“I surrender,” he announced with ponderous playfulness. “What do you want of me?”
“How unkind of you, Mr. Clark! I was about to try my craftiest wiles upon you,” returned Miss Ames regretfully.
“Then it’s a subscription. I withdraw the white flag. I’ll fight.”
“Please! That is exactly what I do not wish you to do. I wish you to make peace.”
“Have I a quarrel with you?”
“Not yet. With some friends of mine. With The Guardian.”
The public utilitarian’s expression changed; became more impersonal and observant. “Young Robson,” he remarked. “He’s been talking to you.”
“No. It was Mr. Galpin that told me about it.”
“You’re his emissary?”
“Oh, no! You must not suppose that. I come to you quite of my own accord.”
“Why this extreme interest in The Guardian, Miss Ames?”
“Because I—There is a reason for—Circumstances—”
“Over which you have no control,” suggested her vis-à-vis.
“Over which I have no control,” she accepted, and her hand went to her throat—(Mr. Montrose Clark, seeing the swift color pulse into her face, discarded Andrew Galpin from consideration and came back to Jeremy Robson and wondered whether that pernicious journalist knew how lucky he was), “have given me a—an interest, a responsibility—” Marcia Ames was experiencing unwonted difficulties in explaining what was perhaps not fundamentally clear to herself.
“I see,” answered the magnate mendaciously.
“If you saw as I see,” she retorted earnestly, “you would not be opposing and trying to ruin The Guardian.”
“But bless my soul, my dear young lady! That is precisely what The Guardian has been doing to me. You haven’t been reading it these few years past.”
“Oh, yes. Every day. I do not pretend to understand that part of it. But I do know this; that Mr. Rob—that The Guardian is making a fight single-handed for the Nation and the war, and is being beaten because those who should stand by it are not patriotic enough to forget old scores. Have you stopped to think of that, Mr. Clark?”
The magnate shifted uncomfortably in his seat. To say that he had stopped to think of this would be untrue. Rather, the thought had essayed to stop him and force itself on his consideration with increasing pertinacity of late, and he had barely contrived to dodge it and go on about his lawful occasions. Now it challenged him in the clear regard of a very beautiful and very determined young woman.
“No. Yes,” said Montrose Clark, and left that for her to take her pick of. “One wouldn’t think you the kind to take such an interest in politics.”
“Is this politics—exactly?” she asked quietly.
Upon Montrose Clark’s chubby facial contours appeared a heightened color. “No; by thunder! It isn’t. Will you sit here, young lady, and keep out of sight of pursuers until I can catch and fetch Selden Dana?”
Marcia had not long to wait. The Judge was retrieved from a circle of the elderly, harmless, but influential, with whom he had been discussing cures. The two men sat and drank more tea than was good for them, while Marcia made her argument and plea. Then said Selden Dana to Montrose Clark, smiling: “Let’s buy out The Guardian and turn it over to her to run.”
“We might do worse,” conceded the magnate.
“It is not to be bought,” said Marcia.
“Have you tried?” the lawyer flashed at her. “You have,” he answered himself, marking the response in her face. “Well, I am dashed!” He and Montrose Clark exchanged glances. “Business is business,” observed the lawyer with apparent irrelevance, but in the tone of one who strives to recall a wandering purpose.
“Quite so!” murmured Montrose Clark. “Quite so!” But there was a lack of conviction in his voice.
“Miss Ames,” said Dana, “I pride myself on being a judge of character. Sometimes I meet a problem that puzzles me. Why hasn’t Jem Robson gone into uniform?”
“Do you think Mr. Robson is a slacker?” she shot back at him.
“Not if I read him right. That’s what puzzles me about his staying behind.”
“Did it not occur to you that he has a more important fight here than there?”
“It might occur to me,” admitted the lawyer. “But I don’t know that I’d care to have it occur to a son of mine.”
She gave him her flashing smile. “That is clever of you,” she said. “I like that! And now I will violate a confidence, but it must go no farther. The doctor would not pass Mr. Robson for active service. Mr. Galpin told me.”
“I never take an afternoon off,” sighed the lawyer, “but some obtrusive business crops up and ruins the day’s sport. Let’s go down to the office, Mr. Clark, and talk this over.”
One more bit of meddling with the irresponsible fates which rule men and newspapers was committed by Miss Ames that afternoon. Magnus Laurens, just off a train, came in late to the tea, and was straightway seized upon.
“Uncle Magnus! Where have you been, all these weeks and months?”
“Well, Marcia!” He took both her hands and looked down into her face. “What a sight you are! If you’re ever allowed to get away from America again, I’ll lose all faith in our young manhood . . . Where have I been? Here and there and everywhere. Organizing the State Council of Defense. Raising money. Trips to Washington. Letting family and business go to the bow-wows.”
“Are you in touch with Fenchester matters?”
“Hello! What’s this? You’re talking like a politician. After my vote?”
“Do you know that The Guardian has been making the fight almost alone here against the anti-war crowd?”
Magnus Laurens rubbed his big, gray head perplexedly. “I’ve got to look into that situation. When Jeremy Robson went back on us—”
“Jeremy Robson never went back on you! At least, not since war was probable. And—and your company is choking The Guardian to death with a contract dishonestly made by Senator Embree’s man, Verrall.”
“The devil! I beg your pardon, Marcia. Where did you learn these interesting facts—if they are facts?”
“From Mr. Galpin.”
“Oh! Hardly a disinterested witness.”
“Uncle Magnus, I wish you to promise me just one thing.”
“Not so foolish! What is it?”
“I wish you to go to the Library this evening—no matter how busy you are—and go over the files of The Guardian since last March.”
“I’ll do that much,” he agreed.
“Then you will do more,” said Marcia contentedly. That first day’s confabulation between Marcia and Galpin, the scope of which its object, Jeremy Robson, little suspected, was bearing fruit.
37
Long years unheard yet unforgotten, the voice of Edwin Garson, President Montrose Clark’s hand-perfected private secretary, warbled with a mellifluous intonation over the telephone wire into the surprised ear of The Guardian’s editor and owner.
“Hello! Hello? Hel-lo . . . This Mr. Robson? . . . Office of the Fenchester Public Utilities. Mr. Montrose Clark wishes to see you.”
An unfortunate formula. It recalled the vivid past. One sweetly solemn thought in Jeremy’s mind was forthwith transmuted into one briefly pregnant speech which shocked the private secretary clean off the wire. Jeremy resumed his editorializing. His next interruption, to his incredulous astonishment, took the important form and presence of Mr. Montrose Clark himself. Mahomet had come to the mountain.
At Jeremy’s invitation Mr. Clark disposed his neat and pursy form upon the far edge of a chair impressively, yet with obvious reservations, as one disdaining to concede anything to comfort. Embarrassment might have been conjectured in one less august. His voice was as stiff as his posture as he began:
“I had my secretary telephone you, Mr. Robson.”
“I got your message.”
“And I your reply, which, as transmitted to me, was that I might go to the devil!”
“I think I mentioned the place, not the proprietor.”
“It does not signify. I am here”—there was no glimmer of light on the round red countenance to suggest an ulterior meaning—“I am here on a matter of business, in my capacity as acting president of the Drovers’ Bank in Mr. Warrington’s absence. As such, I have to inform you that we stand ready to make you a loan on favorable terms upon the security of The Guardian.”
“Wh-wh-why?” stammered Jeremy, taken wholly aback. “Do you consider the paper a sound risk now?”
“Sufficiently sound.”
“Up to what amount?”
“Any amount you need.”
Jeremy stared at him, unbelieving.
“No security I can furnish now is as good as that which you rejected before.”
“That may very well be true.”
“Yet your offer is still open?”
“It is.”
“Ah, yes!” said Jeremy, thinking slowly and carefully. “You’re assuming that, with the change in the local political situation, The Guardian is going to shift its principles. Well, Mr. Clark, if you expect that we’re going back one inch from the stand we’ve taken on public utilities, and the P.-U. Corporation in particular, you’re badly fooled. We’re just as much against you as if we were still for Governor Embree. I thought I had made that clear to Judge Dana.”
“I have proposed no bargain,” stated the magnate aridly. “I make an offer. No conditions are attached.”
“Then I’ve got to tell you frankly that we’re not doing very well.”
“So I am informed. What appears to be the trouble? Will the new paper cut into your circulation to an extent—”
“Newspapers do not live by circulation alone, Mr. Clark, but chiefly by advertising.”
“Certainly; certainly. Local merchants appear to be pretty well represented in your pages.”
“At reduced space—or worse. Take the case of Vogt, the florist, who has always been good for a hundred dollars a month with us. Perhaps you can point out Mr. Vogt’s present space in The Guardian.”
The visitor ran through the paper handed to him.
“I fail to find Mr. Vogt’s advertisement.”
“He’s out.”
“Why?”
“Because The Guardian has been ‘corrupted by British gold.’”
“Indeed! Did he express that theory to you personally?”
“He did. He also instructed me as to running my paper, and gave me the outlines of an editorial demanding that none of our soldiers be sent abroad to help in the war. When I said that I wasn’t interested in pro-German strategy he said something else, in German, which unfortunately I understand a little; and then ‘Police!’”
“Police?” repeated Mr. Clark, with hopeful interest. “Why did he say that?”
“I suppose he thought I was going to throw him downstairs. I wasn’t. I left him carefully on the top step.”
Signs of perturbation appeared upon the visage of the little magnate. He rose. His projective eyes appeared no longer to feel at home in his face. They roved afar.
“Police!” he murmured, and added “Ah!” in a curious, relishing tone. Suddenly he thrust out a pudgy hand, clawed at Jeremy’s unready fingers, murmured “Count on us, Mr. Robson, for anything we can do!”—and stalked out.
“Now, how do you account for him?” inquired Jeremy, referring the matter to Galpin, who had come in to announce another withdrawal.
“Oh, him!” Galpin turned the public utilitarian over in his mind, considering him on all sides. “Wants to use us to club the Governor, I reckon. Now that we’ve quit ‘Smiling Mart,’ plenty of our old enemies will be willing to play with us on the theory that there’ll be a change in policy.”
“They’ll have to make a better guess than that.”
“I guess you’re right, Boss,” sighed the other. “Even if we did borrow, it’d only be postponing the finish. Things won’t get any better for us while the war is on. And when the showdown comes where would The Guardian be if we were in for twenty thousand more?”
“In the hands of the Drovers’ Bank.”
“There or thereabouts. Well, I can’t just see us being editorial copy-boys for President Puff. Can you?”
“Not exactly! Yet, you know, Andy, he gave me almost the impression of being really for us.”
“Well, it’s possible, Boss; it’s just possible”—the other’s shrewd face was puckered in conjecture—“that he might consider this war thing more important than his own little interests. A man who thinks different from us on every other blooming subject under the sun might be every bit as real an American when it comes to the pinch. Ever think of that, Boss?”
“Not just that way.”
“Time enough to find out. Where the lion jumps, the jackal follows. See if Old Slippery Dana doesn’t come round in the next few days.”
Come round Judge Dana did. That candid honesty of expression and demeanor which had aided him in pulling off some of his most dubious tricks was never more markedly in evidence than when he shook hands with Jeremy.
“Ever give any thought to the libel suits against you in the office of Dana & Dana?” he began.
“Some.”
“Bother you any?”
“I’m not losing sleep over them.”
“Now, I’ll admit candidly,” said the lawyer, “that a couple of ’em are no good. They’re dead. But there’s merit in Madam Taylor’s case. You went too far there. Your own lawyers will tell you that.”
“They have,” said Jeremy incautiously, and bit his lip.
“Well, in spite of that, I’ve come to tell you that we’ve advised our client to withdraw the action.”
“Have you?” said the editor warily. “Why?”
“Call it friendship.”
“On your part? For The Guardian?”
“We-ell; say it’s because I foresee that the paper is going to have plenty of troubles of its own without our adding to them.”
“You haven’t always been so solicitous as to The Guardian’s welfare.”
“Meaning that you would like to understand the reason for my present solicitude?”
“Timeo Danaos,’”1 quoted Jem. “I fear the Danas bearing gifts.”
The lawyer smiled his appreciation.
“I’ve given you the best reason I know.”
“Did Montrose Clark send you here?”
“You don’t like Mr. Clark much, do you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Nor me, either, perhaps?”
“I blush to say that I rather do.”
“But you don’t trust me.”
“Oh, come, Dana! What would you expect!”
“Just for relaxation of the mind, my young friend, what do you think of me?”
“Straight?”
“Straight.”
“I think you’re a slippery old legal crook,” returned Jeremy without hesitation.
“And I think you’re a flitter-witted young fool—ninety-nine times out of a hundred!”
“And the hundredth?”
“That’s what I’m looking at now. By God, you’re an American, anyway! Here, Jem,” he leaned across the table, extending a bony and argumentative forefinger; “if you and I were in the trenches, fighting shoulder to shoulder, it wouldn’t make a pickle’s worth of difference whether you were a sapheaded loon or not, or whether I was a crook or a thief or a murderer, or not. All we’d have to ask of each other would be that we were fighting in the same cause, and with the last drop of our blood, and to the finish! Am I right?”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Well, then! What’s this we’re up against right here in Fenchester? Are we fighting? Or playing tiddledywinks?”
“There’s very little tiddledywinks in it, so far as The Guardian is concerned,” confessed Jeremy with a wry face.
“So far as any of us are concerned. It’s coming to the place where it’s a case of get togeth
er and stick together for us Americans. Seen Magnus Laurens since the Governor’s little soirée?”
“No,” answered Jem, flushing.
“Laurens thought you were in on Embree’s deal. Why don’t you put him right?”
“He can put himself right,” returned the editor shortly.
“Hardly that; but he can be put right. There are a lot of things that ought to be put right for you, my boy. Things that have been wrong for a long time.”
He leaned to Jeremy again, his long face alight with an eager and innocent candor.
“Jem, there’s no use fighting your friends. The people that can help you, the people that are the real Americans of your kind, you’ve always opposed. Come in with us now. There’s nothing that won’t be done for you and The Guardian. I’m going to talk plain talk. Isn’t it about time you made up your mind to be good?”
“How be good? What’s on the carpet now?”
“Why, this fight against the pacifists and pro-Germans.”
“You don’t have to tell me to be good for that. Something else is up.” He eyed the lawyer with a bitter grin. “I might have known you had something up your sleeve. What is it, the Blanket Franchise Bill again?”
“That’s a perfectly fair bill,” defended the visitor. “But for The Guardian, it would have gone through before. Now—”
“Now we’ll kill it again if it shows its crooked head. Tell Montrose Clark that from me. And tell him that I won’t need any loan from the Drovers’ Bank to do it.”
“Very well,” sighed the lawyer. “No hard feelings, my boy. Business is business.”
Reporting to his chief, Dana stated:
“He won’t dicker.”
Common Cause Page 35
