my comments on them well worth your consideration from the point of view of advantage to your railroad. They are typewritten, and in concrete form. In fact, the Northeastern Railroads and myself must work together to our mutual advantage—that has become quite clear to me. I shall have need of your help in passing the measures.”
“I'm afraid I don't quite understand you, Mr. Crewe,” said Mr. Flint, putting down the papers.
“That is,” said Mr. Crewe, “if you approve of the bills, and I am confident that I shall be able to convince you.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked the railroad president.
“Well, in the first place,” said Mr. Crewe, unabashed, “send word to your man Braden that you've seen me and it's all right.”
“I assure you,” answered Mr. Flint, giving evidence for the first time of a loss of patience, “that neither the Northeastern Railroads nor myself, have any more to do with this Braden than you have.”
Mr. Crewe, being a man of the world, looked incredulous.
“Senator,” Mr. Flint continued, turning to Mr. Whitredge, “you know as much about politics in this State as any man of my acquaintance, have you ever heard of any connection between this Braden and the Northeastern Railroads?”
The senator had a laugh that was particularly disarming.
“Bless your soul, no,” he replied. “You will pardon me, Mr. Crewe, but you must have been listening to some farmer's tale. The railroad is the bugaboo in all these country romances. I've seen old Job Braden at conventions ever since I was a lad. He's a back number, one of the few remaining disciples and imitators of Jethro Bass: talks like him and acts like him. In the old days when there were a lot of little railroads, he and Bijah Bixby and a few others used to make something out of them, but since the consolidation, and Mr. Flint's presidency, Job stays at home. They tell me he runs Leith yet. You'd better go over and fix it up with him.”
A somewhat sarcastic smile of satisfaction was playing over Mr. Flint's face as he listened to the senator's words. As a matter of fact, they were very nearly true as regarded Job Braden, but Mr. Crewe may be pardoned for thinking that Mr. Flint was not showing him quite the confidence due from one business and corporation man to another. He was by no means abashed—Mr. Crewe had too much spirit for that. He merely became—as a man whose watchword is “thorough” will—a little more combative.
“Well, read the bills anyway, Mr. Flint, and I'll come and go over them with you. You can't fail to see my arguments, and all I ask is that you throw the weight of your organization at the State capital for them when they come up.”
Mr. Flint drummed on the table.
“The men who have held office in this State,” he said, “have always been willing to listen to any suggestion I may have thought proper to make to them. This is undoubtedly because I am at the head of the property which pays the largest taxes. Needless to say I am chary of making suggestions. But I am surprised that you should have jumped at a conclusion which is the result of a popular and unfortunately prevalent opinion that the Northeastern Railroads meddled in any way with the government or politics of this State. I am glad of this opportunity of assuring you that we do not,” he continued, leaning forward and holding up his hand to ward off interruption, “and I know that Senator Whitredge will bear me out in this statement, too.”
The senator nodded gravely. Mr. Crewe, who was anything but a fool, and just as assertive as Mr. Flint, cut in.
“Look here, Mr. Flint,” he said, “I know what a lobby is. I haven't been a director in railroads myself for nothing. I have no objection to a lobby. You employ counsel before the Legislature, don't you—”
“We do,” said Mr. Flint, interrupting, “the best and most honourable counsel we can find in the State. When necessary, they appear before the legislative committees. As a property holder in the State, and an admirer of its beauties, and as its well-wisher, it will give me great pleasure to look over your bills, and use whatever personal influence I may have as a citizen to forward them, should they meet my approval. And I am especially glad to do this as a neighbour, Mr. Crewe. As a neighbour,” he repeated, significantly.
The president of the Northeastern Railroads rose as he spoke these words, and held out his hand to Mr. Crewe. It was perhaps a coincidence that the senator rose also.
“All right,” said Mr. Crewe, “I'll call around again in about two weeks. Come and see me sometime, Senator.” “Thank you,” said the senator, “I shall be happy. And if you are ever in your automobile near the town of Ramsey, stop at my little farm, Mr. Crewe. I trust to be able soon to congratulate you on a step which I am sure will be but the beginning of a long and brilliant political career.”
“Thanks,” said Mr. Crewe; “by the bye, if you could see your way to drop a hint to that feller Braden, I should be much obliged.”
The senator shook his head and laughed.
“Job is an independent cuss,” he said, “I'm afraid he'd regard that as an unwarranted trespass on his preserves.”
Mr. Crewe was ushered out by the stooping secretary, Mr. Freeman; who, instead of seizing Mr. Crewe's hand as he had Austen Vane's, said not a word. But Mr. Crewe would have been interested if he could have heard Mr. Flint's first remark to the senator after the door was closed on his back. It did not relate to Mr. Crewe, but to the subject under discussion which he had interrupted; namely, the Republican candidates for the twenty senatorial districts of the State.
On its way back to Leith the red motor paused in front of Mr. Ball's store, and that gentleman was summoned in the usual manner.
“Do you see this Braden once in a while?” Mr. Crewe demanded.
Mr. Ball looked knowing.
“Tell him I want to have a talk with him,” said Mr. Crewe. “I've been to see Mr. Flint, and I think matters can be arranged. And mind you, no word about this, Ball.”
“I guess I understand a thing or two,” said Mr. Ball. “Trust me to handle it.”
Two days later, as Mr. Crewe was seated in his study, his man entered and stood respectfully waiting for the time when he should look up from his book.
“Well, what is it now, Waters?”
“If you please, sir,” said the man, “a strange message has come over the telephone just now that you were to be in room number twelve of the Ripton House to-morrow at ten o'clock. They wouldn't give any name, sir,” added the dignified Waters, who, to tell the truth, was somewhat outraged, “nor tell where they telephoned from. But it was a man's voice, sir.”
“All right,” said Mr. Crewe.
He spent much of the afternoon and evening debating whether or not his dignity would permit him to go. But he ordered the motor at half-past nine, and at ten o'clock precisely the clerk at the Ripton House was bowing to him and handing him, deferentially, a dripping pen.
“Where's room number twelve?” said the direct Mr. Crewe.
“Oh,” said the clerk, and possessing a full share of the worldly wisdom of his calling, he smiled broadly. “I guess you'll find him up there, Mr. Crewe. Front, show the gentleman to number twelve.”
The hall boy knocked on the door of number twelve.
“C—come in,” said a voice. “Come in.”
Mr. Crewe entered, the hall boy closed the door, and he found himself face to face with a comfortable, smooth-faced man seated with great placidity on a rocking-chair in the centre of the room, between the bed and the marble-topped table: a man to whom, evidently, a rich abundance of thought was sufficient company, for he had neither newspaper nor book. He rose in a leisurely fashion, and seemed the very essence of the benign as he stretched forth his hand.
“I'm Mr. Crewe,” the owner of that name proclaimed,