A Spoil of Office Part 25

"h.e.l.lo, Cargill!" called a smooth, jovial voice.

"Ah, Barney! Talcott, this is an excellent opportunity. This is Barney, the great railway lobbyist. Barney, here is a new victim for you--Talcott, of Rock."

"Glad to see you, Mr. Talcott."

Bradley shook hands with moderate enthusiasm, looking into Barney's face with great interest. The lobbyist was large and portly and smiling. His moustache drooped over his mouth, and his chin had a jolly-looking hollow in it. His hazel eyes, once frank and honest, were a little clouded with drink.

"Cargill is an infernal old cynic," he exclaimed, "and he is corporation mad. Don't size us up according to his estimate."

It did not seem possible that this man could be the great tool of the railway interest, and yet that was his reputation.

Cargill moralized on the members, as they walked on: "Barney's on his rounds getting hold of the new members. He scents a corruptible man as the buzzard does carrion. Every session young fellows like you come down here with high and beautiful ideas of office, and start in to reform everything, and end by becoming meat for Barney and his like.

There is something destructive in the atmosphere of politics."

Bradley listened to Cargill incredulously. These things could not be true. These groups of jovial, candid-looking men could not be the moral wrecks they were represented. He had expected to see men who looked villainous in some way, with bloated faces--disreputable, beery fellows. He had not risen to the understanding that the successful villain is always plausible.

When he left the Capitol and went down the steps with Cargill, he felt that he had fairly entered upon the work of his term.

"Now, young man," said Cargill, as they parted, "let me advise you. The fight of this session is going to be the people against the corporations. There are two positions and only two. You take your choice. If you side with the corporation, your success will be instantaneous. You can rig out, and board at the Richwood, and be dined out, and taken to see the town Sat.u.r.day nights, and retire with a nice little boost and a record to apologize for when you go back to Rock River; that is, you can go in for all that there is in it, or you can take your chances with the people."

"I will take the chances with the people."

"Well, now, hold on! Don't deceive yourself. The people are a mob yet.

They are fickle as the flames o' h.e.l.l. They don't know what they do want, but in the end the man that leads them and stands by them is sure of success."

The daily walk down from the Capitol was very beautiful. As the sun sank low it struck through the smoke of the city, and flooded the rotunda of the building with a warm, red light, which lay along the floor in great streams of gold, and warmed each pillar till it glowed like burnished copper. At such moments the muddy streets, the poor hovels, the ugly bricks, lost to sight beneath the majesty and mystery of the sun-transfigured smoke and the purple deeps of the lower levels (out of which the searching, pitiless light had gone), became a sombre and engulfing flood of luminous darkness.

"Here, here!" Cargill said one day, when Bradley called his attention to the view, "a man can swear and get drunk and be a politician; but when he likes flowers or speaks of a sunset, his goose is cooked. It is political death."

XXI.

BRADLEY AND CARGILL CALL ON IDA.

Bradley had come to like Cargill very much. He was very thoughtful in his haphazard way, but not at all like Radbourn. Bradley compared every man he met with Radbourn and Judge Brown, and every woman suffered comparison with Ida Wilbur.

He went down to meet Cargill on the night of the promised call. He found him seated on the small of his back, his hands in his pockets.

His absurd little hat (that seemed to partake of his every mood) was rolled into a point in front, and pulled down aggressively over his eyes. He was particularly violent, and paid no attention whatever to Bradley.

"No, sir; I am not a prohibitionist. My position is just this: If we vote prohibition in Iowa, the government has no business to license men to sell contrary to our regulations."

"That's state's rights!" burst in the other man who was trembling with rage and excitement.

Cargill slowly rose, transfixing him with a glare. "Go way, now; I won't waste any more time on you," he said, walking off with Bradley.

"Let me see, we were going to the club to-night." He looked down at his boots. "Yes, they are s.h.i.+ned; that puts a dress suit on me." As he walked along, he referred to Miss Wilbur. "She is a great woman, but she is abnormal from my point of view."

"Why so?" inquired Bradley.

"Well, look at the life she leads. On the road constantly, living at hotels. A woman can't hold herself up against such things."

"It depends upon the woman," was Bradley's succinct protest against sweeping generalizations.

It was crisp and clear, and the sound of their feet rang out in the still air as if they trod on gla.s.s at every step. They talked very little. Bradley wanted to tell Cargill that he had already met Miss Wilbur, but he could not see his way clear to make the explanation.

Cargill was unwontedly silent.

The Norwegian girl ushered them into a pretty little parlor, where a beautiful fire of coal was burning in an open grate. While they stood warming their stiffened hands at the cheerful blaze, Ida entered.

"Mr. Cargill, this is an unexpected pleasure."

"I wonder how sincere you are in that. This is my friend Mr. Talcott."

Ida moved toward Bradley with her hand cordially extended. "I think we have met before," she said.

"I call him my friend," said Cargill, "because he has not known me long enough to become my enemy."

"That is very good, Mr. Cargill. Sit down, won't you? Please give me your coats." She moved about in that pleasant bustle of reception so natural to women.

Cargill slid down into a chair in his disjointed fas.h.i.+on. "We came to attend the intellectual sit-down."

"Why, that doesn't meet to-night! It meets every other Friday, and this is the other Friday."

"Oh, is it? So much the better; we will see you alone."

Ida turned gravely to Bradley. "Mr. Cargill is not often in this mood.

I generally draw him off into a fight on Mr. Howell's, Thackeray or Scott."

"She prefers me in armor," Cargill explained, "and on horseback. My intellectual bowleggedness, so to say, and my moral squint are less obtrusive at an alt.i.tude."

Ida laughed appreciatively. "Your extraordinary choice of figures would distinguish you among the symbolists of Paris," she replied.

This all seemed very brilliant and droll to Bradley, and he sat with unwavering eyes fixed upon Ida, who appeared to him in a new light, more softly alluring than ever--that of the hostess. She was dressed in some loose, rich-colored robe, which had the effect of drapery.

"When did you get back?" Cargill inquired, a little more humanly.

"Yesterday, and I am just in the midst of the luxury of feeling at home, with no journeys to make to-morrow. I have a friend I would like to introduce to you," she said, rising and going out. She returned in a few moments with a tall young lady in street dress, whom she introduced as Miss Ca.s.siday.

In a short time Cargill had involved Miss Ca.s.siday in a discussion of the decline of literature, which left Ida free to talk with Bradley. It was the most beautiful evening in his life. He talked as never before.

He told her of his reading, and of his plans. He told her of his election to the legislature.

"Ah, that is good!" she said; "then we have one more champion of women in our State House."

"Yes, I will do what I can," he said.

"I will be here to hear you. I am one of the committee in charge of the bill."

The firelight fell upon her face, flus.h.i.+ng its pallor into a beauty that exalted the young farmer out of his fear and reticence. They talked upon high things. He told her how he had studied the social question, since hearing her speak in Iowa City. He called to her mind great pa.s.sages in the books she had sent him, and quoted paragraphs which touched upon the fundamental questions at issue. He spoke of his hopes of advancement.