“Why did you do it then?” asked Samuel
in a faint voice.
“I’ll never do it again, young fellow,”
said the saloon keeper. “I’m the
Honorable John for the rest of my life, and I guess
that’ll do me. And the next time old Henry
Hickman wants his dirty work done, he can hunt up
somebody that needs the money more than me!”
Then the Honorable John went on to discuss the politics
of Lockmanville, and to lay bare the shameless and
grotesque corruption in a town where business interests
were fighting. The trouble was, apparently, that
the people were beginning to rebel—they
were tired of being robbed in so many different ways,
and they went to the polls to find redress. And
time and again, after they had elected new men to
carry out their will, the great concerns had stepped
in and bought out the law-makers. The last time
it had been the unions that made the trouble; and
three of the last supervisors had been labor leaders—“the
worst skates of all,” as Callahan phrased it.
Samuel listened, while one by one the last of his
illusions were torn to shreds. There had been
a general scramble to get favors from the new government
of the town; and the scramblers seemed to include every
pious and respectable member of St. Matthew’s
whose name Samuel had ever heard. There was old
Mr. Curtis, another of the vestrymen, who passed the
plate every Sunday morning, and looked like a study
of the Olympian Jove. He wanted to pile boxes
on the sidewalks in front of his warehouse, and he
had come to Slattery and paid him two hundred dollars.
“And Mr. Wygant!” exclaimed Samuel, as
a sudden thought came to him. “Is it true
that he is back of the organization?”
“Good God!” laughed Callahan. “Did
you hear him say that?”
“Some one else told me,” was the reply.
“Well,” said the other, “the truth
is that Wygant got cold feet before the election,
and he came to Slattery and fixed it. I know that,
for Slattery told me. We had him bluffed clean—I
don’t think we’d ever have got in at all
if it hadn’t been for his money.”
“I see!” whispered the boy.
“Oh, he’s a smooth guy!” laughed
the saloon keeper. “Look at that new franchise
got for his trolley road—ninety-nine years,
and anything he wants in the meantime! And then
to hear him making reform speeches! That’s
what makes me mad about them fellows up on the hill.
They get a thousand dollars for every one we get;
but they are tip-top swells, and they wouldn’t
speak to one of us low grafters on the street.
And they’re eminent citizens and pillars of
the church—wouldn’t it make you sick?”
“Yes,” said Samuel in a low voice, “that’s
just what it does. It makes me sick!”
Samuel now had his evidence; and he went straight
back to Dr. Vince. “Doctor,” he said,
“I am able to tell you that I know. I have
heard it from one of the men who got the money.”
