The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
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rightly deemed that the other railroads of the state would eventually fall like ripe fruit into their caps--owning the ground under the tree, as they would. A movement, which we need not go unto, was first made upon the courts, and for a while adverse decisions came down like summer rain. A genius by the name of Jethro Bass had for many years presided (in the room of the governor and council at the State House) at the political birth of justices of the Supreme Court. None of them actually wore livery, but we have seen one of them--along time ago--in a horse blanket. None of them were favorable to the plans of Mr. Worthington and Mr. Duncan.
We have listened to the firing on the skirmish lines for a long time, and now the real battle is at hand. It is June, and the Legislature is meeting, and Bijah Bixby has come down to the capital at the head of his regiment of mercenaries, of which Mr. Sutton is the honorary colonel; the clans are here from the north, well quartered and well fed; the Throne Room, within the sacred precincts of which we have been before, is occupied. But there is another headquarters now, too, in the Pelican House--a Railroad Room; larger than the Throne Room, with a bath-room leading out of it. Another old friend of ours, Judge Abner Parkinson of Harwich, he who gave the sardonic laugh when Sam Price applied for the post of road agent, may often be seen in that Railroad Room from now on. The fact is that the judge is about to become famous far beyond the confines of Harwich; for he, and none other, is the author of the Consolidation Bill itself.
Mr. Flint is the generalissimo of the allied railroads, and sits in his headquarters early and late, going over the details of the campaign with his lieutenants; scanning the clauses of the bill with Judge Parkinson for the last time, and giving orders to the captains of mercenaries as to the disposition of their forces; writing out passes for the deserving and the true. For these latter, also, and for the wavering there is a claw-hammer on the marble-topped mantel wielded by Mr. Bijah Bixby, pro tem chief of staff--or of the hammer, for he is self-appointed and very useful. He opens the mysterious packing cases which come up to the Railroad Room thrice a week, and there is water to be had in the bath-room--and glasses. Mr. Bixby also finds time to do some of the scouting about the rotunda and lobbies, for which he is justly celebrated, and to drill his regiment every day. The Honorable Heth Sutton, M.C.,--who held the bridge in the Woodchuck Session,--is there also, sitting in a corner, swelled with importance, smoking big Florizel cigars which come from--somewhere. There are, indeed, many great and battle-scarred veterans who congregate in that room--too numerous and great to mention; and saunterers in the Capitol Park opposite know when a council of war is being held by the volumes of smoke which pour out of the window, just as the Romans are made cognizant by the smoking of a chimney of when another notable event takes place.
Who, then, are left to frequent the Throne Room? Is that ancient seat of power deserted, and does Jethro Bass sit there alone behind the curtains, in his bitterness, thinking of other bright June days that are gone?
Of all those who had been amazed when Jethro Bass suddenly emerged from his retirement and appeared in the capital some months before, none were more thunderstruck than certain gentlemen who had been to Coniston repeatedly, but in vain, to urge him to make this very fight. The most important of these had been Mr. Balch, president of the "Down East" Road, and the representatives of two railroads of another state. They had at last offered Jethro fabulous sums to take charge of their armies in the field--sums, at least, that would seem fabulous to many people, and had seemed so to them. When they heard that the lion had roused and shaken himself and had unaccountably come forth of his own accord, they hastened to the state capital to renew their offers. Another shock, but of a different kind, was in store for them. Mr. Balch had not actually driven the pack-mules, laden with treasure, to the door of the Pelican House, where Jethro might see them from his window; but he requested a private audience, and it was probably accidental that the end of his personal check-book protruded a little from his pocket. He was a big, coarse-grained man, Mr. Balch, who had once been a brakeman, and had risen by what is known as horse sense to the presidency of his road. There was a wonderful sunset beyond the Capitol, but Mr. Balch did not talk about the sunset, although Jethro was watching it from behind the curtains.
"If you are willing to undertake this fight against consolidation," said Mr. Balch, "we are ready to talk business with you."
"D-don't know what you're going to, do," answered Jethro; "I'm going to prevent consolidation, if I can."
"All right," said Balch, smiling. He regarded this reply as one of Jethro's delicate euphemisms. "We're prepared to give that same little retainer."
Jethro did not look up. Mr. Balch went to the table and seized a pen and filled out a check for an amount that shall be nameless.
"I have made it payable to bearer, as usual," he said, and he handed it to Jethro.
Jethro took it, and absently tore it into little pieces, and threw the pieces on the floor. Mr. Balch watched him in consternation. He began to think the report that Jethro had reached his second childhood was true.
"What in Halifax are you doing, Bass?" he cried.
"W-want to stop this consolidation, don't you--want' to stop it?"
"Certainly I do."
"G-goin' to do all you can to stop it hain't you?"
"Certainly I am."
"I-I'll help you," said Jethro.
"Help us!" exclaimed Balch. "Great Scott, we want you to take charge of it."
"I-I'll do all I can, but I won't guarantee it--w-won't guarantee it," said Jethro.
"We don't ask you to guarantee it. If you'll do all you can, that's enough. You won't take a retainer?"
"W-won't take anything," said Jethro.
"You mean to say you don't want anything for your for your time and your services if the bill is defeated?"
"T-that's about it, Ed. Little p-private matter with both of us. You don't want consolidation, and I don't. I hain't offered to give you a retainer--have I?"
"No," said the astounded Mr. Balch. He scratched his head and fingered the leaves of his check-book. The captains over the tens and the captains over the hundreds would want little retainers--and who was to pay these? "How about the boys?" asked Mr. Balch.
"S-still got the same office in the depot--hain't you, Ed, s-same office?"
"Yes."
"G-guess the boys hev b'en there before," said Jethro.
Mr. Balch went away, meditating upon those sayings, and took the train for Boston. If he had waked up of a fine morning to find himself at the head of some benevolent and charitable organization, instead of the "Down East" Railroad, he could not have been more astonished than he had been at the unaccountable change of heart of Jethro Bass. He did not know what to make of it, and told his colleagues so; and at first they feared one of two things,--treachery or lunacy. But a little later a rumor reached Mr. Balch's ears that Jethro's hatred of Isaac D. Worthington was at the bottom of his reappearance in public life, although Jethro himself never mentioned Mr. Worthington's name. Jethro sat in the Throne Room, consulting, directing day after day, and when the Legislature assembled, "the boys" began to call at Mr. Balch's office. But Mr. Balch never again broached the subject of money to Jethro Bass.
We have to sing the song of sixpence for the last time in these pages; and as it is an old song now, there will be no encores. If you can buy one member of the lower house for ten dollars, how many members can you buy for fifty? It was no such problem in primary arithmetic that Mr. Balch and his associates had to solve--theirs was in higher mathematics, in permutations and combinations, and in least squares. No wonder the old campaigners speak with tears in their eyes of the days of that ever memorable summer. There were spoils to be picked up in the very streets richer