The Titan 27 страница

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less by his personal appearance than by his suggestion.

" Not a bad idea, " he said, " though I don't like to mix heart affairs

with politics. "

" Yes, " said Mr. Avery, soulfully, " there may be something in it.

I don't know. You never can tell. "

The upshot of this was that the task of obtaining an account of

Mr. Sluss's habits, tastes, and proclivities was assigned to that

now rather dignified legal personage, Mr. Burton Stimson, who in

turn assigned it to an assistant, a Mr. Marchbanks. It was an

amazing situation in some respects, but those who know anything

concerning the intricacies of politics, finance, and corporate

control, as they were practised in those palmy days, would never

marvel at the wells of subtlety, sinks of misery, and morasses of

disaster which they represented.

From another quarter, the Hon. Patrick Gilgan was not slow in

responding to Cowperwood's message. Whatever his political

connections and proclivities, he did not care to neglect so powerful

a man.

" And what can I be doing for you to-day, Mr. Cowperwood? " he

inquired, when he arrived looking nice and fresh, very spick and

span after his victory.

" Listen, Mr. Gilgan, " said Cowperwood, simply, eying the Republican

county chairman very fixedly and twiddling his thumbs with fingers

interlocked, " are you going to let the city council jam through

the General Electric and that South Side 'L' road ordinance without

giving me a chance to say a word or do anything about it? "

Mr. Gilgan, so Cowperwood knew, was only one of a new quadrumvirate

setting out to rule the city, but he pretended to believe that he

was the last word--an all power and authority--after the fashion

of McKenty. " Me good man, " replied Gilgan, archly, " you flatter

me. I haven't the city council in me vest pocket. I've been county

chairman, it's true, and helped to elect some of these men, but I

don't own 'em. Why shouldn't they pass the General Electric

ordinance? It's an honest ordinance, as far as I know. All the

newspapers have been for it. As for this 'L' road ordinance, I

haven't anything to do with it. It isn't anything I know much

about. Young MacDonald and Mr. Schryhart are looking after that. "

As a matter of fact, all that Mr. Gilgan was saying was decidedly

true. A henchman of young MacDonald's who was beginning to learn

to play politics--an alderman bythe name of Klemm--had been scheduled

as a kind of field-marshal, and it was MacDonald--not Gilgan,

Tiernan, Kerrigan, or Edstrom--who was to round up the recalcitrant

aldermen, telling them their duty. Gilgan's quadrumvirate had not

as yet got their machine in good working order, though they were

doing their best to bring this about. " I helped to elect every

one of these men, it's true; but that doesn't mean I'm running 'em

by any means, " concluded Gilgan. " Not yet, anyhow. "

At the " not yet" Cowperwood smiled.

" Just the same, Mr. Gilgan, " he went on, smoothly, " you're the

nominal head and front of this whole movement in opposition to me

at present, and you're the one I have to look to. You have this

present Republican situation almost entirely in your own fingers,

and you can do about as you like if you're so minded. If you

choose you can persuade the members of council to take considerable

more time than they otherwise would in passing these ordinances

--of that I'm sure. I don't know whether you know or not, Mr.

Gilgan, though I suppose you do, that this whole fight against me

is a strike campaign intended to drive me out of Chicago. Now

you're a man of sense and judgment and considerable business

experience, and I want to ask you if you think that is fair. I

came here some sixteen or seventeen years ago and went into the

gas business. It was an open field, the field I undertook to

develop--outlying towns on the North, South, and West sides. Yet

the moment I started the old-line companies began to fight me,

though I wasn't invading their territory at all at the time. "

" I remember it well enough, " replied Gilgan. " I was one of the

men that helped you to get your Hyde Park franchise. You'd never

have got it if it hadn't been for me. That fellow McKibben, " added

Gilgan, with a grin, " a likely chap, him. He always walked as if

he had on rubber shoes. He's with you yet, I suppose? "

" Yes, he's around here somewhere, " replied Cowperwood, loftily.

" But to go back to this other matter, most of the men that are

behind this General Electric ordinance and this 'L' road franchise

were in the gas business--Blackman, Jules, Baker, Schryhart, and

others--and they are angry because I came into their field, and

angrier still because they had eventually to buy me out. They're

angry because I reorganized these old-fashioned street-railway

companies here and put them on their feet. Merrill is angry

because I didn't run a loop around his store, and the others are

angry because I ever got a loop at all. They're all angry because

I managed to step in and do the things that they should have done

long before. I came here--and that's the whole story in a nutshell.

I've had to have the city council with me to be able to do anything

at all, and because I managed to make it friendly and keep it so

they've turned on me in that section and gone into politics. I

know well enough, Mr. Gilgan, " concluded Cowperwood, " who has been

behind you in this fight. I've known all along where the money

has been coming from. You've won, and you've won handsomely, and

I for one don't begrudge you your victory in the least; but what

I want to know now is, are you going to help them carry this fight

on against me in this way, or are you not? Are you going to give

me a fighting chance? There's going to be another election in two

years. Politics isn't a bed of roses that stays made just because

you make it once. These fellows that you have got in with are a

crowd of silk stockings. They haven't any sympathy with you or

any one like you. They're willing to be friendly with you now

--just long enough to get something out of you and club me to death.

But after that how long do you think they will have any use for

you--how long? "

" Not very long, maybe, " replied Gilgan, simply and contemplatively,

" but the world is the world, and we have to take it as we find it. "

" Quite so, " replied Cowperwood, undismayed; " but Chicago is Chicago,

and I will be here as long as they will. Fighting me in this

fashion--building elevated roads to cut into my profits and giving

franchises to rival companies--isn't going to get me out or

seriously injure me, either. I'm here to stay, and the political

situation as it is to-day isn't going to remain the same forever

and ever. Now, you are an ambitious man; I can see that. You're

not in politics for your health--that I know. Tell me exactly

what it is you want and whether I can't get it for you as quick

if not quicker than these other fellows? What is it I can do for

you that will make you see that my side is just as good as theirs

and better? I am playing a legitimate game in Chicago. I've been

building up an excellent street-car service. I don't want to be

annoyed every fifteen minutes by a rival company coming into the

field. Now, what can I do to straighten this out? Isn't there

some way that you and I can come together without fighting at every

step? Can't you suggest some programme we can both follow that

will make things easier? "

Cowperwood paused, and Gilgan thought for a long time. It was

true, as Cowperwood said, that he was not in politics for his

health. The situation, as at present conditioned, was not inherently

favorable for the brilliant programme he had originally mapped out

for himself. Tiernan, Kerrigan, and Edstrom were friendly as yet;

but they were already making extravagant demands; and the reformers

--those who had been led by the newspapers to believe that Cowperwood

was a scoundrel and all his works vile--were demanding that a

strictly moral programme be adhered to in all the doings of council,

and that no jobs, contracts, or deals of any kind be entered into

without the full knowledge of the newspapers and of the public.

Gilgan, even after the first post-election conference with his

colleagues, had begun to feel that he was between the devil and

the deep sea, but he was feeling his way, and not inclined to be

in too much of a hurry.

" It's rather a flat proposition you're makin' me, " he said softly,

after a time, " askin' me to throw down me friends the moment I've

won a victory for 'em. It's not the way I've been used to playin'

politics. There may be a lot of truth in what you say. Still, a

man can't be jumpin' around like a cat in a bag. He has to be

faithful to somebody sometime. " Mr. Gilgan paused, considerably

nonplussed by his own position.

" Well, " replied Cowperwood, sympathetically, " think it over. It's

difficult business, this business of politics. I'm in it, for

one, only because I have to be. If you see any way you can help

me, or I can help you, let me know. In the mean time don't take

in bad part what I've just said. I'm in the position of a man

with his hack to the wall. I'm fighting for my life. Naturally,

I'm going to fight. But you and I needn't be the worse friends

for that. We may become the best of friends yet. "

" It's well I know that, " said Gilgan, " and it's the best of friends

I'd like to be with you. But even if I could take care of the

aldermen, which I couldn't alone as yet, there's the mayor. I

don't know him at all except to say how-do-ye-do now and then; but

he's very much opposed to you, as I understand it. He'll be running

around most likely and talking in the papers. A man like that can

do a good deal. "

" I may be able to arrange for that, " replied Cowperwood. " Perhaps

Mr. Sluss can be reached. It may be that he isn't as opposed to

me as he thinks he is. You never can tell. "

Chapter XXXIX

The New Administration

Oliver Marchbanks, the youthful fox to whom Stimson had assigned

the task of trapping Mr. Sluss in some legally unsanctioned act,

had by scurrying about finally pieced together enough of a story

to make it exceedingly unpleasant for the Honorable Chaffee in

case he were to become the too willing tool of Cowperwood's enemies.

The principal agent in this affair was a certain Claudia

Carlstadt--adventuress, detective by disposition, and a sort of

smiling prostitute and hireling, who was at the same time a highly

presentable and experienced individual. Needless to say, Cowperwood

knew nothing of these minor proceedings, though a genial nod from

him in the beginning had set in motion the whole machinery of

trespass in this respect.

Claudia Carlstadt--the instrument of the Honorable Chaffee's

undoing--was blonde, slender, notably fresh as yet, being only

twenty-six, and as ruthless and unconsciously cruel as only the

avaricious and unthinking type--unthinking in the larger philosophic

meaning of the word--can be. To grasp the reason for her being,

one would have had to see the spiritless South Halstead Street

world from which she had sprung--one of those neighborhoods of

old, cracked, and battered houses where slatterns trudge to and

fro with beer-cans and shutters swing on broken hinges. In her

youth Claudia had been made to " rush the growler, " to sell newspapers

at the corner of Halstead and Harrison streets, and to buy cocaine

at the nearest drug store. Her little dresses and underclothing

had always been of the poorest and shabbiest material--torn and

dirty, her ragged stockings frequently showed the white flesh of

her thin little legs, and her shoes were worn and cracked, letting

the water and snow seep through in winter. Her companions were

wretched little street boys of her own neighborhood, from whom she

learned to swear and to understand and indulge in vile practices,

though, as is often the case with children, she was not utterly

depraved thereby, at that. At eleven, when her mother died, she

ran away from the wretched children's home to which she had been

committed, and by putting up a piteous tale she was harbored on

the West Side by an Irish family whose two daughters were clerks

in a large retail store. Through these Claudia became a cash-girl.

Thereafter followed an individual career as strange and checkered

as anything that had gone before. Sufficient to say that Claudia's

native intelligence was considerable. At the age of twenty she

had managed--through her connections with the son of a shoe

manufacturer and with a rich jeweler--to amass a little cash and

an extended wardrobe. It was then that a handsome young Western

Congressman, newly elected, invited her to Washington to take a

position in a government bureau. This necessitated a knowledge

of stenography and typewriting, which she soon acquired. Later

she was introduced by a Western Senator into that form of secret

service which has no connection with legitimate government, but

which is profitable. She was used to extract secrets by flattery

and cajolery where ordinary bribery would not avail. A matter of

tracing the secret financial connections of an Illinois Congressman

finally brought her back to Chicago, and here young Stimson

encountered her. From him she learned of the political and financial

conspiracy against Cowperwood, and was in an odd manner fascinated.

From her Congressmen friends she already knew something of Sluss.

Stimson indicated that it would be worth two or three thousand

dollars and expenses if the mayor were successfully compromised.

Thus Claudia Carlstadt was gently navigated into Mr. Sluss's glowing

life.

The matter was not so difficult of accomplishment. Through the

Hon. Joel Avery, Marchbanks secured a letter from a political

friend of Mr. Sluss in behalf of a young widow--temporarily

embarrassed, a competent stenographer, and the like--who wished a

place under the new administration. Thus equipped, Claudia presented

herself at the mayor's office armed for the fray, as it were, in

a fetching black silk of a strangely heavy grain, her throat and

fingers ornamented with simple pearls, her yellow hair arranged about

her temples in exquisite curls. Mr. Sluss was very busy, but made

an appointment. The next time she appeared a yellow and red velvet

rose had been added to her corsage. She was a shapely, full-bosomed

young woman who had acquired the art of walking, sitting, standing,

and bending after the most approved theories of the Washington

cocotte. Mr. Sluss was interested at once, but circumspect and

careful. He was now mayor of a great city, the cynosure of all

eyes. It seemed to him he remembered having already met Mrs.

Brandon, as the lady styled herself, and she reminded him where.

It had been two years before in the grill of the Richelieu. He

immediately recalled details of the interesting occasion.

" Ah, yes, and since then, as I understand it, you married and your

husband died. Most unfortunate. "

Mr. Sluss had a large international manner suited, as he thought,

to a man in so exalted a position.

Mrs. Brandon nodded resignedly. Her eyebrows and lashes were

carefully darkened so as to sweeten the lines of her face, and a

dimple had been made in one cheek by the aid of an orange stick.

She was the picture of delicate femininity appealingly distressful,

and yet to all appearance commercially competent.

" At the time I met you you were connected with the government

service in Washington, I believe. "

" Yes, I had a small place in the Treasury Department, but this new

administration put me out. "

She lifted her eyes and leaned forward, thus bringing her torso

into a ravishing position. She had the air of one who has done

many things besides work in the Treasury Department. No least

detail, as she observed, was lost on Mr. Sluss. He noted her

shoes, which were button patent leather with cloth tops; her gloves,

which were glace black kid with white stitching at the back and

fastened by dark-gamet buttons; the coral necklace worn on this

occasion, and her yellow and red velvet rose. Evidently a trig

and hopeful widow, even if so recently bereaved.

" Let me see, " mused Mr. Sluss, " where are you living? Just let me

make a note of your address. This is a very nice letter from Mr.

Barry. Suppose you give me a few days to think what I can do?

This is Tuesday. Come in again on Friday. I'll see if anything

suggests itself. "

He strolled with her to the official door, and noted that her step

was light and springy. At parting she turned a very melting gaze

upon him, and at once he decided that if he could he would find

her something. She was the most fascinating applicant that had

yet appeared.

The end of Chaffee Thayer Sluss was not far distant after this.

Mrs. Brandon returned, as requested, her costume enlivened this

time by a red-silk petticoat which contrived to show its ingratiating

flounces beneath the glistening black broadcloth of her skirt.

" Say, did you get on to that? " observed one of the doormen, a

hold-over from the previous regime, to another of the same vintage.

" Some style to the new administration, hey? We're not so slow,

do you think? "

He pulled his coat together and fumbled at his collar to give

himself an air of smartness, and gazed gaily at his partner, both

of them over sixty and dusty specimens, at that.

The other poked him in the stomach. " Hold your horses there, Bill.

Not so fast. We ain't got a real start yet. Give us another six

months, and then watch out. "

Mr. Sluss was pleased to see Mrs. Brandon. He had spoken to John

Bastienelli, the new commissioner of taxes, whose offices were

directly over the way on the same hall, and the latter, seeing

that he might want favors of the mayor later on, had volubly agreed

to take care of the lady.

" I am very glad to be able to give you this letter to Mr. Bastienelli, "

commented Mr. Sluss, as he rang for a stenographer, " not only for

the sake of my old friend Mr. Barry, but for your own as well.

Do you know Mr. Barry very well? " he asked, curiously.

" Only slightly, " admitted Mrs. Brandon, feeling that Mr. Sluss

would be glad to know she was not very intimate with those who

were recommending her. " I was sent to him by a Mr. Amerman. " (She

named an entirely fictitious personage. )

Mr. Sluss was relieved. As he handed her the note she once more

surveyed him with those grateful, persuasive, appealing eyes.

They made him almost dizzy, and set up a chemical perturbation in

his blood which quite dispelled his good resolutions in regard to

the strange woman and his need of being circumspect.

" You say you are living on the North Side? " he inquired, smiling

weakly, almost foolishly.

" Yes, I have taken such a nice little apartment over-looking

Lincoln Park. I didn't know whether I was going to be able to

keep it up, but now that I have this position-- You've been so

very kind to me, Mr. Sluss, " she concluded, with the same

I-need-to-be-cared-for air. " I hope you won't forget me entirely.

If I could be of any personal service to you at any time--"

Mr. Sluss was rather beside himself at the thought that this

charming baggage of femininity, having come so close for the minute,

was now passing on and might disappear entirely. By a great effort

of daring, as they walked toward the door, he managed to say: " I

shall have to look into that little place of yours sometime and

see how you are getting along. I live up that way myself. "

" Oh, do! " she exclaimed, warmly. " It would be so kind. I am

practically alone in the world. Perhaps you play cards. I know

how to make a most wonderful punch. I should like you to see how

cozily I am settled. "

At this Mr. Sluss, now completely in tow of his principal weakness,

capitulated. " I will, " he said, " I surely will. And that sooner

than you expect, perhaps. You must let me know how you are getting

along. "

He took her hand. She held his quite warmly. " Now I'll hold you

to your promise, " she gurgled, in a throaty, coaxing way. A few

days later he encountered her at lunch-time in his hall, where she

had been literally lying in wait for him in order to repeat her

invitation. Then he came.

The hold-over employees who worked about the City Hall in connection

with the mayor's office were hereafter instructed to note as

witnesses the times of arrival and departure of Mrs. Brandon and

Mr. Sluss. A note that he wrote to Mrs. Brandon was carefully

treasured, and sufficient evidence as to their presence at hotels

and restaurants was garnered to make out a damaging case. The

whole affair took about four months; then Mrs. Brandon suddenly

received an offer to return to Washington, and decided to depart.

The letters that followed her were a part of the data that was

finally assembled in Mr. Stimson's office to be used against Mr.

Sluss in case he became too obstreperous in his opposition to

Cowperwood.

In the mean time the organization which Mr. Gilgan had planned

with Mr. Tiernan, Mr. Kerrigan, and Mr. Edstrom was encountering

what might be called rough sledding. It was discovered that, owing

to the temperaments of some of the new aldermen, and to the

self-righteous attitude of their political sponsors, no franchises

of any kind were to be passed unless they had the moral approval

of such men as Hand, Sluss, and the other reformers; above all,

no money of any kind was to be paid to anybody for anything.

" Whaddye think of those damn four-flushers and come-ons, anyhow? "

inquired Mr. Kerrigan of Mr. Tiernan, shortly subsequent to a

conference with Gilgan, from which Tiernan had been unavoidably

absent. " They've got an ordinance drawn up covering the whole

city in an elevated-road scheme, and there ain't anything in it

for anybody. Say, whaddye think they think we are, anyhow? Hey? "

Mr. Tiernan himself, after his own conference with Edstrom, had

been busy getting the lay of the land, as he termed it; and his

investigations led him to believe that a certain alderman by the

name of Klemm, a clever and very respectable German-American from

the North Side, was to be the leader of the Republicans in council,

and that he and some ten or twelve others were determined, because

of moral principles alone, that only honest measures should be

passed. It was staggering.

At this news Mr. Kerrigan, who had been calculating on a number

of thousands of dollars for his vote on various occasions, stared

incredulously. " Well, I'll be damned! " he commented. " They've

got a nerve! What? "

" I've been talking to this fellow Klemm of the twentieth, " said

Mr. Tiernan, sardonically. " Say, he's a real one! I met him over

at the Tremont talkin' to Hvranek. He shakes hands like a dead

fish. Whaddye think he had the nerve to say to me. 'This isn't

the Mr. Tiernan of the second? ' he says.

" 'I'm the same, ' says I.

" 'Well, you don't look as savage as I thought you did, ' says he.

Haw-haw! I felt like sayin', 'If you don't go way I'll give you a

slight tap on the wrist. ' I'd like just one pass at a stiff like

that up a dark alley. " (Mr. Tiernan almost groaned in anguish. )

" And then he begins to say he doesn't see how there can be any

reasonable objection to allowin' various new companies to enter

the street-car field. 'It's sufficiently clear, ' he says, 'that

the public is against monopolies in any form. '" (Mr. Tiernan was

mocking Mr. Klemm's voice and language. ) " My eye! " he concluded,

sententiously. " Wait till he tries to throw that dope into Gumble

and Pinski and Schlumbohm--haw, haw, haw! "

Mr. Kerrigan, at the thought of these hearty aldermen accustomed

to all the perquisites of graft and rake-off, leaned back and gave

vent to a burst of deep-chested laughter. " I'll tell you what it

is, Mike, " he said, archly, hitching up his tight, very artistic,

and almost English trousers, " we're up against a bunch of pikers

in this Gilgan crowd, and they've gotta be taught a lesson. He

knows it as well as anybody else. None o' that Christian con game

goes around where I am. I believe this man Cowperwood's right

when he says them fellows are a bunch of soreheads and jealous.

If Cowperwood's willing to put down good hard money to keep 'em

out of his game, let them do as much to stay in it. This ain't

no charity grab-bag. We ought to be able to round up enough of

these new fellows to make Schryhart and MacDonald come down good

and plenty for what they want. From what Gilgan said all along,

I thought he was dealing with live ones. They paid to win the

election. Now let 'em pay to pull off a swell franchise if they

want it, eh? "

" You're damn right, " echoed Tiernan. " I'm with you to a T. "

It was not long after this conversation that Mr. Truman Leslie

MacDonald, acting through Alderman Klemm, proceeded to make a

count of noses, and found to his astonishment that he was not as

strong as he had thought he was. Political loyalty is such a

fickle thing. A number of aldermen with curious names--Horback,

Fogarty, McGrane, Sumulsky--showed signs of being tampered with.

He hurried at once to Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, and Arneel with

this disconcerting information. They had been congratulating

themselves that the recent victory, if it resulted in nothing else,

would at least produce a blanket 'L' road franchise, and that this

would be sufficient to bring Cowperwood to his knees.

Upon receiving MacDonald's message Hand sent at once for Gilgan.

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