparing slides which, I believe, actually showthe movements of the atom itself, do they not, Mr. Spiff?"

  "Ah," said the minister, piercing Mr. Spiff from beneath his darkbrows, "it will not avail you, young man."

  Dr. Boomer was delighted. "Poor McTeague," he said--"and by the way,Boyster, I hear that McTeague is trying to walk again; a great error,it shouldn't be allowed!--poor McTeague knew nothing of science."

  The students themselves shared in the enthusiasm, especially after Dr.Dumfarthing had given them a Sunday afternoon talk in which he showedthat their studies were absolutely futile. As soon as they knew thisthey went to work with a vigour that put new life into the college.

  * * * * *

  Meantime the handsome face of the Reverend Edward Fareforth Furlongbegan to wear a sad and weary look that had never been seen on itbefore. He watched the congregation drifting from St. Asaph's to St.Osoph's and was powerless to prevent it. His sadness reached its climaxone bright afternoon in the late summer, when he noticed that even hisepiscopal blackbirds were leaving his elms and moving westward to thespruce trees of the manse.

  He stood looking at them with melancholy on his face. "Why, Edward,"cried his sister, Philippa, as her motor stopped beside him, "howdoleful you look! Get into the car and come out into the country for aride. Let the parish teas look after themselves for today."

  Tom, Philippa's husband, was driving his own car--he was rich enough tobe able to--and seated with Philippa in the car was an unknown person,as prettily dressed as Philippa herself. To the rector she waspresently introduced as Miss Catherine Something--he didn't hear therest of it. Nor did he need to. It was quite plain that her surname,whatever it was, was a very temporary and transitory affair.

  So they sped rapidly out of the City and away out into the country,mile after mile, through cool, crisp air, and among woods with thetouch of autumn bright already upon them, and with blue sky and greatstill clouds white overhead. And the afternoon was so beautiful and sobright that as they went along there was no talk about religion at all!nor was there any mention of Mothers' Auxiliaries, or Girls' FriendlySocieties, nor any discussion of the poor. It was too glorious a day.But they spoke instead of the new dances, and whether they had come tostay, and of such sensible topics as that. Then presently, as they wenton still further, Philippa leaned forwards and talked to Tom over hisshoulder and reminded him that this was the very road to CastelCasteggio, and asked him if he remembered coming up it with her to jointhe Newberry's ever so long ago. Whatever it was that Tom answered itis not recorded, but it is certain that it took so long in the sayingthat the Reverend Edward talked in tete-a-tete with Catherine forfifteen measured miles, and was unaware that it was more than fiveminutes. Among other things he said, and she agreed--or she said and heagreed--that for the new dances it was necessary to have always one andthe same partner, and to keep that partner all the time. And somehowsimple sentiments of that sort, when said direct into a pair oflistening blue eyes behind a purple motor veil, acquire an infinitesignificance.

  Then, not much after that, say three or four minutes, they were all ofa sudden back in town again, running along Plutoria Avenue, and to therector's surprise the motor was stopping outside the manse, andCatherine was saying, "Oh, thank you ever so much, Philippa; it wasjust heavenly!" which showed that the afternoon had had its religiousfeatures after all. "What!" said the rector's sister, as they moved offagain, "didn't you know? That's Catherine Dumfarthing!"

  * * * * *

  When the Rev. Fareforth Furlong arrived home at the rectory he spent anhour or so in the deepest of deep thought in an armchair in his study.Nor was it any ordinary parish problem that he was revolving in hismind. He was trying to think out some means by which his sister Julianamight be induced to commit the sin of calling on the daughter of apresbyterian minister.

  The thing had to be represented as in some fashion or other an act ofself-denial, a form of mortification of the flesh. Otherwise he knewJuliana would never do it. But to call on Miss Catherine Dumfarthingseemed to him such an altogether delightful and unspeakably blissfulprocess that he hardly knew how to approach the topic. So when Julianapresently came home the rector could find no better way of introducingthe subject than by putting it on the ground of Philippa's marriage toMiss Dumfarthing's father's trustee's nephew.

  "Juliana," he said, "don't you think that perhaps, on account ofPhilippa and Tom, you ought--or at least it might be best for you tocall on Miss Dumfarthing?"

  Juliana turned to her brother as he laid aside her bonnet and her blackgloves.

  "I've just been there this afternoon," she said.

  There was something as near to a blush on her face as her brother hadever seen.

  "But she was not there!" he said.

  "No," answered Juliana, "but Mr. Dumfarthing was. I stayed and talkedsome time with him, waiting for her."

  The rector gave a sort of whistle, or rather that blowing out of airwhich is the episcopal symbol for it.

  "Didn't you find him pretty solemn?" he said.

  "Solemn!" answered his sister. "Surely, Edward, a man in such a callingas his ought to be solemn."

  "I don't mean that exactly," said the rector; "I mean--er--hard,bitter, so to speak."

  "Edward!" exclaimed Juliana, "how can you speak so. Mr. Dumfarthinghard! Mr. Dumfarthing bitter! Why, Edward, the man is gentleness andkindness itself. I don't think I ever met anyone so full of sympathy,of compassion with suffering."

  Juliana's face had flushed It was quite plain that she saw things inthe Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing--as some one woman does in everyman--that no one else could see.

  The Reverend Edward was abashed. "I wasn't thinking of his character,"he said. "I was thinking rather of his doctrines. Wait till you haveheard him preach."

  Juliana flushed more deeply still. "I heard him last Sunday evening,"she said.

  The rector was silent, and his sister, as if impelled to speak, went on,

  "And I don't see, Edward, how anyone could think him a hard or bigotedman in his creed. He walked home with me to the gate just now, and hewas speaking of all the sin in the world, and of how few, how very fewpeople, can be saved, and how many will have to be burned as worthless;and he spoke so beautifully. He regrets it, Edward, regrets it deeply.It is a real grief to him."

  On which Juliana, half in anger, withdrew, and her brother the rectorsat back in his chair with smiles rippling all over his saintly face.For he had been wondering whether it would be possible, even remotelypossible, to get his sister to invite the Dumfarthings to high tea atthe rectory some day at six o'clock (evening dinner was out of thequestion), and now he knew within himself that the thing was as good asdone.

  * * * * *

  While such things as these were happening and about to happen, therewere many others of the congregation of St. Asaph's beside the rectorto whom the growing situation gave cause for serious perplexities.Indeed, all who were interested in the church, the trustees and themortgagees and the underlying debenture-holders, were feeling anxious.For some of them underlay the Sunday School, whose scholars' offeringshad declined forty per cent, and others underlay the new organ, not yetpaid for, while others were lying deeper still beneath the ground siteof the church with seven dollars and a half a square foot resting onthem.

  "I don't like it," said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe to
Mr. Newberry (they wereboth prominent members of the congregation). "I don't like the look ofthings. I took up a block of Furlong's bonds on his Guild building fromwhat seemed at the time the best of motives. The interest appearedabsolutely certain. Now it's a month overdue on the last quarter. Ifeel alarmed."

  "Neither do I like it," said Mr. Newberry, shaking his head; "and I'msorry for Fareforth Furlong. An excellent fellow, Fyshe, excellent. Ikeep wondering Sunday after Sunday, if there isn't something I can doto help him out. One might do something further, perhaps, in the way ofnew buildings or alterations. I have, in fact, offered--by myself, Imean, and without other aid--to dynamite out the front of his church,underpin it, and put him in a Norman gateway; either that, or blast outthe back of it where the choir sit, just as he likes. I was thinkingabout it last Sunday as they were singing the anthem, and realizingwhat a lot one might do there with a few sticks of dynamite."

  "I doubt it," said Mr. Fyshe. "In fact, Newberry, to speak veryfrankly, I begin to ask myself, Is Furlong the man for the post?"

  "Oh, surely," said Mr. Newberry in protest.

  "Personally a charming fellow," went on Mr. Fyshe; "but is he, all saidand done, quite the man to conduct a church? In the _first_ place, heis _not_ a businessman."

  "No," said Mr. Newberry reluctantly, "that I admit."

  "Very good. And, _secondly_, even in the matter of his religion itself,one always feels as if he were too little fixed, too unstable. Hesimply moves with the times. That, at least, is what people arebeginning to say of him, that he is perpetually moving with the times.It doesn't do, Newberry, it doesn't do." Whereupon Mr. Newberry wentaway troubled and wrote to Fareforth Furlong a confidential letter witha signed cheque in it for the amount of Mr. Fyshe's interest, and withsuch further offerings of dynamite, of underpinning and blasting as hisconscience prompted.

  When the rector received and read the note and saw the figures of thecheque, there arose such a thankfulness in his spirit as he hadn't feltfor months, and he may well have murmured, for the repose of Mr.Newberry's soul, a prayer not found in the rubric of King James.

  All the more cause had he to feel light at heart, for as it chanced, itwas on that same evening that the Dumfarthings, father and daughter,were to take tea at the rectory. Indeed, a few minutes before sixo'clock they might have been seen making their way from the manse tothe rectory.

  On their way along the avenue the minister took occasion to reprove hisdaughter for the worldliness of her hat (it was a little trifle fromNew York that she had bought out of the Sunday School money--atemporary loan); and a little further on he spoke to her severely aboutthe parasol she carried; and further yet about the strange fashion,specially condemned by the Old Testament, in which she wore her hair.So Catherine knew in her heart from this that she must be looking hervery prettiest, and went into the rectory radiant.

  The tea was, of course, an awkward meal at the best. There was aninitial difficulty about grace, not easily surmounted. And when theRev. Mr. Dumfarthing sternly refused tea as a pernicious drinkweakening to the system, the Anglican rector was too ignorant of thepresbyterian system to know enough to give him Scotch whiskey.

  But there were bright spots in the meal as well. The rector was evenable to ask Catherine, sideways as a personal question, if she playedtennis; and she was able to whisper behind her hand, "Not allowed," andto make a face in the direction of her father, who was absorbed for themoment in a theological question with Juliana. Indeed, before theconversation became general again the rector had contrived to make arapid arrangement with Catherine whereby she was to come with him tothe Newberry's tennis court the day following and learn the game, withor without permission.

  So the tea was perhaps a success in its way. And it is noteworthy thatJuliana spent the days that followed it in reading Calvin's"Institutes" (specially loaned to her) and "Dumfarthing on theCertainty of Damnation" (a gift), and in praying for her brother--atask practically without hope. During which same time the rector inwhite flannels, and Catherine in a white duck skirt and blouse, wereflying about on the green grass of the Newberrys' court, and calling,"love," "love all," to one another so gaily and so brazenly that evenMr. Newberry felt that there must be something in it.

  But all these things came merely as interludes in the moving currentsof greater events; for as the summer faded into autumn and autumn intowinter the anxieties of the trustees of St. Asaph's began to call foraction of some sort.

  * * * * *

  "Edward," said the rector's father on the occasion of their nextquarterly discussion, "I cannot conceal from you that the position ofthings is very serious. Your statements show a falling off in everydirection. Your interest is everywhere in arrears; your current accountoverdrawn to the limit. At this rate, you know, the end is inevitable.Your debenture and bondholders will decide to foreclose; and if theydo, you know, there is no power that can stop them. Even with yourlimited knowledge of business you are probably aware that there is nohigher power that can influence or control the holder of a firstmortgage."

  "I fear so," said the Rev. Edward very sadly.

  "Do you not think perhaps that some of the shortcoming lies withyourself?" continued Mr. Furlong. "Is it not possible that as apreacher you fail somewhat, do not, as it were, deal sufficiently withfundamental things as others do? You leave untouched the truly vitalissues, such things as the creation, death, and, if I may refer to it,the life beyond the grave."

  As a result of which the Reverend Edward preached a series of specialsermons on the creation for which he made a special and arduouspreparation in the library of Plutoria University. He said that it hadtaken a million, possibly a hundred million years of quite difficultwork to accomplish, and that though when we looked at it all wasdarkness still we could not be far astray if we accepted and held fastto the teachings of Sir Charles Lyell. The book of Genesis, he said wasnot to be taken as meaning a day when it said a day, but rathersomething other than a mere day; and the word "light" meant not exactlylight but possibly some sort of phosphorescence, and that the use ofthe word "darkness" was to be understood not as meaning darkness, butto be taken as simply indicating obscurity. And when he had quitefinished, the congregation declared the whole sermon to be mere milkand water. It insulted their intelligence, they said. After which, aweek later, the Rev. Dr. Dumfarthing took up the same subject, and withthe aid of seven plain texts pulverized the rector into fragments.

  One notable result of the controversy was that Juliana Furlong refusedhenceforth to attend her brother's church and sat, even at morningservice, under the minister of St. Osoph's.

  "The sermon was, I fear, a mistake," said Mr. Furlong senior; "perhapsyou had better not dwell too much on such topics. We must look for aidin another direction. In fact, Edward, I may mention to you inconfidence that certain of your trustees are already devising ways andmeans that may help us out of our dilemma."

  Indeed, although the Reverend Edward did not know it, a certain idea,or plan, was already germinating in the minds of the most influentialsupporters of St. Asaph's.

  Such was the situation of the rival churches of St. Asaph and St. Osophas the autumn slowly faded into winter: during which time the elm treeson Plutoria Avenue shivered and dropped their leaves and the chauffeursof the motors first turned blue in their faces and then, when the greatsnows came, were suddenly converted into liveried coachmen with tallbearskins and whiskers like Russian horseguards, changing back again toblue-nosed chauffeurs the very moment of a thaw. During this time alsothe congregation of the Reverend Fareforth Furlong was diminishingmonth by month, and that of the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing was sonumerous that they filled up the aisles at the back of the church. Herethe worshippers stood and froze, for the minister had abandoned the useof steam heat in St. Osoph's on the ground that he could find nowarrant for it.

  During the same period other momentous things were happening, such asthat Juliana Furlong was reading, under the immediate guidance of Dr.Dumfarthing, the Hist
ory of the Progress of Disruption in the Churchesof Scotland in ten volumes; such also as that Catherine Dumfarthing waswearing a green and gold winter suit with Russian furs and a Balkan hatand a Circassian feather, which cut a wide swath of destruction amongthe young men on Plutoria Avenue every afternoon as she passed.Moreover by the strangest of coincidences she scarcely ever seemed tocome along the snow-covered avenue without meeting the ReverendEdward--a fact which elicited new exclamations of surprise from themboth every day: and by an equally strange coincidence they generallyseemed, although coming in different directions, to be bound for thesame place; towards which they wandered together with such slow stepsand in such oblivion of the passers-by that even the children on theavenue knew by instinct whither they were wandering.

  It was noted also that the broken figure of Dr. McTeague had reappearedupon the street, leaning heavily upon a stick and greeting those he metwith such a meek and willing affability, as if in apology for hisstroke of paralysis, that all who talked with him agreed thatMcTeague's mind was a wreck.

  "He stood and spoke to me about the children for at least a quarter ofan hour," related one of his former parishioners, "asking after them byname, and whether they were going to school yet and a lot of questionslike that. He never used to speak of such things. Poor old McTeague,I'm afraid he is getting soft in the head." "I know," said the personaddressed. "His mind is no good. He stopped me the other day to say howsorry he was to hear about my brother's illness. I could see from theway he spoke that his brain is getting feeble. He's losing his grip. Hewas speaking of how kind people had been to him after his accident andthere were tears in his eyes. I think he's getting batty."

  Nor were even these things the most momentous happenings of the period.For as winter slowly changed to early spring it became known thatsomething of great portent was under way. It was rumoured that thetrustees of St. Asaph's Church were putting their heads together. Thiswas striking news. The last time that the head of Mr. Lucullus Fyshe,for example, had been placed side by side with that of Mr. Newberry,there had resulted a merger of four soda-water companies, bringing whatwas called industrial peace over an area as big as Texas and raisingthe price of soda by three peaceful cents per bottle. And the last timethat Mr. Furlong senior's head had been laid side by side with those ofMr. Rasselyer-Brown and Mr. Skinyer, they had practically saved thecountry from the horrors of a coal famine by the simple process ofraising the price of nut coal seventy-five cents a ton and thusguaranteeing its abundance.

  Naturally, therefore, when it became known that such redoubtable headsas those of the trustees and the underlying mortgagees of St. Asaph'swere being put together, it was fully expected that some importantdevelopment would follow. It was not accurately known from which of theassembled heads first proceeded the great idea which was presently tosolve the difficulties of the church. It may well have come from thatof Mr. Lucullus Fyshe. Certainly a head which had brought peace out ofcivil war in the hardware business by amalgamating ten rival stores andhad saved the very lives of five hundred employees by reducing theirwages fourteen per cent, was capable of it.

  At any rate it was Mr. Fyshe who first gave the idea a definiteutterance.

  "It's the only thing, Furlong," he said, across the lunch table at theMausoleum Club. "It's the one solution. The two churches can't liveunder the present conditions of competition. We have here practicallythe same situation as we had with two rum distilleries--the output istoo large for the demand. One or both of the two concerns must gounder. It's their turn just now, but these fellows are business menenough to know that it may be ours tomorrow. We'll offer them abusiness solution. We'll propose a merger."

  "I've been thinking of it," said Mr. Furlong senior, "I suppose it'sfeasible?"

  "Feasible!" exclaimed Mr. Fyshe. "Why look what's being done every dayeverywhere, from the Standard Oil Company downwards."

  "You would hardly, I think," said Mr. Furlong, with a quiet smile,"compare the Standard Oil Company to a church?" "Well, no, I supposenot," said Mr. Fyshe, and he too smiled--in fact he almost laughed. Thenotion was too ridiculous. One could hardly compare a mere church to athing of the magnitude and importance of the Standard Oil Company.

  "But on a lesser scale," continued Mr. Fyshe, "it's the same sort ofthing. As for the difficulties of it, I needn't remind you of the muchgreater difficulties we had to grapple with in the rum merger. There,you remember, a number of the women held out as a matter of principle.It was not mere business with them. Church union is different. In factit is one of the ideas of the day and everyone admits that what isneeded is the application of the ordinary business principles ofharmonious combination, with a proper--er--restriction of output andgeneral economy of operation."

  "Very good," said Mr. Furlong, "I'm sure if you're willing to try, therest of us are."

  "All right," said Mr. Fyshe. "I thought of setting Skinyer, of Skinyerand Beatem, to work on the form of the organization. As you know he isnot only a deeply religious man but he has already handled the Tin PotCombination and the United Hardware and the Associated Tanneries. Heought to find this quite simple."

  * * * * *

  Within a day or two Mr. Skinyer had already commenced his labours. "Imust first," he said, "get an accurate idea of the existing legalorganization of the two churches."

  For which purpose he approached the rector of St. Asaph's. "I just wantto ask you, Mr. Furlong," said the lawyer, "a question or two as to theexact constitution, the form so to speak, of your church. What is it?Is it a single corporate body?"

  "I suppose," said the rector thoughtfully, "one would define it as anindivisible spiritual unit manifesting itself on earth." "Quite so,"interrupted Mr. Skinyer, "but I don't mean what it is in the religioussense: I mean, in the real sense." "I fail to understand," said Mr.Furlong.

  "Let me put it very clearly," said the lawyer. "Where does it get itsauthority?"

  "From above." said the rector reverently.

  "Precisely," said Mr. Skinyer, "no doubt, but I mean its authority inthe exact sense of the term."

  "It was enjoined on St. Peter," began the rector, but Mr. Skinyerinterrupted him.

  "That I am aware of," he said, "but what I mean is--where does yourchurch get its power, for example, to hold property, to collect debts,to use distraint against the property of others, to foreclose itsmortgages and to cause judgement to be executed against those who failto pay their debts to it? You will say at once that it has these powersdirect from Heaven. No doubt that is true and no religious person woulddeny it. But we lawyers are compelled to take a narrower, a lesselevating point of view. Are these powers conferred on you by the statelegislature or by some higher authority?"

  "Oh, by a higher authority, I hope," said the rector very fervently.Whereupon Mr. Skinyer left him without further questioning, therector's brain being evidently unfit for the subject of corporation law.

  On the other hand he got satisfaction from the Rev. Dr. Dumfarthing atonce.

  "The church of St. Osoph," said the minister, "is a perpetual trust,holding property as such under a general law of the state and able assuch to be made the object of suit or distraint. I speak with someassurance as I had occasion to enquire into the matter at the time whenI was looking for guidance in regard to the call I had received to comehere."

  * * * * *

  "It's a quite simple matter," Mr. Skinyer presently reported to Mr.Fyshe. "One of the churches is a perpetual trust, the other practicallya state corporation. Each has full control over its property providednothing is done by either to infringe the purity of its doctrine."

  "Just what does that mean?" asked Mr. Fyshe.

  "It must maintain its doctrine absolutely pure. Otherwise if certain ofits trustees remain pure and the rest do not, those who stay pure areentitled to take the whole of the property. This, I believe, happensevery day in Scotland where, of course, there is great eagerness toremain pure in doctrine."

  "And what do you define
as _pure_ doctrine?" asked Mr. Fyshe.

  "If the trustees are in dispute," said Mr. Skinyer, "the courts decide,but any doctrine is held to be a pure doctrine if _all_ the trusteesregard it as a pure doctrine."

  "I see," said Mr. Fyshe thoughtfully, "it's the same thing as what wecalled 'permissible policy' on the part of directors in the Tin PotCombination."

  "Exactly," assented Mr. Skinyer, "and it means that for the merger weneed nothing--I state it very frankly--except general consent."

  * * * * *

  The preliminary stages of the making of the merger followed alongfamiliar business lines. The trustees of St. Asaph's went through theprocess known as 'approaching' the trustees of St. Osoph's. First ofall, for example, Mr. Lucullus Fyshe invited Mr. Asmodeus Boulder ofSt. Osoph's to lunch with him at the Mausoleum Club; the cost of thelunch, as is usual in such cases, was charged to the general expenseaccount of the church. Of course nothing whatever was said during thelunch about the churches or their finances or anything concerning them.Such discussion would have been a gross business impropriety. A fewdays later the two brothers Overend dined with Mr. Furlong senior, thedinner being charged directly to the contingencies account of St.Asaph's. After which Mr. Skinyer and his partner, Mr. Beatem, went tothe spring races together on the Profit and Loss account of St.Osoph's, and Philippa Overend and Catherine Dumfarthing were taken (bythe Unforeseen Disbursements Account) to the grand opera, followed by amidnight supper.

  All of these things constituted what was called the promotion of themerger and were almost exactly identical with the successive stages ofthe making of the Amalgamated Distilleries and the Associated Tin PotCorporation; which was considered a most hopeful sign.

  * * * * *

  "Do you think they'll go into it?" asked Mr. Newberry of Mr. Furlongsenior, anxiously. "After all, what inducement have they?"

  "Every inducement," said Mr. Furlong. "All said and done they've onlyone large asset--Dr. Dumfarthing. We're really offering to buy up Dr.Dumfarthing by pooling our assets with theirs."

  "And what does Dr. Dumfarthing himself say to it?"

  "Ah, there I am not so sure," said Mr. Furlong; "that may be adifficulty. So far there hasn't been a word from him, and his trusteesare absolutely silent about his views. However, we shall soon know allabout it. Skinyer is asking us all to come together one evening nextweek to draw up the articles of agreement."

  "Has he got the financial basis arranged then?"

  "I believe so," said Mr. Furlong. "His idea is to form a newcorporation to be known as the United Church Limited or by some similarname. All the present mortgagees will be converted into unifiedbondholders, the pew rents will be capitalized into preferred stock andthe common stock, drawing its dividend from the offertory, will bedistributed among all members in standing. Skinyer says that it isreally an ideal form of church union, one that he thinks is likely tobe widely adopted. It has the advantage of removing all questions ofreligion, which he says are practically the only remaining obstacle toa union of all the churches. In fact it puts the churches once and forall on a business basis."

  "But what about the question of doctrine, of belief?" asked Mr.Newberry.

  "Skinyer says he can settle it," answered Mr. Furlong.

  * * * * *

  About a week after the above conversation the united trustees of St.Asaph's and St. Osoph's were gathered about a huge egg-shaped table inthe board room of the Mausoleum Club. They were seated in intermingledfashion after the precedent of the recent Tin Pot Amalgamation and weresmoking huge black cigars specially kept by the club for the promotionof companies and chargeable to expenses of organization at fifty centsa cigar. There was an air of deep peace brooding over the assembly, asamong men who have accomplished a difficult and meritorious task.

  "Well, then," said Mr. Skinyer, who was in the chair, with a pile ofdocuments in front of him, "I think that our general basis of financialunion may be viewed as settled."

  A murmur of assent went round the meeting. "The terms are set forth inthe memorandum before us, which you have already signed. Only one otherpoint--a minor one--remains to be considered. I refer to the doctrinesor the religious belief of the new amalgamation."

  "Is it necessary to go into that?" asked Mr. Boulder.

  "Not entirely, perhaps," said Mr. Skinyer. "Still there have been, asyou all know, certain points--I won't say of disagreement--but let ussay of friendly argument--between the members of the differentchurches--such things for example," here he consulted his papers, "asthe theory of the creation, the salvation of the soul, and so forth,have been mentioned in this connection. I have a memorandum of themhere, though the points escape me for the moment. These, you may say,are not matters of first importance, especially as compared with theintricate financial questions which we have already settled in asatisfactory manner. Still I think it might be well if I were permittedwith your unanimous approval to jot down a memorandum or two to beafterwards embodied in our articles."

  There was a general murmur of approval. "Very good," said Mr. Skinyer,settling himself back in his chair. "Now, first, in regard to thecreation," here he looked all round the meeting in a way to commandattention--"Is it your wish that we should leave that merely to agentlemen's agreement or do you want an explicit clause?"

  "I think it might be well," said Mr. Dick Overend, "to leave no doubtabout the theory of the creation."

  "Good," said Mr. Skinyer. "I am going to put it down then somethingafter this fashion: 'On and after, let us say, August 1st proximo, theprocess of the creation shall be held, and is hereby held, to be suchand such only as is acceptable to a majority of the holders of commonand preferred stock voting pro rata.' Is that agreed?"

  "Carried," cried several at once.

  "Carried," repeated Mr. Skinyer. "Now let us pass on"--here heconsulted his notes--"to item two, eternal punishment. I have made amemorandum as follows, 'Should any doubts arise, on or after Augustfirst proximo, as to the existence of eternal punishment they shall besettled absolutely and finally by a pro-rata vote of all the holders ofcommon and preferred stock.' Is that agreed?"

  "One moment!" said Mr. Fyshe, "do you think that quite fair to thebondholders? After all, as the virtual holders of the property, theyare the persons most interested. I should like to amend your clause andmake it read--I am not phrasing it exactly but merely giving the senseof it--that eternal punishment should be reserved for the mortgageesand bondholders."

  At this there was an outbreak of mingled approval and dissent, severalpersons speaking at once. In the opinion of some the stockholders ofthe company, especially the preferred stockholders, had as good a rightto eternal punishment as the bondholders. Presently Mr. Skinyer, whohad been busily writing notes, held up his hand for silence.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "will you accept this as a compromise? We willkeep the original clause but merely add to it the words, 'but no formof eternal punishment shall be declared valid if displeasing to athree-fifths majority of the holders of bonds.'"

  "Carried, carried," cried everybody.

  "To which I think we need only add," said Mr. Skinyer, "a clause to theeffect that all other points of doctrine, belief or religious principlemay be freely altered, amended, reversed or entirely abolished at anygeneral annual meeting!"

  There was a renewed chorus of "Carried, carried," and the trustees rosefrom the table shaking hands with one another, and lighting freshcigars as they passed out of the club into the night air.

  "The only thing that I don't understand," said Mr. Newberry to Dr.Boomer as they went out from the club arm in arm (for they might nowwalk in that fashion with the same propriety as two of the principalsin a distillery merger), "the only thing that I don't understand is whythe Reverend Mr. Dumfarthing should be willing to consent to theamalgamation."

  "Do you really not know?" said Dr. Boomer.

  "No."

  "You have heard nothing?"

  "Not a word," said
Mr. Newberry.

  "Ah," rejoined the president, "I see that our men have kept it veryquiet--naturally so, in view of the circumstances. The truth is thatthe Reverend Mr. Dumfarthing is leaving us."

  "Leaving St. Osoph's!" exclaimed Mr. Newberry in utter astonishment.

  "To our great regret. He has had a call--a most inviting field of work,he says, a splendid opportunity. They offered him ten thousand onehundred; we were only giving him ten thousand here, though of coursethat feature of the situation would not weigh at all with a man likeDumfarthing."

  "Oh no, of course not," said Mr. Newberry.

  "As soon as we heard of the call we offered him ten thousand threehundred--not that that would make any difference to a man of hischaracter. Indeed Dumfarthing was still waiting and looking forguidance when they offered him eleven thousand. We couldn't meet it. Itwas beyond us, though we had the consolation of knowing that with sucha man as Dumfarthing the money made no difference."

  "And he has accepted the call?"

  "Yes. He accepted it today. He sent word to Mr. Dick Overend ourchairman, that he would remain in his manse, looking for light, untiltwo-thirty, after which, if we had not communicated with him by thathour, he would cease to look for it."

  "Dear me," said Mr. Newberry, deep in reflection, "so that when yourtrustees came to the meeting--"

  "Exactly," said Dr. Boomer--and something like a smile passed acrosshis features for a moment "Dr. Dumfarthing had already sent away histelegram of acceptance."

  "Why, then," said Mr. Newberry, "at the time of our discussion tonight,you were in the position of having no minister."

  "Not at all. We had already appointed a successor."

  "A successor?"

  "Certainly. It will be in tomorrow morning's papers. The fact is thatwe decided to ask Dr. McTeague to resume his charge."

  "Dr. McTeague!" repeated Mr. Newberry in amazement. "But surely hismind is understood to be--"

  "Oh not at all," interrupted Dr. Boomer. "His mind appears if anything,to be clearer and stronger than ever. Dr. Slyder tells us thatparalysis of the brain very frequently has this effect; it soothes thebrain--clears it, as it were, so that very often intellectual problemswhich occasioned the greatest perplexity before present no difficultywhatever afterwards. Dr. McTeague, I believe, finds no trouble now inreconciling St. Paul's dialectic with Hegel as he used to. He says thatso far as he can see they both mean the same thing."

  "Well, well," said Mr. Newberry, "and will Dr. McTeague also resume hisphilosophical lectures at the university?"

  "We think it wiser not," said the president. "While we feel that Dr.McTeague's mind is in admirable condition for clerical work we fearthat professorial duties might strain it. In order to get the fullvalue of his remarkable intelligence, we propose to elect him to thegoverning body of the university. There his brain will be safe from anyshock. As a professor there would always be the fear that one of hisstudents might raise a question in his class. This of course is not adifficulty that arises in the pulpit or among the governors of theuniversity."

  "Of course not," said Mr. Newberry.

  * * * * *

  Thus was constituted the famous union or merger of the churches of St.Asaph and St. Osoph, viewed by many of those who made it as thebeginning of a new era in the history of the modern church.

  There is no doubt that it has been in every way an eminent success.

  Rivalry, competition, and controversies over points of dogma havebecome unknown on Plutoria Avenue. The parishioners of the two churchesmay now attend either of them just as they like. As the trustees arefond of explaining it doesn't make the slightest difference. The entirereceipts of the churches, being now pooled, are divided withoutreference to individual attendance. At each half year there is issued aprinted statement which is addressed to the shareholders of the UnitedChurches Limited and is hardly to be distinguished in style or materialfrom the annual and semi-annual reports of the Tin Pot Amalgamation andthe United Hardware and other quasi-religious bodies of the sort. "Yourdirectors," the last of these documents states, "are happy to informyou that in spite of the prevailing industrial depression the grossreceipts of the corporation have shown such an increase as to justifythe distribution of a stock dividend of special Offertory StockCumulative, which will be offered at par to all holders of common orpreferred shares. You will also be gratified to learn that thedirectors have voted unanimously in favour of a special presentation tothe Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing on the occasion of his approachingmarriage. It was earnestly debated whether this gift should take theform, as at first suggested, of a cash presentation, or as afterwardssuggested, of a written testimonial in the form of an address. Thelatter course was finally adopted as being more fitting to thecircumstances and the address has accordingly been prepared, settingforth to the Rev. Dr. Dumfarthing, in old English lettering andwording, the opinion which is held of him by his former parishioners."

  The "approaching marriage" referred of course to Dr. Dumfarthing'sbetrothal to Juliana Furlong. It was not known that he had ever exactlyproposed to her. But it was understood that before giving up his chargehe drew her attention, in very severe terms, to the fact that, as hisdaughter was now leaving him, he must either have someone else to lookafter his manse or else be compelled to incur the expense of a paidhousekeeper. This latter alternative, he said, was not one that hecared to contemplate. He also reminded her that she was now at a timeof life when she could hardly expect to pick and choose and that herspiritual condition was one of, at least, great uncertainty. Thesecombined statements are held, under the law of Scotland at any rate, tobe equivalent to an offer of marriage.

  Catherine Dumfarthing did not join her father in his new manse. Shefirst remained behind him, as the guest of Philippa Overend for a fewweeks while she was occupied in packing up her things. After that shestayed for another two or three weeks to unpack them. This had beenrendered necessary by a conversation held with the Reverend EdwardFareforth Furlong, in a shaded corner of the Overend's garden. Afterwhich, in due course of time, Catherine and Edward were married, theceremony being performed by the Reverend Dr. McTeague whose eyes filledwith philosophical tears as he gave them his blessing.

  So the two churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph stand side by sideunited and at peace. Their bells call softly back and forward to oneanother on Sunday mornings and such is the harmony between them thateven the episcopal rooks in the elm trees of St. Asaph's and thepresbyterian crows in the spruce trees of St. Osoph's are known toexchange perches on alternate Sundays.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: The Great Fight for Clean Government

  "As to the government of this city," said Mr. Newberry, leaning back ina leather armchair at the Mausoleum Club and lighting a second cigar,"it's rotten, that's all."

  "Absolutely rotten," assented Mr. Dick Overend, ringing the bell for asecond whiskey and soda.

  "Corrupt," said Mr. Newberry, between two puffs of his cigar.

  "Full of graft," said Mr. Overend, flicking his ashes into the grate.

  "Crooked aldermen," said Mr. Newberry.

  "A bum city solicitor," said Mr. Overend, "and an infernal grafter fortreasurer."

  "Yes," assented Mr. Newberry, and then, leaning forwards in his chairand looking carefully about the corridors of the club, he spoke behindhis hand and said, "And the mayor's the biggest grafter of the lot. Andwhat's more," he added, sinking his voice to a whisper, "the time hascome to speak out about it fearlessly."

  Mr. Overend nodded. "It's a tyranny," he said.

  "Worse than Russia," rejoined Mr. Newberry.

  * * * * *

  They had been sitting in a quiet corner of the club--it was on a Sundayevening--and had fallen into talking, first of all, of the presentrottenness of the federal politics of the United States--notargumentatively or with any heat, but with the reflective sadness thatsteals over an elderly man when he sits in the leather armchair of acomfortable club smoking a good cigar and musing on
the decadence ofthe present day. The rottenness of the federal government didn't angerthem. It merely grieved them.

  They could remember--both of them--how different everything was whenthey were young men just entering on life. When Mr. Newberry and Mr.Dick Overend were young, men went into congress from pure patriotism;there was no such thing as graft or crookedness, as they both admitted,in those days; and as for the United States Senate--here their voiceswere almost hushed in awe--why, when they were young, the United StatesSenate--

  But no, neither of them could find a phrase big enough for theirmeaning.

  They merely repeated "as for the United States Senate--" and then shooktheir heads and took long drinks of whiskey and soda.

  Then, naturally, speaking of the rottenness of the federal governmenthad led them to talk of the rottenness of the state legislature. Howdifferent from the state legislatures that they remembered as youngmen! Not merely different in the matter of graft, but different, so Mr.Newberry said, in the calibre of the men. He recalled how he had beentaken as a boy of twelve by his father to hear a debate. He would neverforget it. Giants! he said, that was what they were. In fact, the thingwas more like a Witenagemot than a legislature. He said he distinctlyrecalled a man, whose name he didn't recollect, speaking on a questionhe didn't just remember what, either for or against he just couldn'trecall which; it thrilled him. He would never forget it. It stayed inhis memory as if it were yesterday.

  But as for the present legislature--here Mr. Dick Overend sadly noddedassent in advance to what he knew was coming--as for the presentlegislature--well--Mr. Newberry had had, he said, occasion to visit thestate capital a week before in connection with a railway bill that hewas trying to--that is, that he was anxious to--in short in connectionwith a railway bill, and when he looked about him at the men in thelegislature--positively he felt ashamed; he could put it no other waythan that--ashamed.

  After which, from speaking of the crookedness of the state governmentMr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were led to talk of the crookednessof the city government! And they both agreed, as above, that thingswere worse than in Russia. What secretly irritated them both most wasthat they had lived and done business under this infernal corruptionfor thirty or forty years and hadn't noticed it. They had been too busy.

  The fact was that their conversation reflected not so much their ownoriginal ideas as a general wave of feeling that was passing over thewhole community.

  There had come a moment--quite suddenly it seemed--when it occurred toeverybody at the same time that the whole government of the city wasrotten. The word is a strong one. But it is the one that was used. Lookat the aldermen, they said--rotten! Look at the city solicitor, rotten!And as for the mayor himself--phew!

  The thing came like a wave. Everybody felt it at once. People wonderedhow any sane, intelligent community could tolerate the presence of aset of corrupt scoundrels like the twenty aldermen of the city. Theirnames, it was said, were simply a byword throughout the United Statesfor rank criminal corruption. This was said so widely that everybodystarted hunting through the daily papers to try to find out who inblazes were aldermen, anyhow. Twenty names are hard to remember, and asa matter of fact, at the moment when this wave of feeling struck thecity, nobody knew or cared who were aldermen, anyway.

  To tell the truth, the aldermen had been much the same persons forabout fifteen or twenty years. Some were in the produce business,others were butchers, two were grocers, and all of them wore bluecheckered waistcoats and red ties and got up at seven in the morning toattend the vegetable and other markets. Nobody had ever really thoughtabout them--that is to say, nobody on Plutoria Avenue. Sometimes onesaw a picture in the paper and wondered for a moment who the personwas; but on looking more closely and noticing what was written underit, one said, "Oh, I see, an alderman," and turned to something else.

  "Whose funeral is that?" a man would sometimes ask on Plutoria Avenue."Oh just one of the city aldermen," a passerby would answer hurriedly."Oh I see, I beg your pardon, I thought it might be somebody important."

  At which both laughed.

  * * * * *

  It was not just clear how and where this movement of indignation hadstarted. People said that it was part of a new wave of public moralitythat was sweeping over the entire United States. Certainly it was beingremarked in almost every section of the country. Chicago newspaperswere attributing its origin to the new vigour and the fresh ideals ofthe middle west. In Boston it was said to be due to a revival of thegrand old New England spirit. In Philadelphia they called it the spiritof William Penn. In the south it was said to be the reassertion ofsouthern chivalry making itself felt against the greed and selfishnessof the north, while in the north they recognized it at once as aprotest against the sluggishness and ignorance of the south. In thewest they spoke of it as a revolt against the spirit of the east and inthe east they called it a reaction against the lawlessness of the west.But everywhere they hailed it as a new sign of the glorious unity ofthe country.

  If therefore Mr. Newberry and Mr. Overend were found to be discussingthe corrupt state of their city they only shared in the nationalsentiments of the moment. In fact in the same city hundreds of othercitizens, as disinterested as themselves, were waking up to therealization of what was going on. As soon as people began to look intothe condition of things in the city they were horrified at what theyfound. It was discovered, for example, that Alderman Schwefeldampf wasan undertaker! Think of it! In a city with a hundred and fifty deaths aweek, and sometimes even better, an undertaker sat on the council! Acity that was about to expropriate land and to spend four hundredthousand dollars for a new cemetery, had an undertaker on theexpropriation committee itself! And worse than that! Alderman Undercuttwas a butcher! In a city that consumed a thousand tons of meat everyweek! And Alderman O'Hooligan--it leaked out--was an Irishman! Imagineit! An Irishman sitting on the police committee of the council in acity where thirty-eight and a half out of every hundred policemen wereIrish, either by birth or parentage! The thing was monstrous.

  So when Mr. Newberry said "It's worse than Russia!" he meant it, everyword.

  * * * * *

  Now just as Mr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were finishing theirdiscussion, the huge bulky form of Mayor McGrath came ponderously pastthem as they sat. He looked at them sideways out of his eyes--he hadeyes like plums in a mottled face--and, being a born politician, heknew by the very look of them that they were talking of something thatthey had no business to be talking about. But,--being a politician--hemerely said, "Good evening, gentlemen," without a sign of disturbance.

  "Good evening, Mr. Mayor," said Mr. Newberry, rubbing his hands feeblytogether and speaking in an ingratiating tone. There is no morepitiable spectacle than an honest man caught in the act of speakingboldly and fearlessly of the evil-doer.

  "Good evening, Mr. Mayor," echoed Mr. Dick Overend, also rubbing hishands; "warm evening, is it not?"

  The mayor gave no other answer than that deep guttural grunt which istechnically known in municipal interviews as refusing to commit oneself.

  "Did he hear?" whispered Mr. Newberry as the mayor passed out of theclub.

  "I don't care if he did," whispered Mr. Dick Overend.

  Half an hour later Mayor McGrath entered the premises of the ThomasJefferson Club, which was situated in the rear end of a saloon and poolroom far down in the town.

  "Boys," he said to Alderman O'Hooligan and Alderman Gorfinkel, who wereplaying freeze-out poker in a corner behind the pool tables, "you wantto let the boys know to keep pretty dark and go easy. There's a lot oftalk I don't like about the elections going round the town. Let theboys know that just for a while the darker they keep the better."

  Whereupon the word was passed from the Thomas Jefferson Club to theGeorge Washington Club and thence to the Eureka Club (coloured), and tothe Kossuth Club (Hungarian), and to various other centres of civicpatriotism in the lower parts of the city. And forthwith such adarkness
began to spread over them that not even honest Diogenes withhis lantern could have penetrated their doings.

  "If them stiffs wants to make trouble," said the president of theGeorge Washington Club to Mayor McGrath a day or two later, "they won'tnever know what they've bumped up against."

  "Well," said the heavy mayor, speaking slowly and cautiously and eyeinghis henchman with quiet scrutiny, "you want to go pretty easy now, Itell you."

  The look which the mayor directed at his satellite was much the sameglance that Morgan the buccaneer might have given to one of hislieutenants before throwing him overboard.

  * * * * *

  Meantime the wave of civic enthusiasm as reflected in the conversationsof Plutoria Avenue grew stronger with every day.

  "The thing is a scandal," said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe. "Why, these fellowsdown at the city hall are simply a pack of rogues. I had occasion to dosome business there the other day (it was connected with the assessmentof our soda factories) and do you know, I actually found that thesefellows take money!"

  "I say!" said Mr. Peter Spillikins, to whom he spoke, "I say! You don'tsay!"

  "It's a fact," repeated Mr. Fyshe. "They take money. I took theassistant treasurer aside and I said, 'I want such and such done,' andI slipped a fifty dollar bill into his hand. And the fellow took it,took it like a shot."

  "He took it!" gasped Mr. Spillikins.

  "He did," said Mr. Fyshe. "There ought to be a criminal law for thatsort of thing."

  "I say!" exclaimed Mr. Spillikins, "they ought to go to jail for athing like that."

  "And the infernal insolence of them," Mr. Fyshe continued. "I went downthe next day to see the deputy assistant (about a thing connected withthe same matter), told him what I wanted and passed a fifty dollar billacross the counter and the fellow fairly threw it back at me, in aperfect rage. He refused it!"

  "Refused it," gasped Mr. Spillikins, "I say!"

  Conversations such as this filled up the leisure and divided thebusiness time of all the best people in the city.

  In the general gloomy outlook, however, one bright spot was observable.The "wave" had evidently come just at the opportune moment. For notonly were civic elections pending but just at this juncture four orfive questions of supreme importance would be settled by the incomingcouncil. There was, for instance, the question of the expropriation ofthe Traction Company (a matter involving many millions); there was thedecision as to the renewal of the franchise of the Citizens' LightCompany--a vital question; there was also the four hundred thousanddollar purchase of land for the new addition to the cemetery, a matterthat must be settled. And it was felt, especially on Plutoria Avenue,to be a splendid thing that the city was waking up, in the moral sense,at the very time when these things were under discussion. All theshareholders of the Traction Company and the Citizens' Light--and theyincluded the very best, the most high-minded, people in the city--feltthat what was needed now was a great moral effort, to enable them tolift the city up and carry it with them, or, if not all of it, at anyrate as much of it as they could.

  "It's a splendid movement!" said Mr. Fyshe (he was a leadingshareholder and director of the Citizens' Light), "what a splendidthing to think that we shan't have to deal for our new franchise with aset of corrupt rapscallions like these present aldermen. Do you know,Furlong, that when we approached them first with a proposition for arenewal for a hundred and fifty years they held us up! Said it was toolong! Imagine that! A hundred and fifty years (only a century and ahalf) too long for the franchise! They expect us to install all ourpoles, string our wires, set up our transformers in their streets andthen perhaps at the end of a hundred years find ourselves compelled tosell out at a beggarly valuation. Of course we knew what they wanted.They meant us to hand them over fifty dollars each to stuff into theirrascally pockets."

  "Outrageous!" said Mr. Furlong.

  "And the same thing with the cemetery land deal," went on Mr. LucullusFyshe. "Do you realize that, if the movement hadn't come along andchecked them, those scoundrels would have given that rogueSchwefeldampf four hundred thousand dollars for his fifty acres! Justthink of it!"

  "I don't know," said Mr. Furlong with a thoughtful look upon his face,"that four hundred thousand dollars is an excessive price, in and ofitself, for that amount of land."

  "Certainly not," said Mr. Fyshe, very quietly and decidedly, looking atMr. Furlong in a searching way as he spoke. "It is _not_ a high price.It seems to me, speaking purely as an outsider, a very fair, reasonableprice for fifty acres of suburban land, if it were the right land. If,for example, it were a case of making an offer for that very finestretch of land, about twenty acres, is it not, which I believe yourCorporation owns on the _other_ side of the cemetery, I should say fourhundred thousand is a most modest price."

  Mr. Furlong nodded his head reflectively.

  "You had thought, had you not, of offering it to the city?" said Mr.Fyshe.

  "We did," said Mr. Furlong, "at a more or less nominal sum--fourhundred thousand or whatever it might be. We felt that for such apurpose, almost sacred as it were, one would want as little bargainingas possible."

  "Oh, none at all," assented Mr. Fyshe.

  "Our feeling was," went on Mr. Furlong, "that if the city wanted ourland for the cemetery extension, it might have it at its ownfigure--four hundred thousand, half a million, in fact at absolutelyany price, from four hundred thousand up, that they cared to put on it.We didn't regard it as a commercial transaction at all. Our reward laymerely in the fact of selling it to them."

  "Exactly," said Mr. Fyshe, "and of course your land was more desirablefrom every point of view. Schwefeldampf's ground is encumbered with agrowth of cypress and evergreens and weeping willows which make itquite unsuitable for an up-to-date cemetery; whereas yours, as Iremember it, is bright and open--a loose sandy soil with no trees andvery little grass to overcome."

  "Yes," said Mr. Furlong. "We thought, too, that our ground, having thetanneries and the chemical factory along the farther side of it, was anideal place for--" he paused, seeking a mode of expressing his thought.

  "For the dead," said Mr. Fyshe, with becoming reverence. And after thisconversation Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Furlong senior understood one anotherabsolutely in regard to the new movement.

  It was astonishing in fact how rapidly the light spread.

  "Is Rasselyer-Brown with us?" asked someone of Mr. Fyshe a few dayslater.

  "Heart and soul," answered Mr. Fyshe. "He's very bitter over the waythese rascals have been plundering the city on its coal supply. He saysthat the city has been buying coal wholesale at the pit mouth at threefifty--utterly worthless stuff, he tells me. He has heard it said thateveryone of these scoundrels has been paid from twenty-five to fiftydollars a winter to connive at it."

  "Dear me," said the listener.

  "Abominable, is it not?" said Mr. Fyshe. "But as I said toRasselyer-Brown, what can one do if the citizens themselves take nointerest in these things. 'Take your own case,' I said to him, 'how isit that you, a coal man, are not helping the city in this matter? Whydon't you supply the city?' He shook his head, 'I wouldn't do it atthree-fifty,' he said. 'No,' I answered, 'but will you at five?' Helooked at me for a moment and then he said, 'Fyshe, I'll do it; atfive, or at anything over that they like to name. If we get a newcouncil in they may name their own figure.' 'Good,' I said. 'I hope allthe other businessmen will be animated with the same spirit.'"

  * * * * *

  Thus it was that the light broke and spread and illuminated in alldirections. People began to realize the needs of the city as they neverhad before. Mr. Boulder, who owned, among other things, a stone quarryand an asphalt company, felt that the paving of the streets was adisgrace. Mr. Skinyer, of Skinyer and Beatem, shook his head and saidthat the whole legal department of the city needed reorganization; itneeded, he said, new blood. But he added always in a despairing tone,how could one expect to run a department with the head of it drawingonly six thousand dollars
; the thing was impossible. If, he argued,they could superannuate the present chief solicitor and get a man, a_good_ man (Mr. Skinyer laid emphasis on this) at, say, fifteenthousand there might be some hope.

  "Of course," said Mr. Skinyer to Mr. Newberry in discussing the topic,"one would need to give him a proper staff of assistants so as to takeoff his hands all the _routine_ work--the mere appearance in court, thepreparation of briefs, the office consultation, the tax revision andthe purely legal work. In that case he would have his hands free todevote himself entirely to those things, which--in fact to turn hisattention in whatever direction he might feel it was advisable to turnit."

  * * * * *

  Within a week or two the public movement had found definite expressionand embodied itself in the Clean Government Association. This wasorganized by a group of leading and disinterested citizens who heldtheir first meeting in the largest upstairs room of the Mausoleum Club.Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, Mr. Boulder, and others keenly interested inobtaining simply justice for the stockholders of the Traction and theCitizens' Light were prominent from the start. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, Mr.Furlong senior and others were there, not from special interest in thelight or traction questions, but, as they said themselves, from purecivic spirit. Dr. Boomer was there to represent the university withthree of his most presentable professors, cultivated men who were ableto sit in a first-class club and drink whiskey and soda and talk aswell as any businessman present. Mr. Skinyer, Mr. Beatem and othersrepresented the bar. Dr. McTeague, blinking in the blue tobacco smoke,was there to stand for the church. There were all-round enthusiasts aswell, such as Mr. Newberry and the Overend brothers and Mr. PeterSpillikins.

  "Isn't it fine," whispered Mr. Spillikins to Mr. Newberry, "to see aset of men like these all going into a thing like this, not thinking oftheir own interests a bit?"

  * * * * *

  Mr. Fyshe, as chairman, addressed the meeting. He told them they werethere to initiate a great free voluntary movement of the people. It hadbeen thought wise, he said, to hold it with closed doors and to keep itout of the newspapers. This would guarantee the league against the oldunderhand control by a clique that had hitherto disgraced every part ofthe administration of the city. He wanted, he said, to see everythingdone henceforth in broad daylight: and for this purpose he had summonedthem there at night to discuss ways and means of action. After theywere once fully assured of exactly what they wanted to do and how theymeant to do it, the league he said, would invite the fullest and freestadvice from all classes in the city. There were none he said, amidgreat applause, that were so lowly that they would not be invited--oncethe platform of the league was settled--to advise and co-operate. Allmight help, even the poorest. Subscription lists would be preparedwhich would allow any sum at all, from one to five dollars, to be givento the treasurer. The league was to be democratic or nothing. Thepoorest might contribute as little as one dollar: even the richestwould not be allowed to give more than five. Moreover he gave noticethat he intended to propose that no actual official of the leagueshould be allowed under its by-laws to give anything. He himself--ifthey did him the honour to make him president as he had heard it hintedwas their intention--would be the first to bow to this rule. He wouldefface himself. He would obliterate himself, content in the interestsof all, to give nothing. He was able to announce similar pledges fromhis friends, Mr. Boulder, Mr. Furlong, Dr. Boomer, and a number ofothers.

  Quite a storm of applause greeted these remarks by Mr. Fyshe, whoflushed with pride as he heard it.

  "Now, gentlemen," he went on, "this meeting is open for discussion.Remember it is quite informal, anyone may speak. I as chairman make noclaim to control or monopolize the discussion. Let everyoneunderstand--"

  "Well then, Mr. Chairman," began Mr. Dick Overend.

  "One minute, Mr. Overend," said Mr. Fyshe. "I want everyone tounderstand that he may speak as--"

  "May I say then--" began Mr. Newberry.

  "Pardon me, Mr. Newberry," said Mr. Fyshe, "I was wishing first toexplain that not only may _all_ participate but that we _invite_--"

  "In that case--" began Mr. Newberry.

  "Before you speak," interrupted Mr. Fyshe, "let me add one word. Wemust make our discussion as brief and to the point as possible. I havea great number of things which I wish to say to the meeting and itmight be well if all of you would speak as briefly and as little aspossible. Has anybody anything to say?"

  "Well," said Mr. Newberry, "what about organization and officers?"

  "We have thought of it," said Mr. Fyshe. "We were anxious above allthings to avoid the objectionable and corrupt methods of a 'slate' anda prepared list of officers which has disgraced every part of our citypolitics until the present time. Mr. Boulder, Mr. Furlong and Mr.Skinyer and myself have therefore prepared a short list of offices andofficers which we wish to submit to your fullest, freest consideration.It runs thus: Hon. President Mr. L. Fyshe, Hon. Vice-president, Mr. A.Boulder, Hon. Secretary Mr. Furlong, Hon. Treasurer Mr. O. Skinyer, etcetera--I needn't read it all. You'll see it posted in the hall later.Is that carried? Carried! Very good," said Mr. Fyshe.

  There was a moment's pause while Mr. Furlong and Mr. Skinyer moved intoseats beside Mr. Fyshe and while Mr. Furlong drew from his pocket andarranged the bundle of minutes of the meeting which he had brought withhim. As he himself said he was too neat and methodical a writer totrust to jotting them down on the spot.

  "Don't you think," said Mr. Newberry, "I speak as a practical man, thatwe ought to do something to get the newspapers with us?"

  "Most important," assented several members.

  "What do you think, Dr. Boomer?" asked Mr. Fyshe of the universitypresident, "will the newspapers be with us?"

  Dr. Boomer shook his head doubtfully. "It's an important matter," hesaid. "There is no doubt that we need, more than anything, the supportof a clean, wholesome unbiassed press that can't be bribed and is notsubject to money influence. I think on the whole our best plan would beto buy up one of the city newspapers."

  "Might it not be better simply to buy up the editorial staff?" said Mr.Dick Overend.

  "We might do that," admitted Dr. Boomer. "There is no doubt that thecorruption of the press is one of the worst factors that we have tooppose. But whether we can best fight it by buying the paper itself orbuying the staff is hard to say."

  "Suppose we leave it to a committee with full power to act," said Mr.Fyshe. "Let us direct them to take whatever steps may in their opinionbe best calculated to elevate the tone of the press, the treasurerbeing authorized to second them in every way. I for one am heartilysick of old underhand connection between city politics and the citypapers. If we can do anything to alter and elevate it, it will be afine work, gentlemen, well worth whatever it costs us."

  * * * * *

  Thus after an hour or two of such discussion the Clean GovernmentLeague found itself organized and equipped with a treasury and aprogramme and a platform. The latter was very simple. As Mr. Fyshe andMr. Boulder said there was no need to drag in specific questions or tryto define the action to be taken towards this or that particulardetail, such as the hundred-and-fifty-year franchise, beforehand. Theplatform was simply expressed as Honesty, Purity, Integrity. This, asMr. Fyshe said, made a straight, flat, clean issue between the leagueand all who opposed it.

  This first meeting was, of course, confidential. But all that it didwas presently done over again, with wonderful freshness and spontaneityat a large public meeting open to all citizens. There was a splendidimpromptu air about everything. For instance when somebody away back inthe hall said, "I move that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe be president of theleague," Mr. Fyshe lifted his hand in unavailing protest as if thiswere the newest idea he had ever heard in his life.

  After all of which the Clean Government League set itself to fight thecohorts of darkness. It was not just known where these were. But it wasunderstood that they were there all right, somewhere. In the platformspeeches of the epoch
they figured as working underground, working inthe dark, working behind the scenes, and so forth. But the strangething was that nobody could state with any exactitude just who or whatit was that the league was fighting. It stood for "honesty, purity, andintegrity." That was all you could say about it.

  Take, for example, the case of the press. At the inception of theleague it has been supposed that such was the venality and corruptionof the city newspapers that it would be necessary to buy one of them.But the word "clean government" had been no sooner uttered than itturned out that every one of the papers in the city was in favour ofit: in fact had been working for it for years.

  They vied with one another now in giving publicity to the idea. The_Plutorian Times_ printed a dotted coupon on the corner of its frontsheet with the words, "Are you in favour of Clean Government? If so,send us ten cents with this coupon and your name and address." The_Plutorian Citizen and Home Advocate_, went even further. It printed acoupon which said, "Are you out for a clean city? If so send ustwenty-five cents to this office. We pledge ourselves to use it."

  The newspapers did more than this. They printed from day to day suchpictures as the portrait of Mr. Fyshe with the legend below, "Mr.Lucullus Fyshe, who says that government ought to be by the people,from the people, for the people and to the people"; and the next dayanother labelled. "Mr. P. Spillikins, who says that all men are bornfree and equal"; and the next day a picture with the words, "Tract ofground offered for cemetery by Mr. Furlong, showing rear of tanneries,with head of Mr. Furlong inserted."

  It was, of course, plain enough that certain of the aldermen of the oldcouncil were to be reckoned as part of the cohort of darkness. That atleast was clear. "We want no more men in control of the stamp ofAlderman Gorfinkel and Alderman Schwefeldampf," so said practicallyevery paper in the city. "The public sense revolts at these men. Theyare vultures who have feasted too long on the prostrate corpses of ourcitizens." And so on. The only trouble was to discover who or what hadever supported Alderman Gorfinkel and Alderman Schwefeldampf. The veryorganizations that might have seemed to be behind them were evidentlymore eager for clean government than the league itself.

  "The Thomas Jefferson Club Out for Clean Government," so ran thenewspaper headings of one day; and of the next, "Will help to clean upCity Government. Eureka Club (Coloured) endorses the League; Is donewith Darkness"; and the day after that, "Sons of Hungary Share in GoodWork: Kossuth Club will vote with the League."

  So strong, indeed, was the feeling against the iniquitous aldermen thatthe public demand arose to be done with a council of aldermenaltogether and to substitute government by a Board. The newspaperscontained editorials on the topic each day and it was understood thatone of the first efforts of the league would be directed towardsgetting the necessary sanction of the legislature in this direction. Tohelp to enlighten the public on what such government meant ProfessorProaser of the university (he was one of the three already referred to)gave a public lecture on the growth of Council Government. He traced itfrom the Amphictionic Council of Greece as far down as the OligarchicalCouncil of Venice; it was thought that had the evening been longer hewould have traced it clean down to modern times.

  But most amazing of all was the announcement that was presently made,and endorsed by Mr. Lucullus Fyshe in an interview, that Mayor McGrathhimself would favour clean government, and would become the officialnominee of the league itself. This certainly was strange. But it wouldperhaps have been less mystifying to the public at large, had they beenable to listen to certain of the intimate conversations of Mr. Fysheand Mr. Boulder.

  "You say then," said Mr. Boulder, "to let McGrath's name stand."

  "We can't do without him," said Mr. Fyshe, "he has seven of the wardsin the hollow of his hand. If we take his offer he absolutely pledgesus every one of them."

  "Can you rely on his word?" said Mr. Boulder.

  "I think he means to play fair with us," answered Mr. Fyshe. "I put itto him as a matter of honour, between man and man, a week ago. Sincethen, I have had him carefully dictaphoned and I'm convinced he'splaying straight."

  "How far will he go with us?" said Mr. Boulder.

  "He is willing to throw overboard Gorfinkel, Schwefeldampf andUndercutt. He says he must find a place for O'Hooligan. The Irish, hesays, don't care for clean government; they want Irish Government."

  "I see," said Mr. Boulder very thoughtfully, "and in regard to therenewal of the franchise and the expropriation, tell me just exactlywhat his conditions are."

  But Mr. Fyshe's answer to this was said so discreetly and in such a lowvoice, that not even the birds listening in the elm trees outside theMausoleum Club could hear it.

  No wonder, then, that if even the birds failed to know everything aboutthe Clean Government League, there were many things which such goodpeople as Mr. Newberry and Mr. Peter Spillikins never heard at all andnever guessed.

  * * * * *

  Each week and every day brought fresh triumphs to the onward march ofthe movement.

  "Yes, gentlemen," said Mr. Fyshe to the assembled committee of theClean Government League a few days later, "I am glad to be able toreport our first victory. Mr. Boulder and I have visited the statecapital and we are able to tell you definitely that the legislaturewill consent to change our form of government so as to replace ourcouncil by a Board."

  "Hear, hear!" cried all the committee men together.

  "We saw the governor," said Mr. Fyshe. "Indeed he was good enough tolunch with us at the Pocahontas Club. He tells us that what we aredoing is being done in every city and town of the state. He says thatthe days of the old-fashioned city council are numbered. They aresetting up boards everywhere."

  "Excellent!" said Mr. Newberry.

  "The governor assures us that what we want will be done. The chairmanof the Democratic State Committee (he was good enough to dine with usat the Buchanan Club) has given us the same assurance. So also does thechairman of the Republican State Committee, who was kind enough to beour guest in a box at the Lincoln Theatre. It is most gratifying,"concluded Mr. Fyshe, "to feel that the legislature will give us such ahearty, such a thoroughly American support."

  "You are sure of this, are you?" questioned Mr. Newberry. "You haveactually seen the members of the legislature?"

  "It was not necessary," said Mr. Fyshe. "The governor and the differentchairmen have them so well fixed--that is to say, they have suchconfidence in the governor and their political organizers that theywill all be prepared to give us what I have described as thoroughlyAmerican support."

  "You are quite sure," persisted Mr. Newberry, "about the governor andthe others you mentioned?"

  Mr. Fyshe paused a moment and then he said very quietly, "We are quitesure," and he exchanged a look with Mr. Boulder that meant volumes tothose who would read it.

  * * * * *

  "I hope you didn't mind my questioning you in that fashion," said Mr.Newberry, as he and Mr. Fyshe strolled home from the club. "The truthis I didn't feel sure in my own mind just what was meant by a 'Board,'and 'getting them to give us government by a Board.' I know I'mspeaking like an ignoramus. I've really not paid as much attention inthe past to civic politics as I ought to have. But what is thedifference between a council and a board?"

  "The difference between a council and a board?" repeated Mr. Fyshe.

  "Yes," said Mr. Newberry, "the difference between a council and aboard."

  "Or call it," said Mr. Fyshe reflectively, "the difference between aboard and a council."

  "Precisely," said Mr Newberry.

  "It's not altogether easy to explain," said Mr. Fyshe. "One chiefdifference is that in the case of a board, sometimes called aCommission, the salary is higher. You see the salary of an alderman orcouncillor in most cities is generally not more than fifteen hundred ortwo thousand dollars. The salary of a member of a board or commissionis at least ten thousand. That gives you at once a very different classof men. As long as you only pay fifteen hundred you
get your councilfilled up with men who will do any kind of crooked work for fifteenhundred dollars; as soon as you pay ten thousand you get men withlarger ideas."

  "I see," said Mr. Newberry.

  "If you have a fifteen hundred dollar man," Mr. Fyshe went on, "you canbribe him at any time with a fifty-dollar bill. On the other hand yourten-thousand-dollar man has a wider outlook. If you offer him fiftydollars for his vote on the board, he'd probably laugh at you."

  "Ah, yes," said Mr. Newberry, "I see the idea. A fifteen-hundred-dollarsalary is so low that it will tempt a lot of men into office merely forwhat they can get out of it."

  "That's it exactly," answered Mr. Fyshe.

  * * * * *

  From all sides support came to the new league. The women of thecity--there were fifty thousand of them on the municipal voterslist--were not behind the men. Though not officials of the league theyrallied to its cause.

  "Mr. Fyshe," said Mrs. Buncomhearst, who called at the office of thepresident of the league with offers of support, "tell me what we cando. I represent fifty thousand women voters of this city--"

  (This was a favourite phrase of Mrs. Buncomhearst's, though it hadnever been made quite clear how or why she represented them.)

  "We want to help, we women. You know we've any amount of initiative, ifyou'll only tell us what to do. You know, Mr. Fyshe, we've just as goodexecutive ability as you men, if you'll just tell us what to do.Couldn't we hold a meeting of our own, all our own, to help the leaguealong?"

  "An excellent idea," said Mr. Fyshe.

  "And could you not get three or four men to come and address it so asto stir us up?" asked Mrs. Buncomhearst anxiously.

  "Oh, certainly," said Mr. Fyshe.

  So it was known after this that the women were working side by sidewith the men. The tea rooms of the Grand Palaver and the other hotelswere filled with them every day, busy for the cause. One of them eveninvented a perfectly charming election scarf to be worn as a sort ofbadge to show one's allegiance; and its great merit was that it was sofashioned that it would go with anything.

  "Yes," said Mr. Fyshe to his committee, "one of the finest signs of ourmovement is that the women of the city are with us. Whatever we maythink, gentlemen, of the question of woman's rights in general--and Ithink we know what we _do_ think--there is no doubt that the influenceof women makes for purity in civic politics. I am glad to inform thecommittee that Mrs. Buncomhearst and her friends have organized all theworking women of the city who have votes. They tell me that they havebeen able to do this at a cost as low as five dollars per woman. Someof the women--foreigners of the lower classes whose sense of politicalmorality is as yet imperfectly developed--have been organized at a costas low as one dollar per vote. But of course with our native Americanwomen, with a higher standard of education and morality, we can hardlyexpect to do it as low as that."

  * * * * *

  Nor were the women the only element of support added to the league.

  "Gentlemen," reported Dr. Boomer, the president of the university, atthe next committee meeting, "I am glad to say that the spirit whichanimates us has spread to the students of the university. They haveorganized, entirely by themselves and on their own account, a Students'Fair Play League which has commenced its activities. I understand thatthey have already ducked Alderman Gorfinkel in a pond near theuniversity. I believe they are looking for Alderman Schwefeldampftonight. I understand they propose to throw him into the reservoir. Theleaders of them--a splendid set of young fellows--have given me apledge that they will do nothing to bring discredit on the university."

  "I think I heard them on the street last night," said Mr. Newberry.

  "I believe they had a procession," said the president.

  "Yes, I heard them; they were shouting 'Rah! rah! rah! CleanGovernment! Clean Government! Rah! rah!' It was really inspiring tohear them."

  "Yes," said the president, "they are banded together to put down allthe hoodlumism and disturbance on the street that has hithertodisgraced our municipal elections. Last night, as a demonstration, theyupset two streetcars and a milk wagon."

  "I heard that two of them were arrested," said Mr. Dick Overend.

  "Only by an error," said the president. "There was a mistake. It wasnot known that they were students. The two who were arrested weresmashing the windows of the car, after it was upset, with their hockeysticks. A squad of police mistook them for rioters. As soon as theywere taken to the police station, the mistake was cleared up at once.The chief-of-police telephoned an apology to the university. I believethe league is out again tonight looking for Alderman Schwefeldampf. Butthe leaders assure me there will be no breach of the peace whatever. AsI say, I think their idea is to throw him into the reservoir."

  In the face of such efforts as these, opposition itself melted rapidlyaway. The _Plutorian Times_ was soon able to announce that variousundesirable candidates were abandoning the field. "Alderman Gorfinkel,"it said, "who, it will be recalled, was thrown into a pond last week bythe students of the college, was still confined to his bed wheninterviewed by our representative. Mr. Gorfinkel stated that he shouldnot offer himself as a candidate in the approaching election. He was,he said, weary of civic honours. He had had enough. He felt itincumbent on him to step out and make way for others who deserved theirturn as well as himself: in future he proposed to confine his wholeattention to his Misfit Semi-Ready Establishment which he was happy tostate was offering as nobby a line of early fall suiting as was everseen at the price."

  * * * * *

  There is no need to recount here in detail the glorious triumph of theelection day itself. It will always be remembered as the purest,cleanest election ever held in the precincts of the city. The citizens'organization turned out in overwhelming force to guarantee that itshould be so. Bands of Dr. Boomer's students, armed with baseball bats,surrounded the polls to guarantee fair play. Any man wishing to cast anunclean vote was driven from the booth: all those attempting tointroduce any element of brute force or rowdyism into the election werecracked over the head. In the lower part of the town scores of willingworkers, recruited often from the humblest classes, kept order withpickaxes. In every part of the city motor cars, supplied by all theleading businessmen, lawyers, and doctors of the city, acted as patrolsto see that no unfair use should be made of other vehicles in carryingvoters to the polls.

  It was a foregone victory from the first--overwhelming and complete.The cohorts of darkness were so completely routed that it waspractically impossible to find them. As it fell dusk the streets werefilled with roaring and surging crowds celebrating the great victoryfor clean government, while in front of every newspaper office hugelantern pictures of _Mayor McGrath the Champion of Pure Government_,and _O. Skinyer, the People's Solicitor_, and the other nominees of theleague, called forth cheer after cheer of frenzied enthusiasm.

  * * * * *

  They held that night in celebration a great reception at the MausoleumClub on Plutoria Avenue, given at its own suggestion by the city. Thecity, indeed, insisted on it.

  Nor was there ever witnessed even in that home of art and refinement ascene of greater charm. In the spacious corridor of the club aHungarian band wafted Viennese music from Tyrolese flutes through therubber trees. There was champagne bubbling at a score of sideboardswhere noiseless waiters poured it into goblets as broad and flat asfloating water-lily leaves. And through it all moved the shepherds andshepherdesses of that beautiful Arcadia--the shepherds in their Tuxedojackets, with vast white shirt-fronts broad as the map of Africa, withspotless white waistcoats girdling their equators, wearing heavy goldwatch-chains and little patent shoes blacker than sin itself--and theshepherdesses in foaming billows of silks of every colour of thekaleidoscope, their hair bound with glittering headbands or coiled withwhite feathers, the very symbol of municipal purity. One would searchin vain the pages of pastoral literature to find the equal of it.

  And as the
y talked, the good news spread from group to group that itwas already known that the new franchise of the Citizens' Light was tobe made for two centuries so as to give the company a fair chance tosee what it could do. At the word of it, the grave faces of manlybondholders flushed with pride, and the soft eyes of listeningshareholders laughed back in joy. For they had no doubt or fear, nowthat clean government had come. They knew what the company could do.

  Thus all night long, outside of the club, the soft note of the motorhorns arriving and departing wakened the sleeping leaves of the elmtrees with their message of good tidings. And all night long, withinits lighted corridors, the bubbling champagne whispered to thelistening rubber trees of the new salvation of the city. So the nightwaxed and waned till the slow day broke, dimming with its cheap prosaicglare the shaded beauty of the artificial light, and the people of thecity--the best of them--drove home to their well-earned sleep; and theothers--in the lower parts of the city--rose to their daily toil.

  END

 

‹ Prev Next ›