"There's no time now for any political discussions," retorted Morrison, curtly. "It's a matter right now of side-tracking a fight. If that fight comes off, Governor North, the truth will come out. And you can't point to a principle in your case as an excuse for bloodshed!"

"If a mob attacks this State House there's got to be a fight."

"It takes two to make a fight, sir. Order General Totten to march his troops out of the State House. Machine-guns and all! Tell 'em to go home and go to bed."

That audacious advice was a second bomb!

After a few moments Senator Corson leaped out of his chair, strode across the room, and plucked his coat and hat from the divan. "Come along, Daunt!" he counseled, his voice cracking hoa.r.s.ely.

"Hold on, Senator!" expostulated the Governor. "I need your help!"

"I won't allow myself to be mixed into this mess, North. I can't afford to help shoulder the blame where I have not been fully informed. And I won't allow a lunatic to endanger my life. Come on, Daunt, I tell you!"

"If you're bound to go, I'll go along, too," proffered the Governor, rising hastily. "This thing can be handled. It's got to be handled. We'll go where this infernal, clattering loom from St. Ronan's mill can't break up a gentlemen's conference."

Stewart did not suggest that the gentlemen remain; nor did he offer to go; nor did he plead for a decision. He stood quietly and watched them pull on their overcoats.

The Senator led the retreat toward the private door.

Morrison dropped the captured bunch of keys into his pocket.

Rellihan held his club horizontally in front of him with both hands.

"Get out of the way!" yelped Corson.

The officer shook his head.

"General Totten, open that door."

"No chance!" Rellihan growled.

North wagged his way close to the barring "fender" and shook an admonitory finger under the policeman's nose. "I'm the Governor of this state! I order you to move away from that door."

"I can't help what ye are! I'm taking me orders on'y fr'm the mayor o'

Marion."

"You see, gentlemen!" suggested Morrison. "It looks as if we'd be obliged to settle our business right where we are--in this room. Time is short.

Won't you come back here to the table?"

There was absolute silence in the Executive Chamber--a silence that continued. The dignitaries at the door deigned to accord to Morrison neither glance nor word; they would not indulge his incredible audacity to that extent. As to Rellihan, they did not feel like stooping so low as to waste words on the impa.s.sive giant who personified an ignorant insolence that made no account of personalities. They adventured in no move against that obstacle in their path, either by concerted attack or individual effort to pa.s.s. They looked like wakened sleepers who were struggling with the problems proposed in a nightmare. It was a situation which seemed beyond solution by the ordinary sensible methods.

After a time Governor North voiced in a coa.r.s.e manner, inadequately, some expression of the emotion that was dominating the group. "What in h.e.l.l is the matter with us, anyway?"

Again there was a prolonged silence.

"Seeing that n.o.body else seems to want to express an opinion on the subject, I'll tell you what the matter is, as I look at it," ventured Stewart, chattily matter-of-fact. "We're all native-born Americans in this room. Right down deep in our hearts we're not afraid of our soldiers. We good-naturedly indulge the boys when they are called on to exercise authority. But from the time an American youngster begins to steal apples and junk and throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s and break windows a healthy fear of a regular cop is ingrained in him. It's a fear he doesn't stop to a.n.a.lyze. It's just there, that's all he knows. Even a perfectly law-abiding citizen walking home late feels a little tingle of anxiety in him when he marches past a cop. Puts on an air as much as to say, 'I hope you think I'm all right, officer--tending right to my own business!' So, in this case, it's only your ingrained American nature talking to you, gentlemen! You're all right! Nothing is the matter with you! It ought to please you because you feel that way! Proves you are truly American. 'Don't monkey with the cop!'

Just as long as we obey that watchword we've got a good government!"

Senator Corson was more infuriated by that bland preachment than he would have been by vitriolic insult. While he marched back to the table he prefaced his arraignment of Morrison by calling him an impudent pup. He dwelt on that subject with all his power of invective for some minutes.

"I agree with you, Senator," admitted Morrison when Corson stopped to gather more ammunition of anathema. "But what are you going to do about it?"

He asked the same question after the Senator had finished a statement of his opinion on the obstinacy of the lunkhead at the door.

The Senator kept on in his objurgation. But whenever he looked at the door he found the policeman there, an immovable obstacle.

Whenever Corson looked at Morrison he met everlastingly that hateful query.

Both the question and the cop were impossible, impa.s.sable. Corson found the thing too outrageously ridiculous to be handled by sane argument; his insanity in declamation was getting him nowhere.

"There's only one subject before the meeting," insisted Stewart. "We've got to keep this state from being ashamed of itself when it wakes up to-morrow morning!"

Somewhere, in some hidden place in the room, a subdued buzzing began and continued persistently.

The understanding that pa.s.sed between Corson and North in the glance which they exchanged was immediate and highly informative, even had the observer been obtuse. But in that crisis Stewart Morrison was not obtuse.

Whether it was deference, one to the other, or caution in general that was dominating the Senator and the Governor was not clearly revealed by their countenance. At any rate, they made no move.

"Pardon me, Senator Corson," said Stewart. "I'm quite sure I know where the other end of that telephone line is. I think your daughter is calling!" His inquisitive eyes were searching the walls of the chamber; the source of the buzzing was not easily to be located by the sound.

The Governor suddenly dumped himself out of his chair and started across the room.

Morrison strode into His Excellency's path and extended a restraining arm that was as authoritative as Rellihan's club. "I beg your pardon, too, Governor! But that call is undoubtedly for Senator Corson. I happen to know quite a lot about the conveniences in his residence!"

"And all the evening you have been using that knowledge to help you in violating my hospitality! Morrison, you're not much else than a sneak!"

affirmed Corson.

The Governor struck his fist against the rigid arm and spat an oath in Morrison's face, "Get out of my way! I'm in my own office--I'll tend to that call!"

"No, you'll not!" was Morrison's quick rejoinder. "Senator Corson, if you want to inform your daughter that you're all safe--if you want to ask her not to worry, you'd better answer. But I must insist that a private line shall not be used to convey out of this room any of our public business!"

Corson then became the only moving figure in the tableau; he went to the wall, pushed aside a huge frame which held the state's coat of arms, and pulled from a niche a telephone on an extension arm. He proceeded to display his utter contempt for commands issuing from the absurd interloper who was presuming in such dictation to dignity "Yes! Lana! Call High-sheriff Dalton! As quickly as possible! Tell him to secure a posse.

Tell him I'm in the State House, threatened by a lunatic. Tell him--"

By that time Morrison was at Corson's side and was wresting the instrument from the wall. He broke off the arm and the wires and flung them across the room.

"There's fight enough on the docket, as the thing stands, without calling in another bunch to make it three-sided, sir! Rellihan, open the door for Mac Tavish! Andy, run to the public booth in the corridor and call Dalton and tell him to pay no attention to any hullabaloo by hysterical women.

Tell him I said so! Ask him to keep that to himself. And rush back!"

He turned on the Senator and the Governor.

There was no longer apology or compromise in the demeanor of the mayor of Marion. "I know I'm a rank outsider! You needn't try to tell me what I know myself. I didn't think I'd need to be so rank! But I'm just what you're forcing me to be. I have jumped in here to stop something that there's no more sense in than there is in a dog-fight. They may fight in spite of all I can do! But, by the G.o.ds! I'm not going to stand by and see men like you rub their ears! Senator Corson, I advise you and Governor North to go and sit down. You're only making spectacles of yourselves!"

XV