The Booming of Acre Hill, and Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life Part 10

"And they must be out-of-doors?" asked Mrs. Perkins. "If I set the cloisonne lamp in the window, it wouldn't do?"

"No," said Thaddeus. "They must be out-of-doors."

"Well, I hope the nasty old public will stay there too, and not come traipsing all over my house," snapped Mrs. Perkins, indignantly.

And then for a little time the discussion of the Mayor's lamps stopped.

The campaign went on, and Thaddeus night after night was forced to go out to speak here and there and everywhere. One night he travelled five miles through mud and rain to address an organization of tax-payers, and found them a.s.sembled before the long mahogany counter of a beer-saloon, which was the "Hall" they had secured for the reception of the idol of their hopes; and among them it is safe to say there was not one who ever saw a tax-bill, and not many who knew more about those luxuries of life than the delicious flunky, immortalized by Mr. Punch, who says to a brother flunky, "I say, Tummas, wot is taxes?" And he told them his principles and promised to do his best for them, and bade them good-night, and went away leaving them parched and dry and downcast. And then the other fellow came, and won their hearts and "set them up again." Another night he attended another meeting and lost a number of friends because he shone at both ends but not in the middle. If he had taken a glittering coin or two from his vest-pocket on behalf of the n.o.ble working-men there a.s.sembled in great numbers and spirituous mood, they would have forgiven him his wit and patent-leather shoes--and so it went. Perkins was nightly hauled hither and yon by the man he called his "Hagenbeck," the manager of the wild animal he felt himself gradually degenerating into, and his wife and home and children saw less of him than of the unimportant floating voter whose mind was open to conviction, but could be reached only by way of the throat.

"Two o'clock last night; one o'clock the night before; I suppose it'll be three before you are in to-night?" Mrs. Perkins said, ruefully.

"I do not know, my dear," replied Thaddeus. "There are five meetings on for to-night."

"Well, I think they ought to give you the lamps now," said Mrs. Perkins.

"It seems to me this is when you need them most."

"True," said Thaddeus, sadly, for in his secret soul he was beginning to be afraid he would be elected; and now that he saw what kind of people Mayors have to a.s.sociate with, the glory of it did not seem to be worth the cost. "I'm a sort of Night-Mayor just at present, and those lamps would come in handy in the wee sma' hours," he groaned. And then he sighed and pined for the peaceful days of yore when he was content to walk his ways with no nation upon his shoulders.

"I never envied Atlas anyhow," he confided to himself later, as he tossed about upon his bed and called himself names. "It always seemed to me that this revolving globe must rub the skin off his neck and back; but now, poor devil, with just one munic.i.p.ality hanging over me, I can appreciate more than ever the difficulties of his position--except that he doesn't have to make speeches to 'tax-payers.' Humph! Taxpayers! It's tax-makers. If I'd promised to go into all sorts of wilderness improvement for the sole and only purpose of putting these 'tax-payers'

on the corporation at the expense of real laboring-men, I'd win in a canter."

"What is the matter, Thaddeus?" said Mrs. Perkins, coming in from the other room. "Can't you sleep?"

"Don't want to sleep, my dear," returned the candidate. "When I go to sleep I dream I'm addressing ma.s.s-meetings. I can't enjoy my rest unless I stay awake. Did your mother come to-day?"

"Yes--and, oh, she's so enthusiastic, Teddy!"

"At last! About me? You don't mean it."

"No--about the lamps. She says lamps are just what we need to complete the entrance. She thinks Mr. Berkeley's scheme of putting them on the stone posts is the best. There's more dignity about it. Putting them on the piazza steps, she says, looks ostentatious, and suggests a beer-saloon or a road-house."

"Well, my dear, that's about all politics seems to amount to," said the reformer. "If those lamps are to be a souvenir of the campaign, they ought to suggest road-houses and beer-saloons."

"They will not be souvenirs of a campaign," replied Mrs. Perkins, proudly. "They will be the outward and visible sign of my husband's merit; the emblem of victory."

"The red badge of triumph, eh?" smiled the candidate, wanly. "Well, my dear, have them where you please, and keep them well filled with alcohol, even if they do burn gas. They'll represent the tax-payers when they get that."

"You musn't get so tired, Thaddeus dear," said the little woman, smoothing his forehead soothingly with her hand. "You seem unusually tired to-night."

"I am," said Thaddeus, shortly. "The debate wore me out."

"Did you debate? I thought you said you wouldn't."

"Well, I did. Everybody said I was afraid to meet Captain Haskins on the platform, so we had it out to-night over in the Tenth Ward. I talked for sixty-eight minutes, gave 'em my views, and then he got up."

"What did he say. Could he answer you?"

"No--but he won the day. All he said was: 'Well, boys, I'm not much of a talker, but I'll say one thing--Perkins, while my adversary, is still my friend, and I'm proud of him. Now, if you'll all join me at the bar, we'll drink his health--on me.'" Thaddeus paused, and then he added: "I imagine they're cheering yet; at any rate, if I have as much health as they drink--on Haskins--I'll double discount old Methuselah in the matter of years."

The next morning at breakfast the pale and nervous standard-bearer was affectionately greeted by his mother-in-law.

"I've been thinking about those lamps all night," she said, after a few minutes. "The trouble about the gate-posts is that you have three gate-posts and only two lamps."

"Maybe they'd let us buy three lamps instead of two," suggested Mrs.

Perkins.

"Well, we won't, even if they do let us," observed Perkins, with some irritation. He had just received a newspaper from a kind friend in Ma.s.sachusetts with a comic biography and dissipated wood-cut of himself in it. "I'm not starting a concert-hall, and I'm not going to put a row of lamps along the front of my place."

"I quite agree with you," replied his mother-in-law. "It occurred to me we might put them, like hanging lanterns, on each of the chimneys. It would be odd."

Thaddeus muttered two syllables to himself, the latter of which sounded like M'dodd, but exactly what it was he said I can only guess. Then he added: "They won't go there. I can't get a gas-pipe up through those chimneys. It's as much as we can do to get the smoke up, much less a gas-pipe. Even if we got the gas-pipe through, it wouldn't do. A putty-blower would choke up the flues."

"Well, I don't know," said the mother-in-law, placidly. "It seems to me--"

A glance from Mrs. Perkins stopped the dear old lady. I think Mrs.

Perkins's sympathetic disposition taught her that her husband was having a hard time being agreeable, and that further discussion of the lamp question was likely to prove disastrous.

Thaddeus was soon called for by his manager, and started out to meet the leading lights of the Hungarian and Italian quarters. The Germans had been made solid the day before, and as for the Irish, they were supposed to be with Perkins on principle, because Perkins was not in accord politically with the existing administration.

"It's too bad he's so nervous," said his mother-in-law, as he went out.

"They say women are nervous, but I must say I don't think much of the endurance of men. How absurd he was when he spoke of the gas-pipe through the chimney!"

"Well, I suppose, my dear mother," said Mrs. Perkins, sadly--"I suppose he can't be bothered with little details like the lamps now. There are other questions to be considered."

"What is the exact issue?" asked the mother-in-law, interestedly.

"Well--the tariff, and--ah--and taxes, and--ah--money, and--ah--ah--I think the saloon question enters in somehow. I believe Mr. Haskins wants more of them, and Thaddeus says there are too many of them as it is. And now they are both investigating them, I fancy, because Teddy was in one the other day."

"We ought to help him a little," said the elder woman. "Let's just relieve him of the whole lamp question; decide where to put them, go to New York and pick them out, get estimates for the laying of the pipes, and surprise him by having them all ready to put up the day after election."

"Wouldn't it be fun!" cried Mrs. Perkins, delightedly. "He'll be so surprised--poor dear boy. I'll do it. I'll send down this morning for Mr. O'Hara to come up here and see how we can make the connection and where the trenches for the pipes can be laid. Mr. O'Hara is the best-known contractor in town, and I guess he's the man we want."

And immediately O'Hara was telephoned for to come up to Mr. Perkins's, and the fair conspirators were not aware of, and probably will never realize, the importance politically of that act. Mr. O'Hara refused to come, but it was hinted about that Perkins had summoned him, and there was great joy among the rank and file, and woe among the better elements, for O'Hara was a boss, and a boss whose power was one of the things Thaddeus was trying to break, and the cohorts fancied that the apostle of purity had realized that without O'Hara reform was fallen into the pit. Furthermore, as cities of the third cla.s.s, like Dumfries Corners, live conversationally on rumors and gossipings, it was not an hour before almost all Dumfries Corners, except Thaddeus Perkins himself and his manager, knew that the idol had bowed before the boss's hat, and that the boss had returned the grand message that he'd see Perkins in the Hudson River before he'd go to his d.a.m.ned mugwump temple; and in two hours they also knew it, for they heard in no uncertain terms from the secretary of the Munic.i.p.al Club, a reform organization, which had been instrumental in securing Perkins's nomination, who demanded to know in an explicit yes or no as to whether any such message had been sent. The denial was made, and then the lie was given; and many to this day wonder exactly where the truth lay. At any rate, votes were lost and few gained, and many a worthy friend of good government lost heart and bemoaned the degeneration of the gentleman into the politician.

Perkins, worn out, irritated by, if not angry at, what he termed the underhanded lying of the opposition, drove home for luncheon, and found his wife and her mother in a state of high dudgeon. They had been insulted.

"It was frightful the language that man used, Thaddeus," said Mrs.

Perkins.

"He wouldn't have dared do it except by telephone," put in the mother-in-law, whose notions were somewhat old-fas.h.i.+oned. "I've always hated that machine. People can lie to you and you can't look 'em in the eye over it, and they can say things to your face with absolute opportunity."

The dear old lady meant impunity, but it must be remembered that she was excited.

"Well, I think he ought to be chastised," said Mrs. Perkins.

"Who? What are you talking about?" demanded Thaddeus.

"That nasty O'Hara man," said Mrs. Perkins. "He said 'he'd be d.a.m.ned'

over the wire."