"Now," said he, standing in his place, "I want to say a few words before a man leaves this room. I know something of this case, and I want you to take my word that there's no more foundation for it than there would be if it were brought against any one of us. And furthermore, there must be nothing said about this. These papers are not on record yet, and I believe something can be done. Why, confound it, something shall be done! Every man must pledge me his word that he won't breathe a word of this, and will deny it if asked about it."

"We promise!" came the unanimous shout.

Alvord walked toward the guest of honor, tripping over the legs of Bulliwinkle as he went, and offered his hand to Amidon.

"I say, old man, I warned you that you were carrying on a little strong; and now here's a--"

"How-de-do!" said Bulliwinkle.

_In vino veritas_! Truly, most bibulous Bulliwinkle, thou hast supplied the very word to convey the meaning for which we at this moment desire expression! Here's a how-de-do indeed! Just as our friend Amidon has made a successful lodgment in the outworks of Port Waldron--a citadel which he had taken by stratagem, abandoned for conscience' sake, and re-invested on lines of fairer warfare, to say nothing of the investment of the mayoralty--the hope of victory is swallowed up in a sea of disasters. The meeting on the stairway, the repudiation of Mrs. Hunter, the arrested flirtation in the east room: all these--any of these--were enough: but what hope for us remains, after this sensational summons, served in the small hours of a baccha.n.a.lian revel, in a breach-of-promise action at the suit of the dreadful "Strawberry Blonde"? Verily, Bulliwinkle, here is indeed a how-de-do!

"Old man," said Mr. Alvord, in private communication to Mr. Amidon at parting, "we're none of us in condition to discuss this calmly now; but don't give up. It's a blow, but with our pull with the press, and our personal relations with c.o.x, can be squelched, I believe. Until after election----"

"Until when?" asked Amidon dazedly.

"After election," answered Alvord. "After that, while it will be a blow, of course, it won't wreck things quite so completely, you know.

And even if it does sort of leak out, it's one of those mix-ups that lots of voters'll rather admire you for, you know. It may react in your favor, if we can----"

"Mr. Alvord," said Amidon, "please to understand that I don't care a rush, one way or the other, about this election!"

"Now, now, don't say that!" said Alvord soothingly. "I can see how you feel, 'Gene--pride, and affection, and Bessie, and the wedding coming on--but, pshaw, we lots of us have things kind of tangle up on us coming in on the home stretch of a pretty swift heat! Go home, and don't worry too much. I'm with you, and we'll win. F. D. and B., you know. Keep the other strings pulling right--it's only a day or so now.

Good night, old man, and brace up! See you to-morrow."

One rather likes the optimistic fighter--purely as a fighter--of the Alvord stripe. He was so occupied with plans for the next day's battle that the dubious features of the contest were already clearing up in his mind with the forming of plans for attacking the situation. A few hours of sleep, and he was up and at them. His telephone called up the editors of the town with the morning star. Long before the enemy could have known of the breach in his works, his trusty troops were busy filling it up. He was almost happy again, when Edgington rushed into his presence with a newspaper crushed in his clenched fist, and all sorts of disaster depicted in his expression.

"Jim," he cried, "have you seen this?"

"No," answered Alvord. "It ain't that Scarlett business? I thought I'd got that----"

"No, no! It isn't that!" groaned Edgington. "But we're done, all the same! Done to a finish! You might as well close the headquarters and go home, for if we win, on this platform, we lose, and all the money we've put in is lost! I tell you, Jim, 'Gene Bra.s.sfield is either insane--and I believe it's that--or he's the d.a.m.nedest traitor and sneak and two-faced hound that ever stepped, and I'll have it out with him! Some way, if I wait ten years, I'll have it out with him, if I have to do it with a gun! His business leaves my office at once. Why, there aren't words fit for me to use, to describe the miserable, false, lying----"

"See here, Edge!" said Alvord. "We may be done, as you say, but Eugene Bra.s.sfield has made you, and he's my friend, and you'd better not go on like that, here! Let me see that paper!"

Edgington threw it to him. In heavy type he saw the fateful platform summarized in a black-bordered panel on the first page:

BRa.s.sFIELD'S PLATFORM

1. Strict enforcement of early closing regulations for saloons.

2. No franchises except on public bidding, and ample provision for subsequent acquisition by the city.

3. Gambling laws to be strictly enforced.

4. Segregation of vice.

5. Vote of the people on all important measures.

6. Appointments non-partizan on the merit system.

7. Publication of all items of campaign expenses.

Alvord fell back in utter dismay. Then he read in full the manifesto which Amidon and Elizabeth had prepared; and, folding up the paper, he stuck it in a drawer, which he locked, as if thereby to seal up the direful news. For a moment he felt betrayed and utterly defeated.

Then he straightened himself for a resumption of the battle.

"See here, Edge," he said insinuatingly, "this is pretty bad, I admit.

I think, myself, that Bra.s.s is off his head. He 'phoned me once about this, but he's such a josher, and it was such wild-eyed lunacy that I thought he was kidding. You'd have thought so, too, in my place. But we can pull through yet. We can convince the sports that this high-moral business is only for the church people, and the civic purity push. Why, Bra.s.sfield himself couldn't make Fatty Pierson believe he stands for this stuff. It's so out of reason,--the safe and sane life he's lived. And I'll undertake to keep the G.o.d-and-morality folks lined up, because these are really the things they say they want. This ain't going to be so very bad, after all, Edge!"

"Bad!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Edgington. "Why, Alvord, you're so wrapped up in Bra.s.sfield that you're ready to go crazy with him!"

"Well, I want to say right here," shouted Alvord, "that if you think I'm going to quit on a man I've eaten with and slept with and sworn to stay by--By gad, I won't!"

"Well, stay by him, then!" cried Edgington. "Go on and b.u.t.t your brains out on this stone wall of ism, and see where you come out.

You're already beaten. The other side knew about this last night, and you'll be blown out of water before to-morrow morning. Doctor Bulkon and his crowd are already lined up against you: the doctor will take the position that Bra.s.sfield's proposal to segregate vice is a compromise with sin, and that that's the paramount issue. Why, Pumphrey and Johnson and the Williams set are all among his best-paying parishioners, and they've put the screws to Bulkon--who doesn't see the point, anyhow. I tell you that there are too many pillars of the church with downtown property to rent, for you to keep either them or their pastors in line. They'll find moral issues to fight the ten commandments on, if they have to. You ought to know this, Jim."

"Well," said Alvord, "let the Pharisees oppose us! I'll appeal to the liberal element. I'll convince 'em that Bra.s.sfield don't mean this stuff. They like him, and they'll stick!"

"Stick!" sneered Edgington. "Like him! You make me tired, Jim! How long will they 'stick' against the influence of their landlords and bankers? Why, they've all read this platform, and the story has gone down the line that Bra.s.sfield is so infatuated with Miss Waldron that he's allowing her to write his platform, and that she'll be the mayor.

Don't you think that that won't cut the ground from under you, either!

A saloon man or gambler fears a good woman's influence as a wolf fears fire. Why, Jim, when this 'advanced thought' platform of yours comes to be voted on, there won't be any one for it except thick-and-thin party men who 'never scratch.' Now I'm not going down with any such sinking scow. I shall make terms for my financial interests with the other side."

"Go, then!" shouted Alvord, "and find you've hopped out of the frying pan into the fire! By George, I tell you we've got the money to buy this election!"

"Oh!" said Edgington, "_have_ you! And how about your publishing an itemized account of campaign expenses?"

Alvord, his last card played, fell back beaten, every vestige of optimistic pugnacity gone from his face. Edgington laid his hand on the other's shoulder, in sympathy.

"I tell you, Jim," said he, as he departed, "this is no place nor time to run a reform campaign. Bra.s.sfield isn't the candidate for it, and you're not the manager. You're simply fish trying to fly. Come with me and we'll get into our natural element."

"Not by a good deal," said Alvord stubbornly. "I don't know anything in this but Bra.s.sfield, and to him I'll stick!"

"As you please," said Edgington. "But keep the lid on the Scarlett business!"

Alvord made no reply. But when Edgington was gone he took up his work with a groan of real distress.

XXIII

THE MOVING FINGER WRITES

To the Queen came the guard full of zeal: Haled in bonds the Pretender: "Shall it be noose or knout, rack or wheel?"

But her proud face grew tender.

Down she stepped from her throne--made him free; "Love," she said, with a sigh, "What is rank? You are you, we are we, I am I!"

--_The Cheating of Zen.o.bia_.

I should like to write, just here, a little disquisition on Crises. I should show how all nature moves ever on and on toward certain cataclysmic events, each of which marks a point of departure for new ascents in progression. I should begin, of course, with the Nebular Hypothesis, its crash of suns, followed by the evolution of the star and its system of planets, its life, cooling, death, and a fresh crisis forming a new nebula. I should end with either Revolutions or Malaria, depending on whether I should last consider the subject in its relation to sociology or to pathology; but in any case, somewhere along in the latter third of the work, I should treat of Love and Marriage, and therein of the Crisis and Catastrophe in Romance.