There were two strange men in the low-ceilinged, grimly-furnished “settin’ room,” as Milton was ushered into the presence of the Boss, but at a gesture from this magnate they went out; the Boss surveyed the new comer without a word of greeting or comment.
Mr. Beekman was a tall, angular man, past the prime of life, as was shown by the gray in his thick hair, curling at the ends, and in the stiff, projecting ruff of beard under his chin. His face was thin, hungry, with a plaintive effect of deep lines, and his great blue-black eyes were often tearful, like a young robin’s, in their intent watchfulness. He was almost wholly Dutch in parentage—of that silent, persistent, quietly-masterful race which, despite all the odds, has still held more than its own in Stuyvesant’s State—and the descent showed itself in the dusky hue of his skin. He had never been a wealthy man, though he came of a family decently supplied with substance, and of long settlement in the county. He had climbed to his present eminence after a long career in local politics, by that process of exhaustion which we call the survival of the fittest. Having attained it, his rule was that of a just despot, rewarding and binding still more closely to him the faithful, remorselessly crushing all signs of rivalry, and putting the recalcitrant without pity to fire and sword. He had an almost supernatural faculty of organizing information, and getting at the motives of men. He sniffed treachery as a deer in the breeze sniffs the dog, and he had an oriental way of striking with cruel swiftness, before anybody but the guilty victim suspected offence. Withal, he was a kindly man to those who deserved well of him, an upright citizen according to his lights, and a profound believer in his party.
He sat now chewing an unlighted cigar, with his feet on the hearth of the stove, and contemplated Milton at his leisure. He did not like Milton at all, and one of his chief reasons for doubting the real ability of Albert Fairchild was his choice of such an agent and confidant. At last he said, curtly:
“It’s you, is it? I’ve got no business with you! Where’s Fairchild?”
There was something in Beekman’s eager, searching way of looking at a man with those big bright eyes of his which, coupled with the question, embarrassed Milton, and he fumbled with his hat as he repeated the explanation he had given to the messenger. He was annoyed with himself for being thus disturbed.
The Boss looked his visitor out of countenance once more. Then he said: “Sit daown! Well, what is it to be?”
‘Milton grinned, and leaned forward familiarly in his chair.
“I sh’d ruther think that was fur you to say.”
“Oh, you think so, do yeh? You imagine you’ve got me on the hip, ay?”
“Well, p’raps we’re no jedge, but it sorts o’ looks that way, now, don’t it?” Milton tipped back his chair, satisfiedly, and put one of his big feet up on the hearth, to dispute possession with the Boss.
Beekman reflected for a minute: then he began, after glancing at the clock:
“There’s no time to waste. I might as well talk up ’n’ daown with yeh. Your man Fairchild makes me tired. Ef he’d set his heart on goin’ to Congress, why on airth didn’t he come to me in the first place, ’n’ say so? It could ’a’ been arranged, easy’s slidin’ off a log. But no, instid of that, he must go ’n’ work up th’ thing his own way, ’n’ then come ’n’ buck agin me in my own caounty, ’n’ obleege me to fight back. D’yeh call that sense? He’s smart enough in his way, I grant yeh. He’s fixed up a putty fair sort o’ organisation in Dearborn, although it can’t last long, simply because it’s all built up on money, ’n’ I don’t go a cent on that kind of organising. Still it’s good enough in its way. But, he made his mistake in lettin’ the idea run away with him that he could skeer me into a conniption fit with his musharoon organisation. He didn’t knaow me. He never took the trouble to find aout abaout me. He jest took it fur granted that I’d crawl daown aout o’ my tree, like Davy Crockett’s coon, as soon’s he pinted his gun at me. Well, I didn’t come worth a cent. Then, when he faound aout that he’d struck a snag, ’n’ that Dearborn County wasn’t the hull deestrick, he turns raoun’ ’n’ aouts with his wallet, ’n’ tries to hire me to come daown. Fur that’s what you was here for last week, ’n’ you knaow it’s well’s I do.”
Milton tried to get in some words here, of dissent or explanation, but the Boss would not hear them.
“Lem me go on; ’s no use your lyin’. That was Fairchild’s second mistake. He thought politics was all money. Ef I was poorer than Job’s turkey, he couldn’t buy me to so much as wink an eye fur him. I’m not in politics fur what I kin make aout of it. I’m in because I like it; because it’s meat ’n’ drink to me; because I git solid, substantial comfort aout of it. Ther’s satisfaction in carryin’ yer eend; there’s pretty nigh as much in daownin’ them that’s agin yeh. Jest naow I’m a thinkin’ a good deal what fun it ’d be to let the floor aout from under your man altogether, ’n’ nominate this feller from Tecumsy.”
“But,” broke in Milton, “you’re a candidate yer-self, ’n’——”
“Wait till I’m threw, will yeh? I said, I’m leanin’ a good deal jest naow to’rd this man from Tecumsy. I c’d beat him easy ’nough at the polls, ef he turned cranky, but I daoubt ef it ’d be wuth while. I ain’t seen him yet, but I’m told he’s here, ’n’ ef I like his looks durn me ef I ain’t a mine to nominate him. He can’t do no harm, even ef he tries. These reform spurts don’t winter well. They never last till spring. The boys lose their breath for a few months. But then they git daown to work agin, and baounce the reformers to the back seats where they belong. But it ’d be one thing to elect a high-toned, kid-gloved, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-maouth kind o’ man like what’s-his-name, ’n’ a hoss o’ quite another color to ’lect Fairchild. He’d make me trouble from the word ‘go!’ Understan’, I ain’t afraid of his meddlin’ with me here in Jay caounty; not a bit of it. But he’d use his position to cripple me in the deestrick. The present Congressman tried that on— ’n’ you ain’t so much as heerd his name mentioned fur a re-nomination. But it was bother ’nough to squelch him. I ain’t goin’ to hev it to do all over agin.”
“Right you air, tew!” Milton responded.
The Boss held up his hand to forbid further interruption, while he looked curiously at his visitor, as if puzzled by his acquiescence. He went on:
“Ef you was a man of any readin’ you’d hev heerd of a custom among Europe-ian kentries, when one whips another, of makin’ the under dog in the fight pull aout his front teeth, like. The beaten kentry has to tear daown its forts, ’n’ blow up its men-o’-war, ’n’ so on, jest as a guarantee not to make any more trouble. Well, ef I’d concluded to hev any dealin’s at all with Fairchild, that’s what I’d hev done with him. I’d ’a’ made him turn over the appintment of all Dearborn’s men on the deestrick Committee; ’n’ I’d ’a had a written agreement that half the Postmasters in Adams ’n’ Dearborn, as well as all in Jay, should be o’ my namin’. My wife’s brother should hev hed the Thessaly post office, tew, right under Fairchild’s nose, so’s to keep an eye on him. It’s the duty of every man to purvide for his own fam’ly.”
“Nothin’ small about you! You only wanted the hull airth!” chuckled Milton, ingratiatingly.
“No, it was Fairchild who wanted the airth ’n’ thought he’d got it, ’n’ while he was deliberatin’ whether he’d have it braowned on both sides or not, lo ’n’ behold I went in ’n’ took it away from him slick ’n’ clean.”
The Boss rose as he was speaking, reached for his overcoat and put it on. “Time’s up!” he said, sententiously.
Milton had risen too, and placed himself between Beekman and the door. “There’s seven minutes yit,” he said eagerly, “I’ve got something yeh can’t afford to miss. Don’t you want th’ nomination yer-self?”
“No. What good’d Washington be to me? New York State’s big enough for me. If yeh don’t understand that I put my name before the Convention jest to hold my caounty together, ’n’ block Dearborn, yer a dummed sight bigger fool than even I took yeh to be.”
“But s’pose Dearborn’s votes cud be thrown to you! They’d nominate yeh! What’d thet be wuth to yeh?”
“What ’d it be wuth?” mused the Boss, looking intently at Milton.
“Yes! in ready money, here! naow!”
The Boss took up his hat, meditatively, and gazed at his companion again. “Did you knaow th’ man that brought yeh here?” he asked.
“Yes—’twas Jim Bunner, wa’nt it?”
“That man ’d wade threw fire ’n’ water fer me. Yeh couldn’t tempt him with a hundred thaousan’ dollars to so much as say an evil word abaout me, let alone injure me. Yit he’s desprit poor, ’n’ th’ unly thing I ever did fer him in my life, excep’ givin’ him a day’s work naow ’n’ then, was to help him bury his child decently, ten years ago. But I know my men! Here Fairchild has took you off a dunghill, where all yer hull humly, sore-ey............