In the Arena: Stories of Political Life. Booth Tarkington
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distinctly:
“My knight!” That's what she called him. “My knight!” That's what she said.
I don't know whether I was more disgusted with myself for hearing, or with old Buskirk who spent his whole time frittering around the club library, and let his daughter go in for the sort of soulliness she was carrying on with Farwell Knowles.
Trouble in our ranks began right away. Our nominee knew too much, and did all the wrong things from the start; he began by antagonizing most of our old wheel-horses; he wouldn't consult with us, and advised with his own kind. In spite of that, we had a good organization working for him, and by a week before election I felt pretty confident that our show was as good as Gorgett's. It looked like it would be close.
Just about then things happened. We had dropped onto one of Lafe's little tricks mighty smartly. We got one of his heelers fixed (of course we usually tried to keep all that kind of work dark from Farwell Knowles), and this heeler showed the whole business up for a consideration. There was a precinct certain to be strong for Knowles, where the balloting was to take place in the office-room of a hook-and-ladder company. In the corner was a small closet with one shelf, high up toward the ceiling. It was in the good old free and easy Hayes and Wheeler times, and when the polls closed at six o'clock it was planned that the election officers should set the ballot-box up on this shelf, lock the closet door, and go out for their suppers, leaving one of each side to watch in the room so that nobody could open the closet-door with a pass-key and tamper with the ballots before they were counted. Now, the ceiling over the shelf in the closet wasn't plastered, and it formed, of course, part of the flooring in the room above. The boards were to be loosened by a Gorgett man upstairs, as soon as the box was locked in; he would take up a piece of planking—enough to get an arm in—and stuff the box with Gorgett ballots till it grunted. Then he would replace the board and slide out. Of course, when they began the count our people would know there was something wrong, but they would be practically up against it, and the precinct would be counted for Gorgett.
They brought the heeler up to me, not at headquarters (I was city chairman) but at a hotel room I'd hired as a convenient place for the more important conferences and to keep out of the way of every Tom-Dick-and-Harry grafter. Bob Crowder, a ward committee-man, brought him up and stayed in the room, while the fellow—his name was Genz—went over the whole thing.
“What do you think of it?” says Bob, when Genz finished. “Ain't it worth the money? I declare, it's so neat and simple and so almighty smart besides, I'm almost ashamed some of our boys hadn't thought of it for us.”
I was just opening my mouth to answer, when there was a signal knock at the door and a young fellow we had as a kind of watcher in the next room (opening into the one I used) put his head in and said Mr. Knowles wanted to see me.
“Ask him to wait a minute,” said I, for I didn't want him to know anything about Genz. “I'll be there right away.”
Then came Farwell Knowles's voice from the other room, sharp and excited. “I believe I'll not wait,” says he. “I'll come in there now!”
And that's what he did, pushing by our watcher before I could hustle Genz into the hall through an outer door, though I tried to. There's no denying it looked a little suspicious.
Farwell came to a dead halt in the middle of the room.
“I know that person!” he said, pointing at Genz, his brow mighty black. “I saw him and Crowder sneaking into the hotel by the back way, half an hour ago, and I knew there was some devilish—”
“Keep your shirt on, Farwell,” said I.
He was pretty hot. “I'll be obliged to you,” he returned, “if you'll explain what you're doing here in secret with this low hound of Gorgett's. Do you think you can play with me the way you do with your petty committee-men? If you do, I'll show you! You're not dealing with a child, and I'm not going to be tricked or sold out of this elec—”
I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on a cane-bottomed chair. “That's a dirty thought,” said I, “and if you knew enough to be responsible I reckon you'd have to account for it. As it is—why, I don't care whether you apologize or not.”
He weakened right away, or, at least, he saw his mistake. “Then won't you give me some explanation,” he asked, in a less excitable way, “why are you closeted here with a notorious member of Gorgett's ring?”
“No,” said I, “I won't.”
“Be careful,” said he. “This won't look well in print.”
That was just so plumb foolish that I began to laugh at him; and when I got to laughing I couldn't keep up being angry. It was ridiculous, his childishness and suspiciousness. Right there was where I made my mistake.
“All right,” says I to Bob Crowder, giving way to the impulse. “He's the candidate. Tell him.”
“Do you mean it?” asks Bob, surprised.
“Yes. Tell him the whole thing.”
So Bob did, helped by Genz, who was more or less sulky, of course; and is wasn't long till I saw how stupid I'd been. Knowles went straight up in the air.
“I knew it was a dirty business, politics,” he said, jumping out of his chair, “but I didn't realize it before. And I'd like to know,” he went on, turning to me, “how you learn to sit there so calmly and listen to such iniquities. How do you dull your conscience so that you can do it? And what course do you propose to follow in the matter of this confession?”
“Me?” I answered. “Why, I'm going to send supper in to our fellows, and the box'll never see that closet. The man upstairs may get a little tired. I reckon the laugh's on Gorgett; it's his scheme and—”
Farwell interrupted me; his face was outrageously red. “What! You actually mean you hadn't intended to expose this infamy?”
“Steady,” I said. I was getting a little hot, too, and talked more than I ought. “Mr. Genz here has our pledge that he's not given away, or he'd never have—”
“Mister Genz!” sneered Farwell. “Mister Genz has your pledge, has he? Allow me to tell you that I represent the people, the honest people, in this campaign, and that the people and I have made no pledges to Mister Genz. You've paid the scoundrel—”
“Here!” says Genz.
“The scoundrel!” Farwell repeated, his voice rising and rising, “paid him for his information, and I tell you by that act and your silence on such a matter you make yourself a party to a conspiracy.”
“Shut the transom,” says I to Crowder.
“I'm under no pledge, I say,” shouted Farwell, “and I do not compound felonies. You're not conducting my campaign. I'm doing that, and I don't conduct it along such lines. It's precisely the kind of fraud and corruption that I intend to stamp out in this town, and this is where I begin to work.”
“How?” said I.
“You'll see—and you'll see soon! The penitentiaries are built for just this—”
“Sh, sh!” said I, but he paid no attention.
“They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury,” he went on. “Well, let him! Within a week I'll be mayor of this town—and Gorgett's Grand Jury won't outlast his defeat very long. By his own confession this man Genz is party to a conspiracy with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are witnesses to the confession. I'll see that you have the pleasure of giving your testimony before a Grand Jury of determined men. Do you hear me? And tomorrow afternoon's Herald will have the whole infamous story to the last word. I give you my solemn oath upon it!”
All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang to our feet. We were considerably worked up, and none of us said anything for a minute or so, just looked at Knowles.
“Yes,