第129章
"Is any of it news to you,Hughie,old boy?""It's an outrage.""I think it's funny,"said Ralph."We haven't had such a circus for years.Never had.Of course I shouldn't like to see you go behind the bars,--not that.But you fellows can't expect to go on forever skimming off the cream without having somebody squeal sometime.You ought to be reasonable.""You've skimmed as much cream as anybody else.""You've skimmed the cream,Hughie,--you and Dickinson and Scherer and Grierson and the rest,--I've only filled my jug.Well,these fellows are going to have a regular roof-raising campaign,take the lid off of everything,dump out the red-light district some of our friends are so fond of.""Dump it where?"I asked curiously.
"Oh,"answered Ralph,"they didn't say.Out into the country,anywhere.""But that's damned foolishness,"I declared.
"Didn't say it wasn't,"Ralph admitted."They talked a lot of that,too,incidentally.They're going to close the saloons and dance halls and make this city sadder than heaven.When they get through,it'll all be over but the inquest.""What did Perry do?"I asked.
"Well,he opened the meeting,--made a nice,precise,gentlemanly speech.
Greenhalge and a few young highbrows and a reformed crook named Harrod did most of the hair-raising.They're going to nominate Greenhalge for mayor;and he told 'em something about that little matter of the school board,and said he would talk more later on.If one of the ablest lawyers in the city hadn't been hired by the respectable crowd and a lot of other queer work done,the treasurer and purchasing agent would be doing time.They seemed to be interested,all right."I turned over some papers on my desk,just to show Ralph that he hadn't succeeded in disturbing me.
"Who was in the audience?anyone you ever heard of?"I asked.
"Sure thing.Your cousin Robert Breck;and that son-in-law of his--what's his name?And some other representatives of our oldest families,--Alec Pound.He's a reformer now,you know.They put him on the resolutions committee.Sam Ogilvy was there,he'd be classed as respectably conservative.And one of the Ewanses.I could name a few others,if you pressed me.That brother of Fowndes who looks like an up-state minister.A lot of women--Miller Gorse's sister,Mrs.Datchet,who never approved of Miller.Quite a genteel gathering,I give you my word,and all astonished and mad as hell when the speaking was over.Mrs.
Datchet said she had been living in a den of iniquity and vice,and didn't know it.""It must have been amusing,"I said.
"It was,"said Ralph."It'll be more amusing later on.Oh,yes,there was another fellow who spoke I forgot to mention--that queer Dick who was in your class,Krebs,got the school board evidence,looked as if he'd come in by freight.He wasn't as popular as the rest,but he's got more sense than all of them put together.""Why wasn't he popular?""Well,he didn't crack up the American people,--said they deserved all they got,that they'd have to learn to think straight and be straight before they could expect a square deal.The truth was,they secretly envied these rich men who were exploiting their city,and just as long as they envied them they hadn't any right to complain of them.He was going into this campaign to tell the truth,but to tell all sides of it,and if they wanted reform,they'd have to reform themselves first.I admired his nerve,I must say.""He always had that,"I remarked."How did they take it?""Well,they didn't like it much,but I think most of them had a respect for him.I know I did.He has a whole lot of assurance,an air of knowing what he's talking about,and apparently he doesn't give a continental whether he's popular or not.Besides,Greenhalge had cracked him up to the skies for the work he'd done for the school board.""You talk as if he'd converted you,"I said.
Ralph laughed as he rose and stretched himself.
"Oh,I'm only the intelligent spectator,you ought to know that by this time,Hughie.But I thought it might interest you,since you'll have to go on the stump and refute it all.That'll be a nice job.So long."And he departed.Of course I knew that he had been baiting me,his scent for the weaknesses of his friends being absolutely fiendish.I was angry because he had succeeded,--because he knew he had succeeded.All the morning uneasiness possessed me,and I found it difficult to concentrate on the affairs I had in hand.I felt premonitions,which I tried in vain to suppress,that the tide of the philosophy of power and might were starting to ebb:I scented vague calamities ahead,calamities Iassociated with Krebs;and when I went out to the Club for lunch this sense of uneasiness,instead of being dissipated,was increased.
Dickinson was there,and Scherer,who had just got back from Europe;the talk fell on the Citizens Union,which Scherer belittled with an air of consequence and pompousness that struck me disagreeably,and with an eye newly critical I detected in him a certain disintegration,deterioration.
Having dismissed the reformers,he began to tell of his experiences abroad,referring in one way or another to the people of consequence who had entertained him.
"Hugh,"said Leonard Dickinson to me as we walked to the bank together,"Scherer will never be any good any more.Too much prosperity.And he's begun to have his nails manicured."After I had left the bank president an uncanny fancy struck me that in Adolf Scherer I had before me a concrete example of the effect of my philosophy on the individual....