Harwood opened the office in the Boordman Building, and settled in it the law books Bassett sent from Fraserville. The lease was taken in Dan's name, and he paid for the furniture with his own check, Bassett having given him five hundred dollars for expenses. The Boordman was one of the older buildings in Washington Street, and as it antedated the era of elevators, only the first of its three stories was occupied by offices. Its higher altitudes had fallen to miscellaneous tenants including a few telegraph operators, printers, and other night workers who lodged there for convenience. Dan's immediate neighbors proved to be a shabby lawyer who concealed by a professional exterior his real vocation, which was chattel mortgages; a fire insurance agency conducted by several active young fellows of Dan's acquaintance; and the office of a Pittsburg firm of construction contractors, presided over by a girl who answered the telephone if haply it rang at moments when the heroes of the novels she devoured were not in too imminent peril of death.
This office being nearest, Dan went in to borrow a match for his pipe while in the midst of his moving and found the girl rearranging her hair before a mirror.
"That's as near heart disease as I care to come," she said, turning at his "Beg pardon." "There hasn't been a man in this place for two weeks, much less a woman. Yes, I can stake you for a match. I keep them for those insurance fellows—nice boys they are, too. You see," she continued, not averse to prolonging the conversation, "our business is mostly outside. Hear about the sky-scraper we're building in Elwood? Three stories! One of the best little towns in Indiana, all right. Say, the janitor service in this old ark is something I couldn't describe to a gentleman. If there's anything in these microbe fairy stories we'll all die early. You might as well know the worst:—they do light housekeeping on the third floor and the smell of onions is what I call annoying. Oh, that's all right; what's a match between friends! The last man who had your office—you've taken sixty-six?—well, he always got his matches here, and touched me occasionally for a pink photo of George Washington—stamp, ha! ha! see! He was real nice and when his wife dropped in to see him one day and I was sitting in there joshing him and carrying on, he was that painfully embarrassed! I guess she made him move; but, Lord, they have to bribe tenants to get 'em in here. To crawl up one flight of that stairway you have to be a mountain climber. I only stay because the work's so congenial and it's a quiet place for reading, and all the processions pass here. The view of that hairdressing shop across the way is something I recommend. If I hadn't studied stenography I should have taken up hairdressing or manicuring. A little friend of mine works in that shop and the society ladies are most confidential. I'm Miss Rose Farrell, if you tease me to tell. You needn't say by any other name it's just as sweet—the ruffle's a little frayed on that."
Bassett had stipulated that his name should not appear and he suggested that Dan place his own on the door. Later, when he had been admitted to the bar it would be easy to add "attorney at law," Bassett said. Each of the three rooms of what the agent of the building liked to call a suite opened directly into the hall. In the first Harwood set up a desk for himself; in the second he placed the library, and the third and largest was to be Bassett's at such times as he cared to use it. Throughout the summer Harwood hardly saw Bassett, and he began to regret his reluctant assent to a relationship which conferred so many benefits with so little work. He dug hungrily at the law, and felt that he was making progress. Fitch, who was braving the heat in town, had outlined a course of reading for him, and continued his manifestations of friendliness by several times asking him to dinner, with a motor ride later to cool them off before going to bed.
Bassett kept pretty close to Fraserville, running into the city occasionally for a few hours. He complained now and then because he saw so little of his family, who continued at the lake. Dan had certain prescribed duties, but these were not onerous. A great many of the country newspapers began to come to the office, and it was Harwood's business to read them and cut out any items bearing upon local political conditions. Bassett winnowed these carefully, brushing the chaff into his wastebasket and retaining a few kernels for later use. He seemed thoroughly familiar with the state press and spoke of the rural newspapers with a respect that surprised Harwood, who had little patience with what he called the "grapevine dailies," with their scrappy local news, patent insides, and servile partisan opinions. Still, he began to find in a considerable number of these papers, even those emanating from remote county seats, a certain raciness and independence. This newspaper reading, which Dan had begun perfunctorily, soon interested him. It was thus, he saw, that Bassett kept in touch with state affairs. Sporadic temperance movements, squabbles over local improvements, rows in school boards, and like matters were not beneath Bassett's notice. He discussed these incidents and conditions with Harwood, who was astonished to find how thoroughly Bassett knew the state.
Through all this Dan was not blind to the sins charged against Bassett. There were certain corporations which it was said Bassett protected from violence at the state house. But as against this did not the vast horde of greedy corporations maintain a lobby at every session and was not a certain amount of lobbying legitimate? Again, Bassett had shielded the liquor interests from many attacks; but had not these interests their rights, and was it not a sound doctrine that favored government with the least restraint? Rather uglier had been Bassett's identification with the organization of the White River Canneries Company, a combination of industries on which a scandalous overissue of stock had been sold in generous chunks to a confiding public, followed in a couple of years by a collapse of the business and a reorganization that had frozen out all but a favored few. Still, Bassett had not been the sole culprit in that affair, and was not this sort of financiering typical of the time? Bassett and Thatcher had both played the gentle game of freeze-out in half a dozen other instances, and if they were culpable, why had they not been brought to book? In his inner soul Dan knew why not: in the bi-partisan political game only the stupid are annoyed by grand juries, which take their cue tamely from ambitious prosecuting attorneys eager for higher office.
Bassett's desk stood against the wall and over it hung a map of Indiana. It was no unusual thing for Dan to find Bassett with his chair tipped back, his eyes fixed upon the map. The oblong checkerboard formed by the ninety-two counties of the Hoosier commonwealth seemed to have a fascination for the man from Fraserville. When Dan found him thus in rapt contemplation Bassett usually turned toward him a little reluctantly and absently. It was thus that Morton Bassett studied the field, like a careful general outlining his campaigns, with ample data and charts before him.
This was an "off" year politically, or, more accurately, the statutes called for no state election in Indiana. For every one knows that there is no hour of the day in any year when politics wholly cease from agitating the waters of the Wabash: somewhere some one is always dropping in a pebble to see how far the ripple will widen. In the torrid first days of September the malfeasance of the treasurer of an Ohio River county afforded the Republican press an opportunity to gloat, the official in question being, of course, a Democrat, and a prominent member of the state committee.
For several days before the exposure Bassett had appeared fitfully at the Whitcomb and in the Boordman Building. On the day that the Republican "Advertiser" screamed delightedly over the Democratic scandal in Ranger County, Bassett called Dan into his office. Bassett's name had been linked to that of Miles, the erring treasurer, in the "Advertiser's" headlines; and its leading editorial had pointed to the defalcation as the sort of thing that inevitably follows the domination of a party by a spoilsman and corruptionist like the senator from Fraser.
Bassett indicated by a nod a copy of the "Advertiser" on his desk.
"The joke was on us this time. They're pinning Miles on me, and I guess I'll have to wear him like a bouquet. I've been in Louisville fixing this thing up and they won't have as much fun as they thought. It's a simple case: Miles hadn't found out yet that corn margins are not legitimate investments for a county's money. He's a good fellow and will know better next time. We couldn't afford to have a member of the state committee in jail, so I met the bondsmen and the prosecuting attorney—he's a Republican—in Louisville and we straightened it all out. The money's in bank down there. It proves to be after all a matter of bookkeeping,—technical differences, which were reconciled readily enough. Miles got scared; those fellows always do. He'll be good now."
Dan had been standing. Bassett pointed to a chair.
"I want you to write an interview with me on this case, laying emphasis on the fact that the trouble was all due to an antiquated system of keeping the accounts, which Miles inherited from his predecessors in office. The president of the bank and the prosecutor have prepared statements,—I have them in my pocket,—and I want you to get all the publicity you know how for these things. Let me see. In my interview you'd better lay great stress on the imperative need for a uniform accounting law for county officials. Say that we expect to stand for this in our next platform; make it strong. Have me say that this incident in Ranger County, while regrettable, will serve a good purpose if it arouses the minds of the people to the importance of changing the old unsatisfactory method of bookkeeping that so frequently leads perfectly trustworthy and well-meaning officials into error. Do you get the idea?"
"Yes; perfectly," Dan replied. "As I understand it, Miles isn't guilty, but you would take advantage of the agitation to show the necessity for reform."
"Exactly. And while you're about it, write a vigorous editorial for the 'Courier,' on the same line, and a few ironical squibs based on the eagerness of the Republican papers to see all Democrats through black goggles." The humor showed in Bassett's eyes for an instant, and he added: "Praise the Republican prosecutor of Ranger County for refusing to yield to partisan pressure and take advantage of a Democrat's mistakes of judgment. He's a nice fellow and we've got to be good to him."
This was the first task of importance that Bassett had assigned to him and Dan addressed himself to it zealously. If Miles was not really a defaulter there was every reason why the heinous aspersions of the opposition press should be dealt with vigorously. Dan was impressed by Bassett's method of dealing with a difficult situation. Miles had erred, but Bassett had taken the matter in hand promptly, secretly, and effectively. His attitude toward the treasurer's sin was tolerant and amiable. Miles had squandered money in bucket-shop gambling, but the sin was not uncommon, and the amount of his loss was sufficient to assure his penitence; he was an ally of Bassett's and it was Bassett's way to take care of his friends. Bassett had not denied that the culprit had been guilty of indiscretions; but he had minimized the importance of his error and adorned the tale with a moral on which Dan set about laying the greatest emphasis. He enjoyed writing, and in the interview he attributed ideas to Bassett that would have been creditable to the most idealistic of statesmen. He based the editorial Bassett had suggested upon the interview; and he wrote half a dozen editorial paragraphs in a vein of caustic humor that the "Courier" affected. In the afternoon he copied his articles on a typewriter and submitted them to Bassett.
"Good, very good. Too bad to take you out of the newspaper business; you have the right point of view and you know how to get hold of the right end of a sentence. Let me see. I wish you would do another interview changing the phraseology and making it short, and we'll give the 'Advertiser' a chance to print it. I'll attend to these other things. You'd better not be running into the 'Courier' office too much now that you're with me. They haven't got on to that yet, but they'll give us a twist when they do."
Dan had been admitted to the ante-chamber of Bassett's confidence, but he was to be permitted to advance a step further. At four o'clock he was surprised by the appearance of Atwill, the "Courier's" manager. Dan had no acquaintance with Atwill, whose advent had been coincident with the "Courier's" change of ownership shortly after Dan's tentative connection with the paper began. Atwill had rarely visited the editorial department, but it was no secret that he exercised general supervision of the paper. It had been whispered among the reporters that every issue was read carefully in proof by Atwill, but Dan had never been particularly interested in this fact. As Atwill appeared in the outer office, Bassett came from his own room to meet him. The door closed quickly upon the two and they were together for half an hour or more. Then Bassett summoned Dan.
"Mr. Atwill, this is Mr. Harwood. He was formerly employed on the 'Courier.' It was he that wrote up the Hoosier statesmen, you may remember."
Atwill nodded.
"I remember very well. Those articles helped business,—we could follow your pencil up and down the state on our circulation reports. I jumped the city editor for letting you go."
Atwill was a lean, clean-shaven man who chewed gum hungrily. His eyes were noticeably alert and keen. There was a tradition that he had been a "star" reporter in New York, a managing editor in Pittsburg, and a business manager in Minneapolis before coming to supervise the "Courier" for its new owner.
"Atwill, you and Harwood had better keep in touch with each other. Harwood is studying law here, but he will know pretty well what I'm doing. He will probably write an editorial for you occasionally, and when it comes in it won't be necessary for the regular employees of the 'Courier' to know where it comes from. Harwood won't mind if they take all the glory for his work."
When Atwill left, Bassett talked further to Harwood, throwing his legs across a chair and showing himself more at ease than Dan had yet seen him.
"Harwood," he said,—he had dropped the mister to-day for the first time in their intercourse,—"I've opened the door wider to you than I ever did before to any man. I trust you."
"I appreciate that, Mr. Bassett."
"I've been carrying too much, and it's a relief to find that I've got a man I can unload on. You understand, I trust you absolutely. And in coming to me as you did, and accepting these confidences, I assume that you don't think me as wicked as my enemies make me out."
"I liked you," said Dan, with real feeling, "from that moment you shook hands with me in your house at Fraserville. When I don't believe in you any longer, I'll quit; and if that time comes you may be sure that I shan't traffic in what I learn of your affairs. I feel that I want to say that to you."
"That's all right, Harwood. I hope our relations will be increasingly friendly; but if you want to quit at any time you're not tied. Be sure of that. If you should quit me to-morrow I should be disappointed but I wouldn't kick. And don't build up any quixotic ideas of gratitude toward me. When you don't like your job, move on. I guess we understand each other."
If Dan entertained any doubts as to the ethics involved in Bassett's handling of the situation in Ranger County they were swept away by the perfect candor with which Bassett informed their new intimacy. The most interesting and powerful character in Indiana politics had made a confidant of him. Without attempting to exact vows of secrecy, or threatening vengeance for infractions of faith, but in a spirit of good-fellowship that appealed strongly to Harwood, Bassett had given him a pass-key to many locked doors.
"As you probably gathered," Bassett was saying, "Atwill represents me at the 'Courier' office."
"I had never suspected it," Dan replied.
"Has anybody suspected it?" asked Bassett quickly.
"Well; of course it has been said repeatedly that you own or control the 'Courier.'"
"Let them keep on saying it; they might have hard work to prove it. And—" Bassett's eyes turned toward the window. His brows contracted and he shut his lips tightly so that his stiff mustache gave to his mouth a sinister look that Dan had never seen before. The disagreeable expression vanished and he was his usual calm, unruffled self. "And," he concluded, smiling, "I might have some trouble in proving it myself."
Dan was not only accumulating valuable information, but Bassett interested him more and more as a character. He was an unusual man, a new type, this senator from Fraser, with his alternating candor and disingenuousness, his prompt solutions of perplexing problems. It was unimaginable that a man so strong and so sure of himself, and so shrewd in extricating others from their entanglements, could ever be cornered, trapped, or beaten.
Bassett's hands had impressed Dan that first night at Fraserville, and he watched them again as Bassett idly twisted a rubber band in his fingers. How gentle those hands were and how cruel they might be!
The next morning Dan found that his interview with Bassett was the feature of the first page of the "Courier," and the statement he had sent to the "Advertiser" was hardly less prominently displayed. His editorial was the "Courier's" leader, and it appeared verbatim et literatim. He viewed his work with pride and satisfaction; even his ironical editorial "briefs" had, he fancied, something of the piquancy he admired in the paragraphing of the "New York Sun." But his gratification at being able to write "must" matter for both sides of a prominent journal was obscured by the greater joy of being the chief adjutant of the "Courier's" sagacious concealed owner.
The "Advertiser" replied to Bassett's statement in a tone of hilarity. Bassett's plea for a better accounting system was funny, that was all. Miles, the treasurer of Ranger County, had been playing the bucket shops with public moneys, and the Honorable Morton Bassett, of Fraserville, with characteristic zeal in a bad cause, had not only adjusted the shortage, but was craftily trying to turn the incident to the advantage of his party. The text for the "Advertiser's" leader was the jingle:—
"When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
When the devil got well, the devil a monk was he!"
Bassett had left town, but the regular staff of the "Courier" kept up the fight along the lines of the articles Dan had contributed. The "Advertiser," finding that the Republican prosecuting attorney of Ranger County joined with the local bank in certifying to Miles's probity, dropped the matter after a few scattering volleys.
However, within a week after the Miles incident, the "Advertiser" gave Harwood the shock of an unlooked-for plunge into ice-water by printing a sensational story under a double-column headline, reading, "The Boss in the Boordman Building." The Honorable Morton Bassett, so the article averred, no longer satisfied to rule his party amid the pastoral calm of Fraser County, had stolen into the capital and secretly established headquarters, which meant, beyond question, the manifestation of even a wider exercise of his malign influence in Indiana politics. Harwood's name enjoyed a fame that day that many years of laborious achievement could not have won for it. The "Advertiser's" photographers had stolen in at night and taken a flashlight picture of the office door, bearing the legend
Harwood's personal history was set forth in florid phrases. It appeared that he had been carefully chosen and trained by Bassett to aid in his evil work. His connection with the "Courier," which had seemed to Dan at the time so humble, assumed a dignity and importance that highly amused him. It was quite like the Fraserville boss to choose a young man of good antecedents, the graduate of a great university, with no previous experience in politics, the better to bend him to his will. Dan's talents and his brilliant career at college all helped to magnify the importance of Bassett's latest move. Morton Bassett was dangerous, the "Advertiser" conceded editorially, because he had brains; and he was even more to be feared because he could command the brains of other men.
Dan called Bassett at Fraserville on the long distance telephone and told him of the disclosure. Bassett replied in a few sentences.
"That won't hurt anything. I'd been expecting something of the kind. Put you in, did they? I'll get my paper to-night and read it carefully. Better cut the stuff out and send it in an envelope, to make sure. Call Atwill over and tell him we ignore the whole business. I'm taking a little rest, but I'll be in town in about a week."
Dan was surprised to find how bitterly he resented the attack on Bassett. The "Advertiser" spoke of the leader as though he were a monster of immorality and Dan honestly believed Bassett to be no such thing. His loyalty was deeply intensified by the hot volleys poured into the Boordman Building; but he was not disturbed by the references to himself. He winced a little bit at being called a "stool pigeon"; but he thought he knew the reporter who had written the article, and his experience in the newspaper office had not been so brief but that it had killed his layman's awe of the printed word. When he walked into the Whitcomb that evening the clerk made a point of calling his name and shaking hands with him. He was conscious that a number of idlers in the hotel lobby regarded him with a new interest. Some one spoke his name audibly, and he enjoyed in some degree the sensation of being a person of mark.
He crossed University Square and walked out Meridian Street to Fitch's house. The lawyer came downstairs in his shirt sleeves with a legal envelope in his hand.
"Glad to see you, Harwood. I'm packing up; going to light out in the morning and get in on the end of my family's vacation. They've moved out of Maine into the Berkshires and the boys are going back to college without coming home. I see the 'Advertiser' has been after you. How do you like your job?"
"I'm not scared," Dan replied. "It's all very amusing and my moral character hasn't suffered so far."
Fitch eyed him critically.
"Well, I haven't time to talk to you, but here's something I wish you'd do for me. I have a quit-claim deed for Mrs. Owen to sign. I forgot to tell one of the boys in the office to get her acknowledgment, but you're a notary, aren't you? I've just been telephoning her about it. You know who she is? Come to think of it, she's Bassett's aunt-in-law. You're not a good Hoosier till you know Aunt Sally. I advise you to make yourself solid with her. I don't know what she's doing in town just now, but her ways are always inscrutable."
Dan was soon ringing the bell at Mrs. Owen's. Mrs. Owen was out, the maid said, but would be back shortly. Dan explained that he had come from Mr. Fitch, and she asked him to walk into the parlor and wait.
Sylvia Garrison and her grandfather had been at Montgomery since their visit to Waupegan and were now in Indianapolis for a day on their way to Boston. The Delaware Street house had been closed all summer. The floors were bare and the furniture was still jacketed in linen. Sylvia rose as Harwood appeared at the parlor door.
"Pardon me," said Dan, as the maid vanished. "I have an errand with Mrs. Owen and I'll wait, if you don't mind?"
"Certainly. Mrs. Owen has gone out to make a call, but she will be back soon. She went only a little way down the street. Please have a chair."
She hesitated a moment, not knowing whether to remain or to leave the young man to himself. Dan determined the matter for her by opening a conversation on the state of the weather.
"September is the most trying month of the year. Just when we're all tired of summer, it takes its last fling at us."
"It has been very warm. I came over from Montgomery this afternoon and it was very dusty and disagreeable on the train."
"From Montgomery?" repeated Dan, surprised and perplexed. Then, as it dawned upon him that this was the girl who had opened the door for him at Professor Kelton's house in Montgomery when he had gone there with a letter from Fitch, "You see," he said, "we've met before, in your own house. You very kindly went off to find some one for me—and didn't come back; but I passed you on the campus as I was leaving."
He had for the moment forgotten the name of the old gentleman to whom he had borne a letter from Mr. Fitch. He would have forgotten the incident completely long ago if it had not been for the curious manner in which the lawyer had received his report and the secrecy so carefully enjoined. It was odd that he should have chanced upon these people again. Dan did not know many women, young or old, and he found this encounter with Sylvia wholly agreeable, Sylvia being, as we know, seventeen, and not an offense to the eye.
"It was my grandfather, Professor Kelton, you came to see. He's here with me now, but he's gone out to call on an old friend with Mrs. Owen."
Every detail of Dan's visit to the cottage was clear in Sylvia's mind; callers had been too rare for there to be any dimness of memory as to the visit of the stranger, particularly when she had associated her grandfather's subsequent depression with his coming.
Dan felt that he should scrupulously avoid touching upon the visit to Montgomery otherwise than casually. He was still bound in all honor to forget that excursion as far as possible. This young person seemed very serious, and he was not sure that she was comfortable in his presence.
"It was a warm day, I remember, but cool and pleasant in your library. I'm going to make a confession. When you went off so kindly to find Professor Kelton I picked up the book you had been reading, and it quite laid me low. I had imagined it would be something cheerful and frivolous, to lift the spirit of the jaded traveler."
"It must have been a good story," replied Sylvia, guardedly.
"It was! It was the 'Æneid,' and I began at your bookmark and tried to stagger through a page, but it floored me. You see how frank I am; I ought really to have kept this terrible disclosure from you."
"Didn't you like Madison? I remember that I thought you were comparing us unfavorably with other places. You implied"—and Sylvia smiled—"that you didn't think Madison a very important college."
"Then be sure of my contrition now! Your Virgil sank deep into my consciousness, and I am glad of this chance to render unto Madison the things that are Madison's."
His chaffing way reminded her of Dr. Wandless, who often struck a similar note in their encounters.
Sylvia was quite at ease now. Her caller's smile encouraged friendliness. He had dropped his fedora hat on a chair, but clung to his bamboo stick. His gray sack suit with the trousers neatly creased and his smartly knotted tie proclaimed him a man of fashion: the newest and youngest member of the Madison faculty, who had introduced spats to the campus, was not more impressively tailored.
"You said you had gone to a large college; and I said—"
"Oh, you hit me back straight enough!" laughed Harwood.
"I didn't mean to be rude," Sylvia protested, coloring.
They evidently both remembered what had been said at that interview.
"It wasn't rude; it was quite the retort courteous! My conceit at being a Yale man was shattered by your shot."
"Well, I suppose Yale is a good place, too," said Sylvia, with a generous intention that caused them both to laugh.
"By token of your Virgilian diversions shall I assume that you are a collegian, really or almost?"
"Just almost. I'm on my way to Wellesley now."
"Ah!" and his exclamation was heavy with meaning. A girl bound for college became immediately an integer with which a young man who had not yet mislaid his diploma could reckon. "I have usually been a supporter of Vassar. It's the only woman's college I ever attended. I went up there once to see a girl I had met at a Prom—such is the weakness of man! I had arrayed myself as the lilies of the field, and on my way through Pokip I gathered up a beautiful two-seated trap with a driver, thinking in my ignorance that I should make a big hit by driving the fair one over the hills and far away. The horses were wonderful; I found out later that they were the finest hearse horses in Poughkeepsie. She was an awfully funny girl, that girl. She always used both 'shall' and 'will,' being afraid to take chances with either verb, an idea I'm often tempted to adopt myself."
"It's ingenious, at any rate. But how did the drive go?"
"Oh, it didn't! She said she couldn't go with me alone unless I was or were her cousin. It was against the rules. So we agreed to be cousins and she went off to find the dean or some awful autocrat like that, to spring the delightful surprise, that her long-lost cousin from Kalamazoo had suddenly appeared, and might she go driving with him. That was her idea, I assure you,—my own depravity could suggest nothing more euphonious than Canajoharie. And would you believe it, the consent being forthcoming, she came back and said she wouldn't go—absolutely declined! She rested on the fine point in ethics that, while it was not improper to tell the fib, it would be highly sinful to take advantage of it! So we strolled over the campus and she showed me the sights, while those funeral beasts champed their bits at so much per hour. She was a Connecticut girl, and I made a note of the incident as illustrating a curious phase of the New England conscience."
While they were gayly ringing the changes on these adventures, steps sounded on the veranda.
"That's Mrs. Owen and my grandfather," said Sylvia.
"I wonder—" began Dan, grave at once.
"You're wondering," said Sylvia, "whether my grandfather will remember you."
She recalled very well her grandfather's unusual seriousness after Harwood's visit; it seemed wiser not to bring the matter again to his attention.
"I think it would be better if he didn't," replied Dan, relieved that she had anticipated his thought.
"I was only a messenger boy anyhow and I didn't know what my errand was about that day."
"He doesn't r