MALACHI NOLAN sat by the roll-top desk in the front window of his saloon. The desk was unopened, for Malachi seldom had occasion to use it. The only letters he ever wrote were to whisky houses in Peoria or Louisville, and then the process was a painful one. His mighty haunches completely filled the chair, which, in turn, completely filled the space railed off in front of the partition that screened the bar. The saloon was in a basement in Dearborn Street, and, to get to it, you had to go down four stone steps, hollowed by countless feet in the long years he had kept there. Outside, over the door, a long, black sign bore his simple device—M. Nolan.
Malachi Nolan sat with his back to the window. His cropped gray hair showed his red scalp, the hard red skin on his face was closely shaven and shone on the points of his heavy jaw. In the round hole at the corner of his broad mouth was one of the long succession of cigars that had worn away the hole, sending up its perpetual incense. He never removed the cigar and seldom puffed it. It seemed to smoke of its own volition, and lasted a long time. When it consumed itself, Malachi replaced it with another. No one had ever seen him without a cigar in that hole at the side of his mouth. When he moved his thin lips to speak the cigar would stand out rigidly between his teeth. He spoke with his teeth clenched. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and his shirt was clean and fresh, for he changed his linen daily, just as he shaved himself, relentlessly, every morning with a dull razor. On his glossy shirt front a great diamond, four carats in weight, sparkled leisurely as his enormous chest slowly rose and fell with his heavy breathing. This diamond was the central jewel of his alderman’s gold star, presented by constituents years before. The setting was so contrived that the stone could be unscrewed and made to serve as a stud. Malachi seldom wore the star, unless he went to a fire, or to a prize-fight across the Indiana line, or to the Olympic Theater, or got drunk.
As he sat there in his warm saloon on this raw March morning, Malachi read his paper, read it carefully and slowly, first the front page, column after column, then the second page, and so on, methodically, through all the pages, except the editorials, which he skipped. His lips moved slightly as he read, for he had to pronounce the words to himself in order to get their full meaning. He read his paper thus every morning of his life, and his paper was all he ever did read.
Malachi sat this morning, as on every other morning of the year, heavy, imponderable and solemn. The hour was ten o’clock. It was too early for business to begin in that saloon, so that the old bartender, who had been with Malachi for fifteen years, sat with his apron in his lap, against the whisky barrels that reached in rows from the slot machine back to the wooden stalls where many a campaign in the city council had been planned and its victory celebrated. The bartender was likewise reading a paper, the sporting news chiefly claiming his attention. By noon, aldermen and city hall employees would begin to drop in, and the place would liven up, but now the monotonous ticking of the Western Union clock on the wall could be heard all over the long room, and the big Maltese cat snoozed lazily at one end of the bar.
Malachi was not feeling as well as usual this morning, though his exterior was as clean and calm as ever. A fever burned beneath his great waistcoat, and on coming down he had drunk a bottle of mineral water. The truth is, that the night before, Malachi had so far departed from the habit of his methodical life as to drink much whisky, a thing he had not done for years, ever since the occasion, in fact, when celebrating a reëlection to the council, he had drunk so much that he was constrained to enter a barber shop in State Street, and terrorize the barbers by sticking all the razors in the floor, like a juggler he had seen playing with knives in a theater. The gang had been in the saloon until three o’clock that morning. They had just passed an ordinance granting a new franchise to the Metropolitan Motor Company, and in one of the walnut stalls the bundle had been cut, as the phrase is. The gang had grown so hilarious, as it always did on such occasions, that it had proposed a song by Malachi. Now, in his younger days, Malachi had been a great lad for song, and many a shindig in Bridgeport had he gladdened with his voice, but in the latter years it was seldom that he could be induced to exercise it. He would always plead his age and his flesh, and such was the solemnity of manner that had grown upon him with the years, that men in their sober hours never had the temerity to suggest anything so unbecoming his dignity. But on this night, heated by wine, and feeling, though they did not of course analyze the feeling, that so many improprieties had been committed that one more could not noticeably swell the score, they had been emboldened to demand a song. Malachi, standing by his own bar in his long frock coat and square-crowned stiff hat, twiddling his whisky glass just as if he were a casual visitor there, had resolutely shaken his head. But at two o’clock in the morning he had suddenly ordered the drinks for the house, and then, when the gang had given over all hope of his singing, save, perhaps, one or two who, deeper in their cups than the rest, had monotonously persisted in the invitation, he had spontaneously burst forth:
“Oh, Paddy, dear, and did you hear the news that’s going round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground.
St. Patrick’s day no more we’ll keep, his colors can’t be seen,
For there’s a bloody law ag’in the wearin’ of the green.
I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
And he said, ‘How’s poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?’”
And then the gang, unable to hold its enthusiasm, bellowed in chorus with the sadly cracked voice, which, nevertheless, retained the true old Irish lilt:
“She’s the most distressful country that ever yet was seen,
They are hangin’ men and women for the wearin’ of the green.”
They had sung it over and over, prolonging to a greater extent with each repetition the high note upon which in the song the word “men” falls. Once in tune, it was not so difficult to get Malachi to sing other songs, and he gave them, with the genuine flavor of the old sod, Garryowen. The gang became uproarious when he reached the stanza:
“Johnny Connell’s tall and straight,
And in his limbs he is complate,
He’ll pitch a bar of any weight
From Garryowen to Thomond gate.”
But the climax was reached when Malachi was at last induced to sing The Night Before Larry Was Stretched. This had taken time and diplomacy, for the more popular the song, the more difficult it was to prevail upon him to sing it, though at last he yielded, and the gang restrained itself as he began:
“The night before Larry was stretched,
The boys they all paid him a visit,
A bit in their sacks too they fetched,
They sweated their duds till they riz it:
For Larry was always the lad,
When a friend was condemned to the squeezer,
But he’d fence all the togs that he had
Just to help the poor boy to a sneezer,
And moisten his gob ’fore he died.”
The lagging last line was too much, and in their mad delight they began to pound Malachi familiarly on the back. And then he froze stiffly, drew himself up, ordered his cab and went home, and the song was never finished.
But now that morning had come and reason had returned with the light, he felt a chagrin at having suffered such a lapse in his dignity, and such a break in the resolution of years, and so was more solemn than ever.
When Malachi had read to the last line of the last column of the last page of his newspaper, he did not fold it and lay it aside as he did every other morning of the year. He turned to the first page and studied the picture there. It was the daily cartoon, and the central figure was intended for Malachi himself. That there could be no question of identity, the prudent artist had labeled it “Bull Nolan.” The figure was one that Malachi had seen in the newspapers in varying situations for years, and the aldermanic paunch, with massive chain and charm, the bullet head, with its stubble of hair and bell-crowned hat, the checked and braided clothes, the broad-soled shoes and checkered spats, the briskly radiating lines to symbolize his diamond, were supposed to embody the popular conception of the alderman’s personality. The inevitable cigar had fallen and lay fuming at his feet, the eyes and mouth gaped in palpable fear, and with a fat hand flashing other diamonds, this counterfeit presentment of Malachi Nolan was trying to protect the First Ward—peeping on a ballot from his waistcoat pocket—from a gentleman with high hat, side whiskers, gloves and cane, who, labeled “Citizen,” obviously impersonated the better element. The point of the cartoon was that the Municipal Reform League had resolved that Malachi Nolan be retired from public life. The League had had a banquet, and the speeches had breathed a zeal of reform such as only champagne and truffles can inspire. The resolutions rang like a declaration of independence; if the reform candidate, a gentleman of prominent probity, were beaten in regular convention, they would nominate him by petition.
Malachi studied the cartoon a long time, never changing expression, and when he finished, he folded the paper carefully and laid it on his desk, bestowed his spectacles in his waistcoat pocket, and then, placing a hand on each knee, sat and stared with widening eyes straight before him.
It was not a new experience to be thus caricatured. He had long since acquired a politician’s stoicism and could affect a reassuring indifference to attacks of the press; indeed, if a newspaper happened to elude him and slip into Nora’s hands, he could even pretend to like it. But this cartoon roused the fighting Irish in him.
Malachi had promised himself to retire from politics that spring, though his wary habit had kept him from taking the public into his confidence. He was rich, though not rich enough to give up saloon-keeping and become a contractor or a broker, and he had lately got the notion that he was growing old. But this successful politician, who so long before had landed in New York a homesick emigrant, had one great ambition unfulfilled. It was the common ambition of the exile—to see his home once more. When first elected to the council, after toiling years to save enough for his first small saloon, he had found, in the sentimental manner of his race, his chief joy in the fact that it was in the character of an ex-alderman he could go home to Ireland. Fate, of course, with her usual irony, had embittered his joy; Molly had died that very spring, she had not been spared even long enough to see him take his seat in the council chamber behind the one pathetic floral piece his constituents had placed upon his desk, but had left him to sit beside the candles at her wake, with lonesome little Nora crying at his knee. He felt that he had earned a rest. He had worked hard, mastered the intricate details of the water office and the special assessment bureau; he had done his part in making a town of wooden sidewalks a city of steel and stone; he had never betrayed his party or his friend. As for certain of his methods, well—if he thought of them at all—they were direct, and they won. So now that Nora was grown and had finished her education at St. Aloysius, he had decided to retire and take her with him on the long-dreamed-of trip back to Ireland—Ireland, where it was really spring that very morning.
But he wished to retire gracefully, to name his successor before he went, and how could he do this with the reformers making the fight of their lives against him? It would take Malachi Nolan some time to decide a question like that. He must think. Nora was young; after all, another term would make little difference; if he concluded to give some more lessons in practical politics to the reformers, she could take some more lessons on the piano.
Meanwhile, like a wise statesman, Malachi Nolan set about his day’s work. He had enough to keep him busy, so, drawing out his gold watch he carefully compared it with the clock, grasped the hour, rose deliberately, settled his ponderous body on his thick legs, and withdrew behind the partition. When he emerged to view again he was wrapped in his frieze overcoat, with his square-crowned hat pulled down to his eyebrows, ready for his morning visit to the city hall.
His progress over the great building was constantly impeded by men who stepped out of the rushing throngs of lawyers and lawyers’ clerks, city employees, court officials and politicians to shake hands with him, to whisper to him. He halted each time in a way that did not impair his Hibernian dignity, heard them with gravity, and walked on. He went to the water office to see why young Hennessey had been laid off; to the civil service commission to find out what opportunities the sixty-day list afforded; to the commissioner of public works to have some laborers put on the pay-roll; to the board of election commissioners to give in a list of certain constituents he desired to have appointed as extra clerks during the spring rush of work. He dropped in on the chief of police to get Murphy on the force; he saw the city clerk about a good fellow who had to be taken care of; he even followed the long hall to the court-house wing, where he whispered an instant to Judge Peters and had a friend excused from the jury.
And then he called on the mayor. A lieutenant of police, in gold stripes and stars, the velvet cuffs of his blue coat scrupulously brushed, was just going in. When the officer came out, the big policeman standing guard at the door raised his hand in a semi-military salute, and he kept a finger at his forehead until Malachi entered, thus declaring his abiding faith in the alderman’s political star, and his concern for his own official one.
The mayor sat at his great, square desk, with that look of nervous weariness Chicago gives the faces of its successful men, though the morning was young and the day’s strain scarce begun.
“Well, Alderman,” he said with a sigh, “what can I do for you?”
“Misther May’r,” said Nolan, “I come fer to ask a favor.”
The shade of weariness under the mayor’s eyes enveloped his brow, although he tried to wipe it out with his palm. Everybody came every day to ask favors.
“Now, Alderman,” he said, turning away fretfully, “I know. Please don’t ask me to interfere in your fight this spring. I’ll promise to keep hands off and leave you alone. Ain’t that enough?”
“Who said annything about my fight?” said Malachi. “It’s time enough to saay good marnin’ to th’ divil whin ye meet ’im, Jawn.”
The mayor looked a bit relieved, and turned toward Malachi with half a smile.
“Excuse me, Alderman, I supposed, of course—But what can I do for you?” He repeated his formula.
Malachi seated himself, and dangling his hat between his knees, he said:
“They’s a laad from my waard in the Bridewell, Jawn, an’ he’s a mother who’s wallopin’ a wash-board be th’ daay an’ night fer to make a livin’. His name’s James McGlone, an’ I’m afther a paardon fer ’im.”
The mayor scowled. “What’s he in for?”
“Damned if I know,” said Malachi; “he’s all the time in wan shcrape or anither with some o’ thim bla’gyaards down there.”
The mayor was turning a long blue pencil over and over, end for end, between his white fingers, making a series of monotonous tappings on his desk.
“Can’t you wait till after election?” he said at last.
“His time’ll be served out befoore that,” said Malachi, “an’ ph’at good’ll a paardon do ’im thin?”
The mayor continued the thoughtful tapping with his long blue pencil.
“Well, Alderman,” he said after a while, “I’d rather not issue any pardons before election, if I can help it. These reformers are going to raise hell this spring, sticking their noses into everybody’s business, and—”
Malachi’s little eyes contracted until their blue twinkle was almost hidden.
“But, Jawn,” he said, “so much the more r’ason why ye’ll want the Firsht in th’ convintion.”
“Oh, well,” said the mayor, “if it’s important—” And he pressed a button under his desk. Before his secretary appeared he added:
“You say you don’t know what he’s in for?”
“I dinnaw,” Malachi replied, “Mallett sint him up befoore I could git over.”
“You ought to watch those things more closely, Alderman,” chided the mayor peevishly.
Malachi Nolan sat at twilight with a glass of hot toddy on the leaf of his desk, and he sipped it with heavy sighs, for he had taken cold out in the March weather, with pores opened by the relaxations of the night before. Through his windows he could see the lights glimmering in the rain that had followed the moist snow of the early morning, and thousands of feet trudging by under rolled-up trousers or skirts held ankle high. At intervals the feet would line up along the curb waiting for North Side cable-cars, and seeing them paddle in the dirty slush, Malachi in the selfish spirit of contrast, more than ever coddled in the warmth of the room, of the toddy over which he smacked his lips, and of the cigar he smoked so slowly and comfortably. As he sat and smoked and sipped, he thought again of Limerick—the breath of spring blows the fragrance of the hawthorne, white upon the bough; he hears the song of the mavis; he is walking homeward along the black path through the bog, and up the green boreen, and there before him is the little cottage, its thatch held down by sticks and stones, a long ash pole propping up its crumbling gable; there is the mud shed with the thills of the old cart sticking out of it; the donkey is standing by, sad as ever; and up the muddy lane little Annie in her bare feet is driving the cows to the byre; and then he sees his mother sitting in the low doorway, all at once he catches his first whiff of the peat smoke, and with the strange spell that odors work upon the memory, it makes him a boy again; again he is sheltered on a rainy day in the mud shed, playing shoot-marbles with Andy Corrigan and Jerry O’Brien; again he is in the little chapel with the leaky roof; he sees all the boys and girls—Mary Cassidy among them—standing on the bare clay floor; he brings his bit of stone to kneel on during mass, he even runs out for a piece of slate to give to Mary, who lays it in the puddle at her feet and spreads her handkerchief over it before she kneels. And when the mass is over he will take little Nora—little Nora? He placed his hand to his forehead in confusion, and then in a gasp it all comes over him—Mary is old, Andy and Jerry are old, little Annie is old and he is old—they are all gone away. He bowed his head.
And yet Nora yearned to go. Should he turn the ward over to Brennan and take her this spring? He could run for the legislature when he came back in the fall; a senator would be elected by the next general assembly, and the graft would be very good then. The compromise attracted Malachi, for at once it acquitted him of indecision, a quality of statesmanship he hated, and kept for him the life of power that had become as the very breath of his nostrils. He would have been happy but for this stuffy cold, and even as it was he smacked his lips and fetched a long sigh, as he put down the glass.
And then the door opened, and a chill, wet wind blew in, causing him to start up out of his chair. He looked to see who it was that thus broke upon his reveries—and it was a woman! Now, a woman had never been in Malachi Nolan’s place before. It was a thing he could never tolerate, if he could ever imagine it even, and he hastily glanced around to see how many men were at the bar, and who they were. His face showed positive alarm. But the woman entered. She was accompanied by a boy, who slouched in behind her, shutting the door at her solicitous command, and halted there, hanging his head. His eyes shifted suspiciously under the hat brim that shadowed his sallow, prematurely wrinkled face; his lips curled in an evil sneer that seemed habitual.
The woman fluttered her shawl about her shoulders, clutched it to her thin breast with one hand, while the other she stretched forth with a blessing, as it were, for Malachi, and as she spoke, her seamed and scarred old Irish face, bleached in the steam of many wash-days and framed in withered black bonnet strings, glowed with the light of mother-love.
“Praise be, Mal’chi Nol’n,” she began, in a high voice that immediately stifled the clinking of glasses and the laughter behind the partition. “May God bless ye—ye’re th’ foinest man in th’ whole town! To think of yer l’avin’ th’ laad out th’ way ye did—an’ so soon afther me havin’ th’ impidence to ask ye, too—shure a mither’s blessin’ an’ th’ blessin’ of th’ Vargin’ll be on ye fer gettin’ th’ paardon fer ’im. Shtep up here, Jamesy, and t’ank Misther Nol’n yersilf—he’s th’ best man—”
“Aw, tut, tut, tut, now, Misthress McGlone,” said Malachi, his face flaming with something more than the exertion of craning his neck to peer behind the partition, “tut, tut, now, don’t be goin’ on like that.”
But the woman, brave in the one subject upon which she could dispute the alderman, persisted:
“Shure, Mal’chi Nol’n, ye know it yersilf—shtep up here, Jamesy, an’ make yer t’anks to ’im. Th’ laad’s a bit bashful, ye must excuse ’im, sor, he’s th’ best b’y ever lived, though it’s mesilf says it p’hat oughtn’t to.”
The boy still hung back, but the old woman hitching up the shawl that was shamelessly revealing the moth-eaten waist she wore, plucked him by the sleeve, and dragged him to the rail that separated them from Malachi. The boy jerked away from his mother’s grasp, yet lifted his unsteady eyes for an instant to blurt out:
“Well, I’m much obliged, see?”
And then, as if ashamed of so much politeness, he hung his head and squeezed the toe of his shoe between the spokes of the railing. The old woman folded her arms in the shawl and gazed on him with a fond smile that showed the few loose, yellow teeth that always wobbled in their gums when she spoke. Presently she turned to Malachi again:
“Ye mustn’t think haard o’ him, Misther Nol’n, he’s a bit back’ard shp’akin’ to th’ loikes o’ ye, ye moind, but he’s a good b’y, an’ he’d never got into throuble if it hadn’t been for this bad comp’ny he be’s dhragged into. Shure, he niver shtays out later’n tin o’clock o’ noights widout tellin’ me p’here he’s been. This afthernoon Oi was shcrubbin’ awaay all alone, an’ who should come in all o’ a suddint but him, bless th’ b’y, an’ saay, ‘Ma,’ he says, ‘Alderman Nol’n got me a paardon an’ Oi—’”
“That’s all right, Misthress McGlone—”
“An’ God’ll bless ye, sor,” the old woman broke in, unable to restrain the flood of tears that filled her filmy eyes and zigzagged down her cheeks. She cried softly a moment, then suddenly looked up in a crafty, cunning way.
“They’s wan thing, Misther Nol’n,” she said, “some wan was so good,” she looked all about to make sure that none was within hearing, and lowered her voice to a rough whisper, “as to sind me a ton o’ coal in a pushcaart th’ day. Oi wonder now who could that be?”
The alderman raised his heavy face with fine innocence.
“Where did it come from?” he asked.
“Misther Degnan’s yaards,” the woman answered.
“Thin I suppose’t was Degnan himsilf sint it.”
“Aw, there now!” the old woman cried, with the triumph of a vindicated prophet. “Oi knowed ye’d saay that, Oi knowed ye’d saay that—but, shure Oi think’t was yersilf done it.”
“L’ave off, l’ave off, now,” said Malachi almost roughly, “’tis no place, do ye mind, fer a woman, an’ no place fer th’ laad.” He gave the boy a penetrating glance that made the shifting eyes fall suddenly. “An’ ’tis late—did ye come down on th’ caar?”
The old woman’s tears running down her cheeks had left stains in the wrinkles, and she began plucking at something under her shawl. Presently she drew forth a handkerchief folded in a soft little white square, fresh and clean from the iron, and shaking it out she dabbed at her weak old eyes and wiped away the tear stains. Her voice was a whisper again.
“Aw, Misther Nol’n,” she began, “it’s been a haard winther on the poor, an’ Oi’ve had to save th’ pinnies, shure they’re scarce enough, an’ th’ laad with no job an’ me a poor widow woman. God forgive me”—her voice sank still lower, and into the whisper came a hard, rebellious note—“but some noights Oi’ve gone without me supper—”
“But why didn’t ye tell?” asked Malachi, looking up in concern.
“Oi’d die first!” she whispered hoarsely, while her wet eyes blazed. “It’ll niver be said Oi’m a beggar, an’ Oi wouldn’t have tould anny wan but you, sor”—she gave him a coaxing smile through her tears, and bent her head to one side in a way that seemed to recall her girlhood—“an’ maybe, sor, ye’d not saay annything ’bout it—there’s a good man, now. Oi’ve kep’ up th’ insurance an’ there’ll be enough to give me a dacent bur’al whin Oi die. Ye’ll excuse me fer”—she stretched a hand from the shawl and touched him on the shoulder—“fer runnin’ on loike this, but Oi couldn’t shlape th’ noight till Oi’d come down to thank ye—God bless ye, sor, Oi’ll pray fer ye every noight. We’ll be goin’ now.” She took a step toward the door, but turned back again, with that pleading inclination of the head, that smile, showing her long, wabbling teeth.
“Ye must excuse me, sor,” she said, “fer throublin’ ye so, but ye’re a koind, saft-hearted man—ye couldn’t git th’ laad a job now—shure Oi know ye couldn’t—he’s an hones’ b’y an’ a willin’ worker, sor, whin he can git annything to do—ye must excuse me, sor.”
Malachi was deeply chagrined. He actually got up and peeped again around the corner of the partition, and then said hastily, so as to close a painful and scandalous incident:
“Let th’ b’y come down an’ see me in th’ marnin’, ma’am, an’ here’s a bit o’ caar fare fer ye. Do ye go now an’ take th’ caar home. ’Tis a long waays fer ye to walk, ye niver ought a done it.”
The old woman objected at first, but finally consented to accept the coin on the basis of a loan, and then, blessing him again and again, courtesied herself in an old-fashioned, rheumatic way out of the door. And then Malachi tilted up his glass and drained the last drop. The toddy had grown quite cold.
The law of moral reaction sent the gang home early that evening, and by ten o’clock it was plain that the day’s work was done. Malachi had the bartender help him on with the frieze overcoat, and was adjusting his hat to a skull that still was sore, when the door opened. Malachi turned with a scowl, when the draft struck him, and saw Sullivan, the ward committeeman, and Brennan, Malachi’s political residuary legatee. Brennan’s eyes were sparkling merrily, his red face was round with laughter, and he came in with a breeze like the March day.
“Hello, Mal’chi,” he called, smiting the bar with the thick of his fist, “ain’t goin’ home, are you? It’s just the shank of the evening. What’ll you have?” Then, as one who likes to think he has special privileges, he said to the bartender aside: “Give’s a nice little drink of whisky.”
Malachi neither moved nor spoke. Brennan felt his coldness and flashed the intelligence to Sullivan.
“Just saw Jim Degnan,” he said, grasping the sweating whisky bottle.
“You did, did you?” said Malachi, in a challenging tone.
“Yes,” said Brennan, determined to be genial. “He tells me you’re goin’ back to Ireland in the spring.”
“He does, does he?” again challenged Nolan.
“Didn’t you tell ’im?”
“If I did, did I tell ’im phat spring?”
“Well, I s’posed as a matter of course he meant this spring.”
Brennan bent over to measure his drink and to hide some confusion. “And I thought—you know what you said, Mal’chi—I was goin’ to have Mike here call the convention and round up the nomination—”
“Th’ hell you was! Th’—hell—you—was!” Malachi’s growing amazement lengthened the pauses between his words.
“Why, didn’t you say you’d t’row the nomination to me when you quit?”
Brennan’s color deepened to an angry red.
“Did ye iver see such narve!” said Malachi, ignoring the question. “Mike’ll call th’ convintion fer soon enough, but whin I’m not a candydate in me own waard, I’ll tell ye mesilf, Willum Brennan.”
“Well, don’t get mad about it, Mal’chi,” said Brennan, who was getting mad himself. He shoved the bottle on to Sullivan, and blinked his small eyelids a moment. “Of course, Mal’chi, it’s just as you say.”
“Well, now, ye’re talkin’, Willum.” Malachi never could brook anything like interference in his ruling of the First Ward. “Whin I’m done, ye can have th’ nomination, same’s I told ye, but this spring I’m a candydate mesilf, do ye mind that now?” He drew closer to the bar in his softened humor, and now that the question at last had been decided, and in the only way it could have been decided, he suddenly became himself again.
“When do you want the convention called for, Mr. Nolan?” asked Sullivan.
“Sathurday,” replied Malachi promptly.
“Where?”
“Oh, same as usual—in the back ind of th’ plaace here.” Malachi jerked his thick thumb toward the rear end of the saloon, where the gloom was deep. “Prim’ries fer Friday.”
“All right,” said Sullivan.
Then no one spoke for a while. Finally, however, Brennan said, in a hesitating way:
“If you’re goin’ back to the council, Mal’chi, what’s the matter with me takin’ the legislative nomination in the district?”
“It’s time enough to saay good marnin’ to th’ divil whin ye meet ’im, Willum.”
There was silence again, until Brennan said:
“Well, I can’t help thinkin’ it’s a fine trip to Ireland you’re losin’.”
“’Tis so,” assented Malachi.
“Yes,” sighed Brennan. And he saw his ambition pass from him. But presently he was saying in his old, cheery tone:
“Ain’t you goin’ to take somethin’?”
Malachi leaned his big body against his bar, and over his shoulder, out of the corner of his mouth, he said:
“Seegaar.”
The bartender slid the box along the counter and rang up another ten cents on the cash register.
“Well, here’s lookin’ at you,” said Brennan, raising the little tumbler.
“Dhrink heaarty,” said Malachi Nolan.
The long day was done, and Malachi, in shirt-sleeves and stockinged feet, sat in his big plush rocking-chair, his legs stretched out before him, taking his ease at his own hearth. When he had come home at midnight, Nora, who always sat up for him, had insisted upon brewing him a cup of tea, under the impression, common to a certain class of women, that it has great medicinal qualities. Malachi had sipped it obediently, though he had not cared for it after all the mineral waters he had drunk that day, and had enjoyed far more than the tea the freckled Irish face of his daughter, as he gravely goggled at her over the rim of the saucer into which he had poured the beverage to cool it. They were in what Malachi called the parlor of their flat, though Nora had lately taken to calling it the drawing-room. It was furnished mostly in pieces upholstered in plush. Over the mantelpiece hung a large crayon portrait of a woman whose face, despite the insipidity the canvasing artist had given it, still showed the toil she had endured, if it told little of her strong character, while that disregard for expense which was expressed in the gilt frame marked it as a memorial of the dead. It was, of course, the face of Malachi’s wife, and when Nora, in her new culture, had hinted at hanging it in his bedroom, she had, for the first time in her life, quailed before that stubborn spirit with which her father ruled the First Ward. The few books on the center-table treated mostly of religious subjects, though there were queer bound volumes of Irish poetry, and on the wall there were one or two etchings in oaken frames. In a corner was a crucifix with a candle before it. But the one object in the room that dominated all the rest with its aggressive worldliness, was an upright piano, and Nora now sat swinging on the stool, her back to the instrument, her elbows behind her on the keys. She had partly prepared for bed, for she wore a flannel wrapper and her brilliant black hair hung in a braid down her back. Celtic blue eyes lighted up her face, and now they smiled under their long, black lashes upon this big saloon-keeper whom half the city feared, as if the simple sight of him were reward enough for her long hours of waiting.
Malachi finished his cup of tea and hurriedly inserted a cigar in the hole at the corner of his mouth, and thus confirmed in comfort, he said:
“Nora, child, do ye sing now—phat was that—it wint hummin’ t’rough me head th’ daay. Well, well, well, let me see now—hum-m-m-m—it goes something like—”
And he hummed a quavering old tune:
“‘I saw the Shannon’s purple flood
Flow by the Irish town.’”
Then he stopped and shook his grizzled head. “Shure, now, I’m forgettin’ it intirely; ye know, though, somethin’ about:
“‘Whin down the glin rode Sarsfield’s min,
And they wore the jackets green.’
“Sing it onct, fer th’ ould man.”
“But, father,” the girl laughed, though she began screwing up the piano stool, “it’s too late, the neighbors will object.”
“Niver mind th’ neighbors,” commanded the alderman in the tone he used at a primary, “sing it.”
“But it’s forbidden in the lease after ten o’clock,” the girl protested, leafing over her music. “What if the landlord—”
“It’s time to say good marnin’ to th’ divil, Nora, whin ye meet ’im.”
Nora fixed herself on the stool, fingered the keys, finding a soft minor chord. The old man closed his eyes, slid farther down in his plush chair, and just as he was prepared to listen, she suddenly stopped in the provoking way amateur musicians cultivate, to say:
“But, father, that’s such an old song, wouldn’t you rather I’d sing the Intermezzo from Cavalerie?”
Malachi opened his eyes with a start and sat bolt upright.
“Naw,” he said, “none o’ thim fur’n op’res—phat’s the use of yer goin’ to th’ convint all those years?” But his voice quickly softened. “Do ye go on now, Nora, darlin’, there’s a good gur-rl.”
And so she sang, and the alderman sank in his chair, with his big arms in their shirt-sleeves thrown over his head, closed his eyes again, stretched out his stockinged feet. The smoke from his cigar ascended to the chandelier, and now and then when he remembered the words of a line, he hummed them behind closed lips, in unison with his daughter. When the song was done Nora whirled around, clasped her hands in a school-girl’s ecstasy and said:
“Oh, father, that song makes me homesick—homesick for a place I never saw. You won’t run again, will you, father, will you? And we’ll go to Ireland in the spring, won’t we? Tell me, in the spring?”
A pain struck through Malachi Nolan’s heart, a pain that was made only more poignant when, with her American fear of the sentimental, Nora joked:
“I must see our ancestral cabin.”
Malachi could not open his eyes. For once he was afraid. He did not move for a long time. But at last he sighed and set his jaw, and said:
“Well, Nora—if ye saay so—in the spring.”
Malachi Nolan sat bolt upright in his seat in the Pullman. He was clothed in his decent black suit, and he wore his black cravat tucked stiffly under the collar that so tightly bound his thick, red neck. On his glossy shirt front the great diamond, four carats in weight, rose and fell with his heavy breathing. At his feet was a new yellow valise; beside him, wedging him tightly into his seat, was Nora’s luggage, her new bag, the roll of steamer rugs, her little umbrella, her plaid cape, and all the things she had got at the suggestion of friends who were interested in her journey across the sea to Ireland. Nora, in her new traveling gown, was prettier than Malachi had ever seen her. She sat in the front seat of the section, leaning against the double window, her elbow on its narrow sill, her chin meditatively in her palm. There had been some talk between them as the heavy train pulled out of the Van Buren Street station, and in the bustle of getting away, of arranging her bags and her bundles, and all that, Nora had beamed with pleasure, and a fine and happy excitement had sparkled through the long, black lashes of her blue Irish eyes. But as the train plunged recklessly out through the bewildering yards, she had noticed her father casting wistful glances at this or that familiar object sweeping so swiftly and irrevocably away. There was the Harrison Street police station which he had visited on so many mornings to help some poor devil out of the toils; the shops shutting down for the night, their workers trooping homeward, dead tired after the long hours; the Twelfth Street viaduct, marking the limits of his ward; the slips in the south branch of the dirty Chicago River, where big schooners still lay torpid at their winter moorings, the crossings at Sixteenth Street, then the dear old Archey Road. A silence had fallen upon him that reacted upon her, and she grew still, and rode on in the swaying train, gazing soberly out upon the ragged edges of that Chicago she was leaving behind for the first time in her life.
The black porter, in spotless white jacket, was going through the car with his stool, pulling down the inverted globes of the lamps with his ventilating stick and lighting the four little gas-jets; the travelers in the car were settling themselves accustomedly for the long ride to New York, there was even a prospect of some cheer in the dinner which was soon to be served in the dining-car, but the alderman seemed not to notice any of these things.
Malachi had never traveled much. His only trips had been those biennial ones to Springfield, when he had headed the First Ward delegation to the state conventions; sometimes he had gone down there while the legislature was in session; and once he had journeyed to Washington with the Marching Club to attend the inauguration ceremonies. But that was all. On these trips he had gone with his own kind, and doubtless enjoyed them, but now, this evening, it was plain that he was not comfortable. He could not smoke, for one thing, and the round hole in the corner of his mouth looked forlorn in its present lack of a cigar. He must have thought, once or twice, of escaping to the smoking-room, but each time he had remembered Nora, and so had sat on, heavy, imponderable and solemn.
After a while the porter got the little lights to burning, and they illumed, though inadequately, the long coach, its heavy trappings, its bell cord, the suspended hats and wraps swaying from side to side, as it creaked and groaned over so many switches and curves and crossings to get out of town. They rushed by mills, with furnaces blazing like infernos in the gathering twilight, and black, stubby chimneys lighting the dull sky with flames; at last they were in the outskirts where the city helplessly degenerates into naked flat buildings, finally, into low cottages scattered here and there in little broken rows, with high board-walks in front of them.
Then Malachi, stooping painfully, unbuckled his new valise and took from it a newspaper. Before he unfolded it, he drew out his spectacles and calmly adjusted them to his nose. Then opening the paper he began to read. He read carefully and slowly, first the front page, column after column, then the second page, and so on, methodically, through all the pages. His lips moved slightly as he read, for he had to pronounce the words to himself to get their full meaning. When Malachi had read to the last line of the last column of the last page of his newspaper, he did not fold and lay it aside. He turned back to the first page and studied the picture there. It was the daily cartoon, and the central figure was intended for Malachi himself. That there could be no question of identity, the prudent artist had labeled it “Bull Nolan.” The figure was one that Malachi had seen in the papers, in varying situations, for years, with the aldermanic paunch, the massive chain and charm, the bullet head, the stubble of hair, the bell-crowned hat, the braided plaid clothes, broad-soled shoes and checkered spats, the briskly radiating lines to symbolize the diamond. But at last the inevitable cigar had gone out, the First Ward no longer peeped on a ballot, secure and safe, from his waistcoat pocket. The gentleman with high hat, side whiskers, gloves and cane, who, labeled “Citizen,” impersonated the better element, had it now, and while he was still self-contained, there was a look of almost holy triumph in his face.
Malachi studied the cartoon a long time, never changing expression. But even when he finished he did not fold the paper carefully and put it back in his valise, nor bestow his spectacles in his waistcoat pocket. He had suffered many lapses in his methodical habits of late, and they were growing easy now. He turned to the editorial page, where a line in big types, heading a leading editorial, had caught his little eye. It said: “The Passing of Malachi Nolan.” Malachi began to read, slowly and carefully, pronouncing each word to himself:
“Citizens not only of the First Ward, but of the entire city, are to be congratulated upon the signal victory the Municipal Reform League has won in its campaign against Malachi Nolan. This man, who so long has misrepresented the ward mentioned in the city council, has at last been dislodged, and driven to the obscurity of private life, where his pernicious and dangerous tendencies, if not altogether abated, will at least be confined to a narrower sphere of activity. In announcing his retirement from politics, he gives as a reason his desire to pay a visit to his native land, but the public, while speeding his departure, will readily penetrate the gauzy excuse he advances for it. They know that he has been forced to fly from a field rendered utterly untenable by the onslaughts of those public-spirited gentlemen who at great personal sacrifice have so freely contributed of their means, their energies and their time to the work of the Municipal Reform League, and to them and the press they will ascribe the credit and the praise. It would seem, however, that the Honorable Bull Nolan has lost none of his presumption, for he insolently declares that he leaves as his personal representative and successor in the aldermanic chair one of his henchmen, William Brennan. But the people will take care of Mr. Brennan at the proper time. They will see to it that Nolan’s successor shall not be a man whose political methods are such as will enable him to take vacation trips in Europe, and with the abundant encouragement they have now received, will continue to widen this breach already made in the walls of corruption and dishonesty and carry on the splendid work for good government and honest politics—”
Malachi did not read any further. The lights in the car were poor, after all, and then, his eyes were not so good as they used to be. He folded the paper carefully, looked all about, then hid it at last behind him. Then he bestowed his spectacles in his waistcoat pocket, and, like Nora, looked out of the window. They had gone through South Chicago, they had passed One-hundredth Street. They looked out now upon the dull prairies that sprawled flat all about them, with no sign of spring as yet, but dead and desolate, broken only by a black and stunted tree here or there. At wide, wide intervals a lonely gas lamp twinkled bravely in a legal way as if to preserve the prescription of what was only technically a street. The prairies stretched away until they faded into the gray gloom of the March evening, and they had left Chicago at last behind.