It was a very innocent looking boy who stood before him and looked inquiringly into his face.

"William," began the Governor—Freckles was pained at first, and then remembered that officially he was William—"this gentleman has made a very serious charge against you."

Freckles looked at Mr. Ludlow in a hurt way, and waited for the Governor to proceed.

"He says," went on the chief executive, "that you deliberately took him to the top of the building and wilfully left him there a prisoner all afternoon. Did you do that?"

"Oh, sir," burst forth Freckles, "I did the very best I could to save his life! I was willing to sacrifice mine for him. I—"

"You little liar!" broke in Ludlow.

The Governor held up his hand. "You had your chance. Let him have his."

"You see, Governor," began Freckles, as if anxious to set right a great wrong which had been done him, "the car is acting bad. The engineer said only this morning it needed a going over. When it took that awful shoot, I lost control of it. Maybe I'm to be discharged for losing control of it, but not"—Freckles sniffled pathetically—-"but not for anything like what he says I done. Why Governor," he went on, ramming his knuckles into his eyes, "I ain't got nothing against him! What'd I take him to the attic for?"

"Of course not for money," sneered Mr. Ludlow.

The Governor turned on him sharply. "When you can bring any proof of that, I'll be ready to hear it. Until you can, you'd better leave it out of the question."

"Strange it should have happened this very afternoon," put in the eminent lobbyist.

The Governor looked at him with open countenance. "You were especially interested in something this afternoon? I thought you told me you had no vital interest here this session."

There was nothing to be said. Mr. Ludlow said nothing.

"Now, William," pursued the Governor, fearful in his heart that this would be Freckles' undoing, "why did you close the door of the shaft before you started down?"

"Well, you see, sir," began Freckles, still tremulously, "I'm so used to closin' doors. Closin' doors has become a kind of second nature with me. I've been told about it so many times. And up there, though I thought I was losin' my life, still I didn't neglect my duty."

The Governor put his hand to his mouth and coughed.

"And why," he went on, more secure now, for a boy who could get out of that could get out of anything, "why was it you didn't make some immediate effort to get Mr. Ludlow down? Why didn't you notify someone, or do something about it?"

"Why, I supposed, of course, he walked down by the stairs," cried Freckles. "I never dreamed he'd want to trust the elevator after the way she had acted."

"The door was locked," snarled the eminent lobbyist.

"Well, now, you see, I didn't know that," explained Freckles expansively. "Late in the afternoon I took a run up just to test the car—and there you were! I never was so surprised in my life. I supposed, of course, sir, that you'd spent the afternoon in the Senate, along with everybody else."

Once more the Governor put his hand to his mouth.

"Your case will come before the executive council at its next meeting, William. And if anything like this should happen again, you will be discharged on the spot." Freckles bowed. "You may go now."

When he was almost at the door the Governor called to him.

"Don't you think, William," he said—the Governor felt that he and Freckles could afford to be generous—"that you should apologise to the gentleman for the really grave inconvenience to which you have been the means of subjecting him?"

Freckles' little grey eyes grew steely. He looked at Henry Ludlow, and there was an ominous silence. Then light broke over his face. "On behalf of the elevator," he said, "I apologise."

And a third time the Governor's hand was raised to his mouth.

The next week Freckles was wearing a signet ring; long and audibly had he sighed for a ring of such kind and proportions. He was at some pains in explaining to everyone to whom he showed it that it had been sent him by "a friend up home."



V

FROM A TO Z

Thus had another ideal tumbled to the rubbish heap! She seemed to be breathing the dust which the newly fallen had stirred up among its longer dead fellows. Certainly she was breathing the dust from somewhere.

During her senior year at the university, when people would ask: "And what are you going to do when you leave school, Miss Willard?" she would respond with anything that came to hand, secretly hugging to her mind that idea of getting a position in a publishing house. Her conception of her publishing house was finished about the same time as her class-day gown. She was to have a roll-top desk—probably of mahogany—and a big chair which whirled round like that in the office of the under-graduate dean. She was to have a little office all by herself, opening on a bigger office—the little one marked "Private." There were to be beautiful rugs—the general effect not unlike the library at the University Club—books and pictures and cultivated gentlemen who spoke often of Greek tragedies and the Renaissance. She was a little uncertain as to her duties, but had a general idea about getting down between nine and ten, reading the morning paper, cutting the latest magazine, and then "writing something."

Commencement was now four months past, and one of her professors had indeed secured for her a position in a Chicago "publishing house." This was her first morning and she was standing at the window looking down into Dearborn Street while the man who was to have her in charge was fixing a place for her to sit.

That the publishing house should be on Dearborn Street had been her first blow, for she had long located her publishing house on that beautiful stretch of Michigan Avenue which overlooked the lake. But the real insult was that this publishing house, instead of having a building, or at least a floor, all to itself, simply had a place penned off in a bleak, dirty building such as one who had done work in sociological research instinctively associated with a box factory. And the thing which fairly trailed her visions in the dust was that the partition penning them off did not extend to the ceiling, and the adjoining room being occupied by a patent medicine company, she was face to face with glaring endorsements of Dr. Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. Taken all in all there seemed little chance for Greek tragedies or the Renaissance.

The man who was "running things"—she buried her phraseology with her dreams—wore a skull cap, and his moustache dragged down below his chin. Just at present he was engaged in noisily pulling a most unliterary pine table from a dark corner to a place near the window. That accomplished, an ostentatious hunt ensued, resulting in the triumphant flourish of a feather duster. Several knocks at the table, and the dust of many months—perhaps likewise of many dreams—ascended to a resting place on the endorsement of Dr. Bunting's Kidney and Bladder Cure. He next produced a short, straight-backed chair which she recognised as brother to the one which used to stand behind their kitchen stove. He gave it a shake, thus delicately indicating that she was receiving special favours in this matter of an able-bodied chair, and then announced with brisk satisfaction: "So! Now we are ready to begin." She murmured a "Thank you," seated herself and her buried hopes in this chair which did not whirl round, and leaned her arms upon a table which did not even dream in mahogany.

In the other publishing house, one pushed buttons and uniformed menials appeared—noiselessly, quickly and deferentially. At this moment a boy with sandy hair brushed straight back in a manner either statesmanlike or clownlike—things were too involved to know which—shuffled in with an armful of yellow paper which he flopped down on the pine table. After a minute he returned with a warbled "Take Me Back to New York Town" and a paste-pot. And upon his third appearance he was practising gymnastics with a huge pair of shears, which he finally presented, grinningly.

There was a long pause, broken only by the sonorous voice of Dr. Bunting upbraiding someone for not having billed out that stuff to Apple Grove, and then the sandy-haired boy appeared bearing a large dictionary, followed by the man in the skull cap behind a dictionary of equal unwieldiness. These were set down on either side of the yellow paper, and he who was filling the position of cultivated gentleman pulled up a chair, briskly.

"Has Professor Lee explained to you the nature of our work?" he wanted to know.

"No," she replied, half grimly, a little humourously, and not far from tearfully, "he didn't—explain."

"Then it is my pleasure to inform you," he began, blinking at her importantly, "that we are engaged here in the making of a dictionary."

"A dic—?" but she swallowed the gasp in the laugh coming up to meet it, and of their union was born a saving cough.

"Quite an overpowering thought, is it not?" he agreed pleasantly. "Now you see you have before you the two dictionaries you will use most, and over in that case you will find other references. The main thing"—his voice sank to an impressive whisper—"is not to infringe the copyright. The publisher was in yesterday and made a little talk to the force, and he said that any one who handed in a piece of copy infringing the copyright simply employed that means of writing his own resignation. Neat way of putting it, was it not?"

"Yes, wasn't it—neat?" she agreed, wildly.

She was conscious of a man's having stepped in behind her and taken a seat at the table next hers. She heard him opening his dictionaries and getting out his paper. Then the man in the skull cap had risen and was saying genially: "Well, here is a piece of old Webster, your first 'take'—no copyright on this, you see, but you must modernise and expand. Don't miss any of the good words in either of these dictionaries. Here you have dictionaries, copy-paper, paste, and Professor Lee assures me you have brains—all the necessary ingredients for successful lexicography. We are to have some rules printed to-morrow, and in the meantime I trust I've made myself clear. The main thing"—he bent down and spoke it solemnly—"is not to infringe the copyright." With a cheerful nod he was gone, and she heard him saying to the man at the next table: "Mr. Clifford, I shall have to ask you to be more careful about getting in promptly at eight."

She removed the cover from her paste-pot and dabbled a little on a piece of paper. Then she tried the unwieldy shears on another piece of paper. She then opened one of her dictionaries and read studiously for fifteen minutes. That accomplished, she opened the other dictionary and pursued it for twelve minutes. Then she took the column of "old Webster," which had been handed her pasted on a piece of yellow paper, and set about attempting to commit it to memory. She looked up to be met with the statement that Mrs. Marjory Van Luce De Vane, after spending years under the so-called best surgeons of the country, had been cured in six weeks by Dr. Bunting's Famous Kidney and Bladder Cure. She pushed the dictionaries petulantly from her, and leaning her very red cheek upon her hand, her hazel eyes blurred with tears of perplexity and resentment, her mouth drawn in pathetic little lines of uncertainty, looked over at the sprawling warehouse on the opposite side of Dearborn Street. She was just considering the direct manner of writing one's resignation—not knowing how to infringe the copyright—when a voice said: "I beg pardon, but I wonder if I can help you any?"

She had never heard a voice like that before. Or, had she heard it?—and where? She looked at him, a long, startled gaze. Something made her think of the voice the prince used to have in long-ago dreams. She looked into a face that was dark and thin and—different. Two very dark eyes were looking at her kindly, and a mouth which was a baffling combination of things to be loved and things to be deplored was twitching a little, as though it would like to join the eyes in a smile, if it dared.

Because he saw both how funny and how hard it was, she liked him. It would have been quite different had he seen either one without the other.

"You can tell me how not to infringe the copyright," she laughed. "I'm not sure that I know what a copyright is."

He laughed—a laugh which belonged with his voice. "Mr. Littletree isn't as lucid as he thinks he is. I've been here a week or so, and picked up a few things you might like to know."

He pulled his chair closer to her table then and gave her a lesson in the making of copy. Edna Willard was never one-half so attractive as when absorbed in a thing which someone was showing her how to do. Her hazel eyes would widen and glisten with the joy of comprehending; her cheeks would flush a deeper pink with the coming of new light, her mouth would part in a child-like way it had forgotten to outgrow, her head would nod gleefully in token that she understood, and she had a way of pulling at her wavy hair and making it more wavy than it had been before. The man at the next table was a long time in explaining the making of a dictionary. He spoke in low tones, often looking at the figure of the man in the skull cap, who was sitting with his back to them, looking over copy. Once she cried, excitedly: "Oh—I see!" and he warned, "S—h!" explaining, "Let him think you got it all from him. It will give you a better stand-in." She nodded, appreciatively, and felt very well acquainted with this kind man whose voice made her think of something—called to something—she did not just know what.

After that she became so absorbed in lexicography that when the men began putting away their things it was hard to realise that the morning had gone. It was a new and difficult game, the evasion of the copyright furnishing the stimulus of a hazard.

The man at the next table had been watching her with an amused admiration. Her child-like absorption, the way every emotion from perplexity to satisfaction expressed itself in the poise of her head and the pucker of her face, took him back over years emotionally barren to the time when he too had those easily stirred enthusiasms of youth. For the man at the next table was far from young now. His mouth had never quite parted with boyishness, but there was more white than black in his hair, and the lines about his mouth told that time, as well as forces more aging than time, had laid heavy hand upon him. But when he looked at the girl and told her with a smile that it was time to stop work, it was a smile and a voice to defy the most tell-tale face in all the world.

During her luncheon, as she watched the strange people coming and going, she did much wondering. She wondered why it was that so many of the men at the dictionary place were very old men; she wondered if it would be a good dictionary—one that would be used in the schools; she wondered if Dr. Bunting had made a great deal of money, and most of all she wondered about the man at the next table whose voice was like—like a dream which she did not know that she had dreamed.

When she had returned to the straggling old building, had stumbled down the narrow, dark hall and opened the door of the big bleak room, she saw that the man at the next table was the only one who had returned from luncheon. Something in his profile made her stand there very still. He had not heard her come in, and he was looking straight ahead, eyes half closed, mouth set—no unsurrendered boyishness there now. Wholly unconsciously she took an impulsive step forward. But she stopped, for she saw, and felt without really understanding, that it was not just the moment's pain, but the revealed pain of years. Just then he began to cough, and it seemed the cough, too, was more than of the moment. And then he turned and saw her, and smiled, and the smile changed all.

As the afternoon wore on the man stopped working and turning a little in his chair sat there covertly watching the girl. She was just typically girl. It was written that she had spent her days in the happy ways of healthful girlhood. He supposed that a great many young fellows had fallen in love with her—nice, clean young fellows, the kind she would naturally meet. And then his eyes closed for a minute and he put up his hand and brushed back his hair; there was weariness, weariness weary of itself, in the gesture. He looked about the room and scanned the faces of the men, most of them older than he, many of them men whose histories were well known to him. They were the usual hangers on about newspaper offices; men who, for one reason or other—age, dissipation, antiquated methods—had been pitched over, men for whom such work as this came as a godsend. They were the men of yesterday—men whom the world had rushed past. She was the only one there, this girl who would probably sit here beside him for many months, with whom the future had anything to do. Youth!—Goodness!—Joy!—Hope!—strange things to bring to a place like this. And as if their alienism disturbed him, he moved restlessly, almost resentfully, bit his lips nervously, moistened them, and began putting away his things.

As the girl was starting home along Dearborn Street a few minutes later, she chanced to look in a window. She saw that it was a saloon, but before she could turn away she saw a man with a white face—white with the peculiar whiteness of a dark face, standing before the bar drinking from a small glass. She stood still, arrested by a look such as she had never seen before: a panting human soul sobbingly fluttering down into something from which it had spent all its force in trying to rise. When she recalled herself and passed on, a mist which she could neither account for nor banish was dimming the clear hazel of her eyes.

The next day was a hard one at the dictionary place. She told herself it was because the novelty of it was wearing away, because her fingers ached, because it tired her back to sit in that horrid chair. She did not admit of any connection between her flagging interest and the fact that the place at the next table was vacant.

The following day he was still absent. She assumed that it was nervousness occasioned by her queer surroundings made her look around whenever she heard a step behind her. Where was he? Where had that look carried him? If he were in trouble, was there no one to help him?

The third day she did an unpremeditated thing. The man in the skull cap had been showing her something about the copy. As he was leaving, she asked: "Is the man who sits at the next table coming back?"

"Oh yes," he replied grimly, "he'll be back."

"Because," she went on, "if he wasn't, I thought I would take his shears. These hurt my fingers."

He made the exchange for her—and after that things went better.

He did return late the next morning. After he had taken his place he looked over at her and smiled. He looked sick and shaken—as if something that knew no mercy had taken hold of him and wrung body and soul.

"You have been ill?" she asked, with timid solicitude.

"Oh no," he replied, rather shortly.

He was quiet all that day, but the next day they talked about the work, laughed together over funny definitions they found. She felt that he could tell many interesting things about himself, if he cared to.

As the days went on he did tell some of those things—out of the way places where he had worked, queer people whom he had known. It seemed that words came to him as gifts, came freely, happily, pleased, perhaps, to be borne by so sympathetic a voice. And there was another thing about him. He seemed always to know just what she was trying to say; he never missed the unexpressed. That made it easy to say things to him; there seemed a certain at-homeness between his thought and hers. She accounted for her interest in him by telling herself she had never known any one like that before. Now Harold, the boy whom she knew best out at the university, why one had to say things to Harold to make him understand! And Harold never left one wondering—wondering what he had meant by that smile, what he had been going to say when he started to say something and stopped, wondering what it was about his face that one could not understand. Harold never could claim as his the hour after he had left her, and was one ever close to anyone with whom one did not spend some of the hours of absence? She began to see that hours spent together when apart were the most intimate hours of all.

And as Harold did not make one wonder, so he did not make one worry. Never in all her life had there been a lump in her throat when she thought of Harold. There was often a lump in her throat when the man at the next table was coughing.

One day, she had been there about two months, she said something to him about it. It was hard; it seemed forcing one's way into a room that had never been opened to one—there were several doors he kept closed.

"Mr. Clifford," she turned to him impetuously as they were putting away their things that night, "will you mind if I say something to you?"

He was covering his paste-pot. He looked up at her strangely. The closed door seemed to open a little way. "I can't conceive of 'minding' anything you might say to me, Miss Noah,"—he had called her Miss Noah ever since she, by mistake, had one day called him Mr. Webster.

"You see," she hurried on, very timid, now that the door had opened a little, "you have been so good to me. Because you have been so good to me it seems that I have some right to—to—"

His head was resting upon his hand, and he leaned a little closer as though listening for something he wanted to hear.

"I had a cousin who had a cough like yours,"—brave now that she could not go back—"and he went down to New Mexico and stayed for a year, and when he came back—when he came back he was as well as any of us. It seems so foolish not to"—her voice broke, now that it had so valiantly carried it—"not to—"

He looked at her, and that was all. But she was never wholly the same again after that look. It enveloped her being in a something which left her richer—different. It was a look to light the dark place between two human souls. It seemed for the moment that words would follow it, but as if feeling their helplessness—perhaps needlessness—they sank back unuttered, and at the last he got up, abruptly, and walked away.

One night, while waiting for the elevator, she heard two of the men talking about him. When she went out on the street it was with head high, cheeks hot. For nothing is so hard to hear as that which one has half known, and evaded. One never denies so hotly as in denying to one's self what one fears is true, and one never resents so bitterly as in resenting that which one cannot say one has the right to resent.

That night she lay in her bed with wide open eyes, going over and over the things they had said. "Cure?"—one of them had scoffed, after telling how brilliant he had been before he "went to pieces"—"why all the cures on earth couldn't help him! He can go just so far, and then he can no more stop himself—oh, about as much as an ant could stop a prairie fire!"

She finally turned over on her pillow and sobbed; and she wondered why—wondered, yet knew.

But it resulted in the flowering of her tenderness for him. Interest mounted to defiance. It ended in blind, passionate desire to "make it up" to him. And again he was so different from Harold; Harold did not impress himself upon one by upsetting all one's preconceived ideas.

She felt now that she understood better—understood the closed doors. He was—she could think of no better word than sensitive.

And that is why, several mornings later, she very courageously—for it did take courage—threw this little note over on his desk—they had formed a habit of writing notes to each other, sometimes about the words, sometimes about other things.

"IN-VI-TA-TION, n. That which Miss Noah extends to Mr. Webster for Friday evening, December second, at the house where she lives—hasn't she already told him where that is? It is the wish of Miss Noah to present Mr. Webster to various other Miss Noahs, all of whom are desirous of making his acquaintance."

She was absurdly nervous at luncheon that day, and kept telling herself with severity not to act like a high-school girl. He was late in returning that noon, and though there seemed a new something in his voice when he asked if he hadn't better sharpen her pencils, he said nothing about her new definition of invitation. It was almost five o'clock when he threw this over on her desk:

"AP-PRE-CI-A-TION, n. That sentiment inspired in Mr. Webster by the kind invitation of Miss Noah for Friday evening.

"RE-GRET, n. That which Mr. Webster experiences because, for reasons into which he cannot go in detail, it is impossible for him to accept Miss Noah's invitation.

"RE-SENT-MENT, n. That which is inspired in Mr. Webster by the insinuation that there are other Miss Noahs in the world."

Then below he had written: "Three hours later. Miss Noah, the world is queer. Some day you may find out—though I hope you never will—that it is frequently the things we most want to do that we must leave undone. Miss Noah, won't you go on bringing me as much of yourself as you can to Dearborn Street, and try not to think much about my not being able to know the Miss Noah of Hyde Park? And little Miss Noah—I thank you. There aren't words enough in this old book of ours to tell you how much—or why."

That night he hurried away with never a joke about how many words she had written that day. She did not look up as he stood there putting on his coat.

It was spring now, and the dictionary staff had begun on W.

They had written of Joy, of Hope and Life and Love, and many other things. Life seemed pressing just behind some of those definitions, pressing the harder, perhaps, because it could not break through the surface.

For it did not break through; it flooded just beneath.

How did she know that he cared for her? She could not possibly have told. Perhaps the nearest to actual proof she could bring was that he always saw that her overshoes were put in a warm place. And when one came down to facts, the putting of a girl's rubbers near the radiator did not necessarily mean love.

Perhaps then it was because there was no proof of it that she was most sure. For some of the most sure things in the world are things which cannot be proved.

It was only that they worked together and were friends; that they laughed together over funny definitions they found, that he was kind to her, and that they seemed remarkably close together.

That is as far as facts can take it.

And just there—it begins.

For the force which rushes beneath the facts of life, caring nothing for conditions, not asking what one desires or what one thinks best, caring as little about a past as about a future—save its own future—the force which can laugh at man's institutions and batter over in one sweep what he likes to call his wisdom, was sweeping them on. And because it could get no other recognition it forced its way into the moments when he asked her for an eraser, when she wanted to know how to spell a word. He could not so much as ask her if she needed more copy-paper without seeming to be lavishing upon her all the love of all the ages.

And so the winter had worn on, and there was really nothing whatever to tell about it.

She was quiet this morning, and kept her head bent low over her work. For she had estimated the number of pages there were between W and Z. Soon they would be at Z;—and then? Then? Shyly she turned and looked at him; he too was bent over his work. When she came in she had said something about its being spring, and that there must be wild flowers in the woods. Since then he had not looked up.

Suddenly it came to her—tenderly, hotly, fearfully yet bravely, that it was she who must meet Z. She looked at him again, covertly. And she felt that she understood. It was the lines in his face made it clearest. Years, and things blacker, less easily surmounted than years—oh yes, that too she faced fearlessly—were piled in between. She knew now that it was she—not he—who could push them aside.

It was all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love and life and desire may crowd from the page.

Perhaps she would not have thrown it after all—the little note she had written—had it not been that when she went over for more copy-paper she stood for a minute looking out the window. Even on Dearborn Street the seductiveness of spring was in the air. Spring, and all that spring meant, filled her.

Because, way beyond the voice of Dr. Bunting she heard the songs of far-away birds, and because beneath the rumble of a printing press she could get the babble of a brook, because Z was near and life was strong, the woman vanquished the girl, and she threw this over to his desk:

"CHAFING-DISH, n. That out of which Miss Noah asks Mr. Webster to eat his Sunday night lunch tomorrow. All the other Miss Noahs are going to be away, and if Mr. Webster does not come, Miss Noah will be all alone. Miss Noah does not like to be lonely."

She ate no lunch that day; she only drank a cup of coffee and walked around.

He did not come back that afternoon. It passed from one to two, from two to three, and then very slowly from three to four, and still he had not come.

He too was walking about. He had walked down to the lake and was standing there looking out across it.

Why not?—he was saying to himself—fiercely, doggedly. Over and over again—Well, why not?

A hundred nights, alone in his room, he had gone over it. Had not life used him hard enough to give him a little now?—longing had pleaded. And now there was a new voice—more prevailing voice—the voice of her happiness. His face softened to an almost maternal tenderness as he listened to that voice.

Too worn to fight any longer, he gave himself up to it, and sat there dreaming. They were dreams of joy rushing in after lonely years, dreams of stepping into the sunlight after long days in fog and cold, dreams of a woman before a fireplace—her arms about him, her cheer and her tenderness, her comradeship and her passion—all his to take! Ah, dreams which even thoughts must not touch—so wonderful and sacred they were.

A long time he sat there, dreaming dreams and seeing visions. The force that rules the race was telling him that the one crime was the denial of happiness—his happiness, her happiness; and when at last his fight seemed but a puerile fight against forces worlds mightier than he, he rose, and as one who sees a great light, started back toward Dearborn Street.

On the way he began to cough. The coughing was violent, and he stepped into a doorway to gain breath. And after he had gone in there he realised that it was the building of Chicago's greatest newspaper.

He had been city editor of that paper once. Facts, the things he knew about himself, talked to him then. There was no answer.

It left him weak and dizzy and crazy for a drink. He walked on slowly, unsteadily, his white face set. For he had vowed that if it took the last nerve in his body there should be no more of that until after they had finished with Z. He knew himself too well to vow more. He was not even sure of that.

He did not turn in where he wanted to go, but resistance took the last bit of force that was in him. He was trembling like a sick man when he stepped into the elevator.

She was just leaving. She was in the little cloak room putting on her things. She was all alone in there.

He stepped in. He pushed the door shut, and stood there leaning against it, looking at her, saying nothing.

"Oh—you are ill?" she gasped, and laid a frightened hand upon him.

The touch crazed him. All resistance gone, he swept her into his arms; he held her fiercely, and between sobs kissed her again and again. He could not let her go. He frightened her. He hurt her. And he did not care—he did not know.

Then he held her off and looked at her. And as he looked into her eyes, passion melted to tenderness. It was she now—not he; love—not hunger. Holding her face in his two hands, looking at her as if getting something to take away, his white lips murmured words too inarticulate for her to hear. And then again he put his arms around her—all differently. Reverently, sobbingly, he kissed her hair. And then he was gone.

He did not come out that Sunday afternoon, but Harold dropped in instead, and talked of some athletic affairs over at the university. She wondered why she did not go crazy in listening to him, and yet she could answer intelligently. It was queer—what one could do.

They had come at last to Z. There would be no more work upon the dictionary after that day. And it was raining—raining as in Chicago alone it knows how to rain.

They wrote no notes to each other now. It had been different since that day. They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the mantle of commonplace words.

Both of them had tried to stay away that last day. But both were in their usual places.

The day wore on eventlessly. Those men with whom she had worked, the men of yesterday, who had been kind to her, came up at various times for little farewell chats. The man in the skull cap told her that she had done excellent work. She was surprised at the ease with which she could make decent reply, thinking again that it was queer—what one could do.

He was moving. She saw him lay some sheets of yellow paper on the desk in front. He had finished with his "take." There would not be another to give him. He would go now.

He came back to his desk. She could hear him putting away his things. And then for a long time there was no sound. She knew that he was just sitting there in his chair.

Then she heard him get up. She heard him push his chair up to the table, and then for a minute he stood there. She wanted to turn toward him; she wanted to say something—do something. But she had no power.

She saw him lay an envelope upon her desk. She heard him walking away. She knew, numbly, that his footsteps were not steady. She knew that he had stopped; she was sure that he was looking back. But still she had no power.

And then she heard him go.

Even then she went on with her work; she finished her "take" and laid down her pencil. It was finished now—and he had gone. Finished?—Gone? She was tearing open the envelope of the letter.

This was what she read:

"Little dictionary sprite, sunshine vender, and girl to be loved, if I were a free man I would say to you—Come, little one, and let us learn of love. Let us learn of it, not as one learns from dictionaries, but let us learn from the morning glow and the evening shades. But Miss Noah, maker of dictionaries and creeper into hearts, the bound must not call to the free. They might fittingly have used my name as one of the synonyms under that word Failure, but I trust not under Coward.

"And now, you funny little Miss Noah from the University of Chicago, don't I know that your heart is blazing forth the assurance that you don't care for any of those things—the world, people, common sense—that you want just love? They made a grand failure of you out at your university; they taught you philosophy and they taught you Greek, and they've left you just as much the woman as women were five thousand years ago. Oh, I know all about you—you little girl whose hair tried so hard to be red. Your soul touched mine as we sat there writing words—words—words, the very words in which men try to tell things, and can't—and I know all about what you would do. But you shall not do it. Dear little copy maker, would a man standing out on the end of a slippery plank have any right to cry to someone on the shore—'Come out here on this plank with me?' If he loved the someone on the shore, would he not say instead—'Don't get on this plank?' Me get off the plank—come with you to the shore—you are saying? But you see, dear, you only know slippery planks as viewed from the shore—God grant you may never know them any other way!

"It was you, was it not, who wrote our definition of happiness? Yes, I remember the day you did it. You were so interested; your cheeks grew so very red, and you pulled and pulled at your wavy hair. You said it was such an important definition. And so it is, Miss Noah, quite the most important of all. And on the page of life, Miss Noah, may happiness be written large and unblurred for you. It is because I cannot help you write it that I turn away. I want at least to leave the page unspoiled.

"I carry a picture of you. I shall carry it always. You are sitting before a fireplace, and I think of that fireplace as symbolising the warmth and care and tenderness and the safety that will surround you. And sometimes as you sit there let a thought of me come for just a minute, Miss Noah—not long enough nor deep enough to bring you any pain. But only think—I brought him happiness after he believed all happiness had gone. He was so grateful for that light which came after he thought the darkness had settled down. It will light his way to the end.

"We've come to Z, and it's good-bye. There is one thing I can give you without hurting you,—the hope, the prayer, that life may be very, very good to you."

The sheets of paper fell from her hands. She sat staring out into Dearborn Street. She began to see. After all, he had not understood her. Perhaps men never understood women; certainly he had not understood her. What he did not know was that she was willing to pay for her happiness—pay—pay any price that might be exacted. And anyway—she had no choice. Strange that he could not see that! Strange that he could not see the irony and cruelty of bidding her good-bye and then telling her to be happy!

It simplified itself to such an extent that she grew very calm. It would be easy to find him, easy to make him see—for it was so very simple—and then....

She turned in her copy. She said good-bye quietly, naturally, rode down in the lumbering old elevator and started out into the now drenching rain toward the elevated trains which would take her to the West Side; it was so fortunate that she had heard him telling one day where he lived.

When she reached the station she saw that more people were coming down the stairs than were going up. They were saying things about the trains, but she did not heed them. But at the top of the stairs a man in uniform said: "Blockade, Miss. You'll have to take the surface cars."

She was sorry, for it would delay her, and there was not a minute to lose. She was dismayed, upon reaching the surface cars, to find she could not get near them; the rain, the blockade on the "L" had caused a great crowd to congregate there. She waited a long time, getting more and more wet, but it was impossible to get near the cars. She thought of a cab, but could see none, they too having all been pressed into service.

She determined, desperately, to start and walk. Soon she would surely get either a cab or a car. And so she started, staunchly, though she was wet through now, and trembling with cold and nervousness.

As she hurried through the driving rain she faced things fearlessly. Oh yes, she understood—everything. But if he were not well—should he not have her with him? If he had that thing to fight, did he not need her help? What did men think women were like? Did he think she was one to sit down and reason out what would be advantageous? Better a little while with him on a slippery plank than forever safe and desolate upon the shore!

She never questioned her going; were not life and love too great to be lost through that which could be so easily put right?

The buildings were reeling, the streets moving up and down—that awful rain, she thought, was making her dizzy. Labouriously she walked on—more slowly, less steadily, a pain in her side, that awful reeling in her head.

Carriages returning to the city were passing her, but she had not strength to call to them, and it seemed if she walked to the curbing she would fall. She was not thinking so clearly now. The thing which took all of her force was the lifting of her feet and the putting them down in the right place. Her throat seemed to be closing up—and her side—and her head....

Someone had her by the arm. Then someone was speaking her name; speaking it in surprise—consternation—alarm.

It was Harold.

It was all vague then. She knew that she was in a carriage, and that Harold was talking to her kindly. "You're taking me there?" she murmured.

"Yes—yes, Edna, everything's all right," he replied soothingly.

"Everything's all right," she repeated, in a whisper, and leaned her head back against the cushions.

They stopped after a while, and Harold was standing at the open door of the cab with something steaming hot which he told her to drink. "You need it," he said decisively, and thinking it would help her to tell it, she drank it down.

The world was a little more defined after that, and she saw things which puzzled her. "Why, it looks like the city," she whispered, her throat too sore now to speak aloud.

"Why sure," he replied banteringly; "don't you know we have to go through the city to get out to the South Side?"

"Oh, but you see," she cried, holding her throat, "but you see, it's the other way!"

"Not to-night," he insisted; "the place for you to-night is home. I'm taking you where you belong."

She reached over wildly, trying to open the door, but he held her back; she began to cry, and he talked to her, gently but unbendingly. "But you don't understand!" she whispered, passionately. "I've got to go!"

"Not to-night," he said again, and something in the way he said it made her finally huddle back in the corner of the carriage.

Block after block, mile after mile, they rode on in silence. She felt overpowered. And with submission she knew that it was Z. For the whole city was piled in between. Great buildings were in between, and thousands of men running to and fro on the streets; man, and all man had builded up, were in between. And then Harold—Harold who had always seemed to count for so little, had come and taken her away.

Dully, wretchedly—knowing that her heart would ache far worse to-morrow than it did to-night—she wondered about things. Did things like rain and street-cars and wet feet and a sore throat determine life? Was it that way with other people, too? Did other people have barriers—whole cities full of them—piled in between? And then did the Harolds come and take them where they said they belonged? Were there not some people strong enough to go where they wanted to go?



VI

THE MAN OF FLESH AND BLOOD

The elements without were not in harmony with the spirit which it was desired should be engendered within. By music, by gay decorations, by speeches from prominent men, the board in charge of the boys' reformatory was striving to throw about this dedication of the new building an atmosphere of cheerfulness and good-will—an atmosphere vibrant with the kindness and generosity which emanated from the State, and the thankfulness and loyalty which it was felt should emanate from the boys.

Outside the world was sobbing. Some young trees which had been planted along the driveway of the reformatory grounds, and which were expected to grow up in the way they should go, were rocking back and forth in passionate insurrection. Fallen leaves were being spit viciously through the air. It was a sullen-looking landscape which Philip Grayson, he who was to be the last speaker of the afternoon, saw stretching itself down the hill, across the little valley, and up another little hill of that rolling prairie state. In his ears was the death wail of the summer. It seemed the spirit of out-of-doors was sending itself up in mournful, hopeless cries.

The speaker who had been delivering himself of pedantic encouragement about the open arms with which the world stood ready to receive the most degraded one, would that degraded one but come to the world in proper spirit, sat down amid perfunctory applause led by the officers and attendants of the institution, and the boys rose to sing. The brightening of their faces told that their work as performers was more to their liking than their position as auditors. They threw back their heads and waited with well-disciplined eagerness for the signal to begin. Then, with the strength and native music there are in some three hundred boys' throats, there rolled out the words of the song of the State.

There were lips which opened only because they must, but as a whole they sang with the same heartiness, the same joy in singing, that he had heard a crowd of public-school boys put into the song only the week before. When the last word had died away it seemed to Philip Grayson that the sigh of the world without was giving voice to the sigh of the world within as the well-behaved crowd of boys sat down to resume their duties as auditors.

And then one of the most important of the professors from the State University was telling them about the kindness of the State: the State had provided for them this beautiful home; it gave them comfortable clothing and nutritious food; it furnished that fine gymnasium in which to train their bodies, books and teachers to train their minds; it provided those fitted to train their souls, to work against the unfortunate tendencies—the professor stumbled a little there—which had led to their coming. The State gave liberally, gladly, and in return it asked but one thing: that they come out into the world and make useful, upright citizens, citizens of which any State might be proud. Was that asking too much? the professor from the State University was saying.

The sobbing of the world without was growing more intense. Many pairs of eyes from among the auditors were straying out to where the summer lay dying. Did they know—those boys whom the State classed as unfortunates—that out of this death there would come again life? Or did they see but the darkness—the decay—of to-day?

The professor from the State University was putting the case very fairly. There were no flaws—seemingly—to be picked in his logic. The State had been kind; the boys were obligated to good citizenship. But the coldness!—comfortlessness!—of it all. The open arms of the world!—how mocking in its abstractness. What did it mean? Did it mean that they—the men who uttered the phrase so easily—would be willing to give these boys aid, friendship when they came out into the world? What would they say, those boys whose ears were filled with high-sounding, non-committal phrases, if some man were to stand before them and say, "And so, fellows, when you get away from this place, and are ready to get your start in the world, just come around to my office and I'll help you get a job?" At thought of it there came from Philip Grayson a queer, partly audible laugh, which caused those nearest him to look his way in surprise.

But he was all unconscious of their looks of inquiry, absorbed in the thoughts that crowded upon him. How far away the world—his kind of people—must seem to these boys of the State Reform School. The speeches they had heard, the training that had been given them, had taught them—unconsciously perhaps, but surely—to divide the world into two great classes: the lucky and the unlucky, those who made speeches and those who must listen, the so-called good and the so-called bad; perhaps—he smiled a little at his own cynicism—those who were caught and those who were not.

There came to him these words of a poet of whom he used to be fond:

In men whom men pronounce as ill, I find so much of goodness still; In men whom men pronounce divine, I find so much of sin and blot; I hesitate to draw the line Between the two, when God has not.

When God has not! He turned and looked out at the sullen sky, returning—as most men do at times—to that conception of his childhood that somewhere beyond the clouds was God. God! Did God care for the boys of the State Reformatory? Was that poet of the western mountains right when he said that God was not a drawer of lines, but a seer of the good that was in the so-called bad, and of the bad in the so-called good, and a lover of them both?

If that was God, it was not the God the boys of the reformatory had been taught to know. They had been told that God would forgive the wicked, but it had been made clear to them—if not in words, in implications—that it was they who were the wicked. And the so-called godly men, men of such exemplary character as had been chosen to address them that afternoon, had so much of the spirit of God that they, too, were willing to forgive, be tolerant, and—he looked out at the bending trees with a smile—disburse generalities about the open arms of the world.

What would they think—those three hundred speech-tired boys—if some man who had been held before them as exemplary were to rise and lay bare his own life—its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its crimes—and tell them there was weakness and there was strength in every human being, and that the world-old struggle of life was to overcome one's weakness with one's strength.

The idea took strange hold on him. It seemed the method of the world—at any rate it had been the method of that afternoon—for the men who stood before their fellows with clean hands to plant themselves on the far side of a chasm of conventions, or narrow self-esteem, or easily won virtue, and cry to those beings who struggled on the other side of that chasm—to those human beings whose souls had never gone to school: "Look at us! Our hands are clean, our hearts are pure. See how beautiful it is to be good! Come ye, poor sinners, and be good also." And the poor sinners, the untaught, birthmarked human souls, would look over at the self-acclaimed goodness they could see far across the chasm, and even though attracted to it (which, he grimly reflected, would not seem likely) the thing that was left with them was a sense of the width of the chasm.

He had a sense of needless waste, of unnecessary blight. He looked down at those three hundred faces and it was as if looking at human waste; and it was human stupidity, human complacency and cowardice kept those human beings human drift.

With what a smug self-satisfaction—under the mask of benevolence—the speakers of that afternoon had flaunted their virtue—their position! How condescendingly they had spoken of the home which we, the good, prepare for you, the bad, and what namby-pambyness there was, after all, in that sentiment which all of them had voiced—and now you must pay us back by being good!

Oh for a man of flesh and blood to stand up and tell how he himself had failed and suffered! For a man who could bridge that chasm with strong, broad, human understanding and human sympathies—a man who would stand among them pulse-beat to pulse-beat and cry out, "I know! I understand! I fought it and I'll help you fight it too!"

The sound of his own name broke the spell that was upon him. He looked to the centre of the stage and saw that the professor from the State University had seated himself and that the superintendent of the institution was occupying the place of the speaker. And the superintendent was saying:

"We may esteem ourselves especially fortunate in having him with us this afternoon. He is one of the great men of the State, one of the men who by high living, by integrity and industry, has raised himself to a position of great honour among his fellow men. A great party—may I say the greatest of all parties?—has shown its unbounded confidence in him by giving him the nomination for the governorship of the State. No man in the State is held in higher esteem to-day than he. And so it is with special pleasure that I introduce to you that man of the future—Philip Grayson."

The superintendent sat down then, and he himself—Philip Grayson—was standing in the place where the other speakers had stood. It was with a rush which almost swept away his outward show of calm that it came to him that he—candidate for the governorship—was well fitted to be that man of flesh and blood for whom he had sighed. That he himself was within grasp of an opportunity to get beneath the jackets and into the very hearts and souls of those boys, and make them feel that a man of sins and virtues, of weaknesses and strength, a man who had had much to conquer, and for whom the fight would never be finally won, was standing before them stripped of his coat of conventions and platitudes, and in nakedness of soul and sincerity of heart was talking to them as a man who understood.

Almost with the inception of the idea was born the consciousness of what it might cost. And as in answer to the silent, blunt question, Is it worth it? there looked up at him three hundred pairs of eyes—eyes behind which there was good as well as bad, eyes which had burned with the fatal rush of passion, and had burned, too, with the hot tears of remorse—eyes which had opened on a hostile world.

And then the eyes of Philip Grayson could not see the eyes which were before him, and he put up his hand to break the mist—little caring what the men upon the platform would think of him, little thinking what effect the words which were crowding into his heart would have upon his candidacy. But one thing was vital to him now: to bring upon that ugly chasm the levelling forces of a common humanity, and to make those boys who were of his clay feel that a being who had fallen and risen again, a fellow being for whom life would always mean a falling and a rising again, was standing before them, and—not as the embodiment of a distant goodness, not as a pattern, but as one among them, verily as man to man—was telling them a few things which his own life had taught him were true.

It was his very consecration which made it hard to begin. He was fearful of estranging them in the beginning, of putting between them and him that very thing he was determined there should not be.

"I have a strange feeling," he said, with a winning little smile, "that if I were to open my heart to-day, just open it clear up the way I'd like to if I could, that you boys would look into it, and then jump back in a scared kind of way and cry, 'Why—that's me!' You would be a little surprised—wouldn't you?—if you could look back and see the kind of boy I was, and find I was much the kind of boy you are?

"Do you know what I think? I think hypocrisy is the worst thing in the world. I think it's worse than stealing, or lying, or any of the other bad things you can name. And do you know where I think lots of the hypocrisy comes from? I think it comes from the so-called self-made men—from the real good men, the men who say 'I haven't got one bad thing charged up to my account.'

"Now the men out campaigning for me call me a self-made man. Your superintendent just now spoke of my integrity, of the confidence reposed in me, and all that. But do you know what is the honest truth? If I am any kind of a man worth mentioning, if I am deserving of any honour, any confidence, it is not because I was born with my heart filled with good and beautiful things, for I was not. It is because I was born with much in my heart that we call the bad, and because, after that bad had grown stronger and stronger through the years it was unchecked, and after it had brought me the great shock, the great sorrow of my life, I began then, when older than you boys are now, to see a little of that great truth which you can put briefly in these words: 'There is good and there is bad in every human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer the bad with the good.' What I am trying to say is, that if I am worthy any one's confidence to-day, it is because, having seen that truth, I have been able, through never ceasing trying, through slow conquering, to crowd out some of the bad and make room for a little of the good.

"You see," he went on, three hundred pairs of eyes hard upon him now, "some of us are born to a harder struggle than others. There are people who would object to my saying that to you, even if I believed it. They would say you would make the fact of being born with much against which to struggle an excuse for being bad. But look here a minute; if you were born with a body not as strong as other boys' bodies, if you couldn't run as far, or jump as high, you wouldn't be eternally saying, 'I can't be expected to do much; I wasn't born right.' Not a bit of it! You'd make it your business to get as strong as you could, and you wouldn't make any parade of the fact that you weren't as strong as you should be. We don't like people who whine, whether it's about weak bodies or weak souls.

"I've been sitting here this afternoon wondering what to say to you boys. I had intended telling some funny stories about things which happened to me when I was a boy. But for some reason a serious mood has come over me, and I don't feel just like those stories now. I haven't been thinking of the funny side of life in the last half-hour. I've been thinking of how much suffering I've endured since the days when I, too, was a boy."

He paused then; and when he went on his voice tested to the utmost the silence of the room: "There is lots of sorrow in this old world. Maybe I'm on the wrong track, but as I see it to-day human beings are making a much harder thing of their existence than there is any need of. There are millions and millions of them, and year after year, generation after generation, they fight over the same old battles, live through the same old sorrows. Doesn't it seem all wrong that after the battle has been fought a million times it can't be made a little easier for those who still have it before them?

"If a farmer had gone over a bad road, and the next day saw another farmer about to start over the same road, wouldn't he send him back? Doesn't it seem too bad that in things which concern one's whole life people can't be as decent as they are about things which involve only an inconvenience? Doesn't it seem that when we human beings have so much in common we might stand together a little better? I'll tell you what's the matter. Most of the people of this world are coated round and round with self-esteem, and they're afraid to admit any understanding of the things which aren't good. Suppose the farmer had thought it a disgrace to admit he had been over that road, and so had said: 'From what I have read in books, and from what I have learned in a general way, I fancy that road isn't good.' Would the other farmer have gone back? I rather think he would have said he'd take his chances. But you see the farmer said he knew; and how did he know? Why, because he'd been over the road himself."

As he paused again, looking at them, he saw it all with a clarifying simplicity. He himself knew life for a fine and beautiful thing. He had won for himself some of the satisfactions of understanding, certain rare delights of the open spirit. He wanted to free the spirits of these boys to whom he talked; wanted to show them that spirits could free themselves, indicate to them that self-control and self-development carried one to pleasures which sordid self-indulgences had no power to bestow. It was a question of getting the most from life. It was a matter of happiness.

It was thus he began, slowly, the telling of his life's story:

"I was born with strange, wild passions in my heart. I don't know where they came from; I only know they were there. I resented authority. If someone who had a right to dictate to me said, 'Philip, do this,' then Philip would immediately begin to think how much he would rather do the other thing. And," he smiled a little, and some of the boys smiled with him in anticipation, "it was the other thing which Philip usually did.

"I didn't go to a reform school, for the very good reason that there wasn't any in the State where I lived." Some of he boys smiled again, and he could hear the nervous coughing of one of the party managers sitting close to him. "I was what you would call a very bad boy. I didn't mind any one. I was defiant—insolent. I did bad things just because I knew they were bad, and—and I took a great deal of satisfaction out of it."

The sighing of the world without was the only sound which vibrated through the room. "I say," he went on, "that I got a form of satisfaction from it. I did not say I got happiness; there is a vast difference between a kind of momentary satisfaction and that thing—that most precious of all things—which we call happiness. Indeed, I was very far from happy. I had hours when I was so morose and miserable that I hated the whole world. And do you know what I thought? I thought there was no one in all the world who had the same kind of things surging up in his heart that I did. I thought there was no one else with whom it was as easy to be bad, or as hard to be good. I thought that no one understood. I thought that I was all alone.

"Did you ever feel like that? Did you ever feel that no one else knew anything about such feelings as you had? Did you ever feel that here was you, and there was the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world didn't know anything about you, and was just generally down on you? Now that's the very thing I want to talk away from you to-day. You're not the only one. We're all made of the same kind of stuff, and there's none of us made of stuff that's flawless. We all have a fight; some an easy one, and some a big one, and if you have formed the idea that there is a kind of dividing-line in the world, and that on the one side is the good, and on the other side the bad, why, all I can say is that you have a wrong notion of things.

"Well, I grew up to be a man, and because I hadn't fought against any of the stormy things in my heart they kept growing stronger and stronger. I did lots of wild, ugly things, things of which I am bitterly ashamed. I went to another place, and I fell in with the kind of fellows you can imagine I felt at home with. I had been told when I was a boy that it was wrong to drink and gamble. I think that was the chief reason I took to drink and gambling."

There was another cough, more pronounced this time, from the party manager, and the superintendent was twisting uneasily in his seat. It was the strangest speech that had ever been delivered at the boys' reformatory. The boys were leaning forward—self-forgetful, intent. "One night I was playing cards with a crowd of my friends, and one of the men, the best friend I had, said something that made me mad. There was a revolver right there which one of the men had been showing us. Some kind of a demon got hold of me, and without so much as a thought I picked up that revolver and fired at my friend."

The party manager gave way to an exclamation of horror, and the superintendent half rose from his seat. But before any one could say a word Philip Grayson continued, looking at the half-frightened faces before him: "I suppose you wonder why I am not in the penitentiary. I had been drinking, and I missed my aim; and I was with friends, and it was hushed up."

He rested his hand upon the table, and looked out at the sullen landscape. His voice was not steady as he went on: "It's not an easy thing to talk about, boys. I never talked about it to any one before in all my life. I'm not telling it now just to entertain you or to create a sensation. I'm telling it," his voice grew tense in its earnestness, "because I believe that this world could be made a better and a sweeter place if those who have lived and suffered would not be afraid to reach out their hands and cry: 'I know that road—it's bad! I steered off to a better place, and I'll help you steer off, too.'"

There was not one of the three hundred pairs of eyes but was riveted upon the speaker's colourless face. The masks of sullenness and defiance had fallen from them. They were listening now—not because they must, but because into their hungry and thirsty souls was being poured the very sustenance for which—unknowingly—they had yearned.

"We sometimes hear people say," resumed the candidate for Governor, "that they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've lived through the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I can say that I, too, have lived through hell. What I suffered after I went home that night no one in this world will ever know. Words couldn't tell it; it's not the kind of thing words can come anywhere near. My whole life spread itself out before me; it was not a pleasant thing to look at. But at last, boys, out of the depths of my darkness, I began to get a little light. I began to get some understanding of the battle which it falls to the lot of some of us human beings to wage. There was good in me, you see, or I wouldn't have cared like that, and it came to me then, all alone that terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away somewhere in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so—all alone, boys—I began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do you know—this is the truth—it was with the beginning of that battle I got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this world than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is like opening a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in a minute. This is no miracle I'm talking about. It's a fight. But it's a fight that can be won. It's a fight that's gloriously worth the winning. I'm not saying to you, 'Be good and you'll succeed.' Maybe you won't succeed. Life as we've arranged it for ourselves makes success a pretty tough proposition. But that doesn't alter the fact that it pays to be a decent sort. You and I know about how much happiness there is in the other kind of thing. And there is happiness in feeling you're doing what you can to develop what's in you. Success or failure, it brings a sense of having done your part,—that bully sense of having put up the best fight you could."

He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. "I don't know, I am sure, what the people of my State will think of all this. Perhaps they won't want a man for their Governor who once tried to kill another man. But," he looked around at them with that smile of his which got straight to men's hearts, "there's only one of me, and there are three hundred of you, and how do I know but that in telling you of that stretch of bad road ahead I've made a dozen Governors this very afternoon!"

He looked from row to row of them, trying to think of some last word which would leave them with a sense of his sincerity. What he did say was: "And so, boys, when you get away from here, and go out into the world to get your start, if you find the arms of that world aren't quite as wide open as you were told they would be, if there seems no place where you can get a hold, and you are saying to yourself, 'It's no use—I'll not try,' before you give up just remember there was one man who said he knew all about it, and give that one man a chance to show he meant what he said. So look me up, if luck goes all against you, and maybe I can give you a little lift." He took a backward step, as though to resume his seat, and then he said, with a dry little smile which took any suggestion of heroics from what had gone before, "If I'm not at the State-house, you'll find my name in the directory of the city where your programme tells you I live."

He sat down, and for a moment there was silence. Then, full-souled, heart-given, came the applause. It was not led by the attendants this time; it was the attendants who rose at last to stop it. And when the clapping of the hands had ceased, many of those hands were raised to eyes which had long been dry.

The exercises were drawn to a speedy close, and he found the party manager standing by his side. "It was very grand," he sneered, "very high-sounding and heroic, but I suppose you know," jerking his hand angrily toward a table where a reporter for the leading paper of the opposition was writing, "that you've given them the winning card."

As he replied, in far-off tone, "I hope so," the candidate for Governor was looking, not at the reporter who was sending out a new cry for the opposition, but into those faces aglow with the light of new understanding and new-born hopes. He stood there watching them filing out into the corridor, craning their necks to throw him a last look, and as he turned then and looked from the window it was to see that the storm had sobbed itself away, and that along the driveway of the reformatory grounds the young trees—unbroken and unhurt—were rearing their heads in the way they should go.



VII

HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA

They began work at seven-thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, on the stairways and in the corridors, in every office from the Governor's to the custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their feet. A long whistle had sounded through the building. There was magic in its note.

"What's the matter with you fellows?" asked the attorney-general, swinging around in his chair.

"Strike," declared one of the men, with becoming brevity.

"Strike of what?"

"Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One," replied the man, kindly gathering up a few tacks.

"Never heard of it."

"Organised last night," said the carpet-tacker, putting on his coat.

"Well I'll—" he paused expressively, then inquired: "What's your game?"

"Well, you see, boss, this executive council that runs the State-house has refused our demands."

"What are your demands?"

"Double pay."

"Double pay! Now how do you figure it out that you ought to have double pay?"

"Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get every carpet in the State-house down by four o'clock this afternoon. Now you know yourself that rush work is hard on the nerves. Did you ever get rush work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? We was anxious as anybody to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this afternoon. But there's reason in all things."

"Yes," agreed his auditor, "there is."

The man looked at him a little doubtfully. "Our president—we elected Johnny McGuire president last night—went to the Governor this morning with our demands."

The Governor's fellow official smiled—he knew the Governor pretty well. "And he turned you down?"

The striker nodded. "But there's an election next fall; maybe the turning down will be turned around."

"Maybe so—you never can tell. I don't know just what power Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One will wield, but the Governor's pretty solid, you know, with Labour as a whole."

That was true, and went home. The striker rubbed his foot uncertainly across the floor, and took courage from its splinters. "Well, there's one thing sure. When Prince Ludwig and his train-load of big guns show up at four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare floors, and pretty bum bare floors, on deck at this place."

The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered, miserable boards. "They are pretty bum," he reflected. "I wonder," he added, as the man was half-way out of the door, "what Prince Ludwig will think of the American working-man when he arrives this afternoon?"

"Just about as much," retorted the not-to-be-downed carpet-tacker, "as he does about American generosity. And he may think a few things," he added weightily, "about American independence."

"Oh, he's sure to do that," agreed the attorney-general.

He joined the crowd in the corridor. They were swarming out from all the offices, all talking of the one thing. "It was a straight case of hold-up," declared the Governor's secretary. "They supposed they had us on the hip. They were getting extra money as it was, but you see they just figured it out we'd pay anything rather than have these wretched floors for the reception this afternoon. They thought the Governor would argue the question, and then give in, or, at any rate, compromise. They never intended for one minute that the Prince should find bare floors here. And I rather think," he concluded, "that they feel a little done up about it themselves."

"What's the situation?" asked a stranger within the gates.

"It's like this," a newspaper reporter told him; "about a month ago there was a fire here and the walls and carpets were pretty well knocked out with smoke and water. The carpets were mean old things anyway, so they voted new ones. And I want to tell you"—he swelled with pride—"that the new ones are beauties. The place'll look great when we get 'em down. Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd cross the State on their way to the coast, and of course they were invited to stop. Last week Billy Patton—he's running the whole show—declined the invitation on account of lack of time, and then yesterday comes a telegram saying the Prince himself insisted on stopping. You know he's keen about Indian dope—and we've got Indian traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to make over his schedule to please the Prince, and of course we were all pretty tickled about it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't come until five o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer the Governor is when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building should be put in shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole lot of fellows to work on the carpets to-day. Then what did they do but get together last night—well, you know the rest. Pretty bum-looking old shack just now, isn't it?" and the reporter looked around ruefully.

It was approaching the hour for the legislature to convene, and the members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd—and the indignation—in the rotunda.

The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The biggest furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers. "Pipes burst last night," he said, "and they may not do a thing for us if we get mixed up in this. Sorry—but I can't let my customers get pneumonia."

Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or another no one was disposed to respond to the Macedonian cry, and when the Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda he was about as disturbed as he permitted himself to get. "It's the idea of lying down," he said. "I'd do anything—anything!—if I could only think what to do."

A popular young member of the House overheard the remark. "By George, Governor," he burst forth, after a minute's deep study—"say—by Jove, I say, let's do it ourselves!"

They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he looked hard at the young man.

"Why not?" the young legislator went on. "It's a big job, but there are a lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we afraid to tackle it here for?"

Again the others laughed, but the Governor did not. "Say, Weston," he said, "I'd give a lot—I tell you I'd give a lot—if we just could!"

"Leave it to me!"—and he was lost in the crowd.

The Governor's eyes followed him. He had always liked Harry Weston. He was the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor smiled knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his different manner with the various ones. And then he had mounted a few steps of the stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd.

"Now look here," he began, after silence had been obtained, "this isn't a very formal meeting, but it's a mighty important one. It's a clear case of Carpet-Tackers' Union against the State. What I want to know is—Is the State going to lie down?"

There were loud cries of "No!"—"Well, I should say not!"

"Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't get them. Now the next thing I want to know is—What's the matter with us?"

They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed.

"It's no joke! You've all put down carpets at home; what's the use of pretending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes—I know, bigger building, and all that, but there are more of us, and the principle of carpet-tacking is the same, big building or little one. Now my scheme is this—Every fellow his own carpet-tacker! The Governor's office puts down the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's office puts down the Secretary's carpet; the Senate puts down the Senate carpet—and we'll look after our little patch in the House!"

"But you've got more fellows than anybody else," cried a member of the Senate.

"Right you are, and we'll have an over-flow meeting in the corridors and stairways. The House, as usual, stands ready to do her part,"—that brought a laugh for the Senators, and from them.

"Now get it out of your heads this is a joke. The carpets are here; the building is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is coming at four—by his own request, and the proposition is just this: Are we going to receive him in a barn or in a palace? Let's hear what Senator Arnold thinks about it."

That was a good way of getting away from the idea of its being a joke. Senator Arnold was past seventy. Slowly he extended his right arm and tested his muscle. "Not very much," he said, "but enough to drive a tack or two." That brought applause and they drew closer together, and the atmosphere warmed perceptibly. "I've fought for the State in more ways than one,"—Senator Arnold was a distinguished veteran of the Civil War—"and if I can serve her now by tacking down carpets, then it's tacking down carpets I'm ready to go at. Just count on me for what little I'm worth."

Someone started the cry for the Governor. "Prince Ludwig is being entertained all over the country in the most lavish manner," he began, with his characteristic directness in stating a situation. "By his own request he is to visit our Capitol this afternoon. I must say that I, for one, want to be in shape for him. I don't like to tell him that we had a labour complication and couldn't get the carpets down. Speaking for myself, it is a great pleasure to inform you that the carpet in the Governor's office will be in proper shape by four o'clock this afternoon."

That settled it. Finally Harry Weston made himself heard sufficiently to suggest that when the House and Senate met at nine o'clock motions to adjourn be entertained. "And as to the rest of you fellows," he cried, "I don't see what's to hinder your getting busy right now!"

There were Republicans and there were Democrats; there were friends and there were enemies; there were good, bad and—no, there were no indifferent. An unprecedented harmony of thought, a millennium-like unity of action was born out of that sturdy cry—Every man his own carpet-tacker! The Secretary of State always claimed that he drove the first tack, but during the remainder of his life the Superintendent of Public Instruction also contended hotly for that honour. The rivalry as to who would do the best job, and get it done most quickly, became intense. Early in the day Harry Weston made the rounds of the building and announced a fine of one-hundred dollars for every wrinkle. There were pounded fingers and there were broken backs, but slowly, steadily and good-naturedly the State-house carpet was going down. It was a good deal bigger job than they had anticipated, but that only added zest to the undertaking. The news of how the State officials were employing themselves had spread throughout the city, and guards were stationed at every door to keep out people whose presence would work more harm than good. All assistance from women was courteously refused. "This is solemn business," said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some of the fair sex, "and the introduction of the feminine element might throw about it a social atmosphere which would result in loss of time. And then some of the boys might feel called upon to put on their collars and coats."

Stretch—stretch—stretch, and tack—tack—tack, all morning long it went on, for the State-house was large—oh, very large. There should have been a Boswell there to get the good things, for the novelty of the situation inspired wit even in minds where wit had never glowed before. Choice bits which at other times would fairly have gone on official record were now passed almost unnoticed, so great was the surfeit. Instead of men going out to lunch, lunch came in to them. Bridget Haggerty, who by reason of her long connection with the boarding-house across the street was a sort of unofficial official of the State, came over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the while calling down blessings on the head of every mother's son of them, and announcing in loud, firm tones that while all five of her boys belonged to the union she'd be after tellin' them what she thought of this day's work!

It was a United States Senator who did the awful trick, and, to be fair, the Senator did not think of it as an awful trick at all. He came over there in the middle of the morning to see the Governor, and in a few hurried words—it was no day for conversation—was told what was going on. It was while standing out in the corridor watching the perspiring dignitaries that the idea of his duty came to him, and one reason he was sure he was right was the way in which it came to him in the light of a duty. Here was America in undress uniform! Here was—not a thing arranged for show, but absolutely the thing itself! Prince Ludwig had come with a sincere desire to see America. Every one knew that he was not seeing it at all. He would go back with memories of bands and flags and people all dressed up standing before him making polite speeches. But would he carry back one small whiff of the spirit of the country? Again Senator Bruner looked about him. The Speaker of the House was just beginning laying the stair carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was contending hotly for a better hammer. "It's an insult to expect any decent man to drive tacks with a hammer like this," he was saying. Here were men—real, live men, men with individuality, spirit. When the Prince had come so far, wasn't it too bad that he should not see anything but uniforms and cut glass and dress suits and other externals and non-essentials? Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a good fellow; he was hospitable—patriotic. He decided now in favour of the Prince.