The Apple of Discord

"The Revolution!" I exclaimed. "Well, that's a safe antiquarian topic."

"Oh," stammered Clark, "it isn't the old Revolution. That's too far back for us. It's the coming Revolution we're talking about, when all men are to be equal and share alike in the good things of the earth. Parks, here, thinks he knows all about it." And he waved his hand toward the oratorical young man, who looked on the world with eyes that seemed to burn with the light of fever.

Parks accepted this as an introduction, and acknowledged it with a nod as I took a seat. I looked at him with keen interest, for I knew his name as one of the nine leaders who had banded themselves to right the wrongs of the world–with the incidental assistance of Peter Bolton. Then I looked about the rest of the group as Clark spoke their names, and was disappointed to find that a little spectacled German, with a bristling black beard, was the only other member of the Council at the table.

"Hope to know you better, Mr. Hampden," said Parks. "You don't look to be one of us."

"If it's a secret society, I can't say that I've been initiated," I said. "But I hope you'll count me as one of you for an occasional evening. What do you happen to be, if I may ask?"

"We," said Parks, leaning forward and gazing fiercely into my eyes, "we represent the people. We are from the masses."

"I'm afraid, then," I returned with a laugh, "you'll have to count me as one of you. I can't think of any way in which my name gets above the level of the lower ten million."

"Sir," cried Parks, shaking his finger in my face and speaking rapidly and excitedly, "your speech betrays you. You speak of the lower ten million. They are not the lower–no, by Heaven! Your heart is not with the people. There is nothing in you that beats responsive to their cry of distress. You may be as poor as the rest of us, but your feelings, your prejudices are with the despoilers of labor, the oppressors of the lowly. You are–"

What further offense of aristocracy he would have charged upon my head I know not, for Clark reached over and seized his arm.

"Hold on!" he cried. "Mr. Hampden is our guest and a good fellow, so don't be too hard on him. He ain't educated yet. That's all the matter with him. Give him time."

Parks' voice had been rising and his utterance had been growing more rapid and excited, but he lowered his tones once more.

"No offense, Hampden, but my blood boils at the wrongs inflicted on the downtrodden slaves of the wage system, and I speak my mind."

"Oh, go ahead," I said. "It doesn't worry me. Come to think of it, Mr. Parks, you don't seem to be one of the slaves of the wage system yourself. You are, I take it from your words and ways, a man of education and something more."

"Sir," said Parks, striking the table angrily, "it is my misfortune."

"Misfortune?" I laughed inquiringly, and the others laughed in sympathy.

"Misfortune–yes, sir. I repeat it. I have had schooling and to spare. And if it wasn't for that, I could raise this city in arms in a month."

My left-hand neighbor was an old man, a little bent with years, who had been looking about the table with dreamy eye. But at Parks' boastful words his face lighted and he gave a cackling laugh.

"Heh, heh! He's right," he said, addressing the rest of us. "There's a crowd of thieves and robbers on top and they need a taking-down. Parks is just the one to do it."

"You're wrong, Merwin," said Parks, calming down and looking at the old man reflectively. "I'm not the one to do it."

"And why not?" I asked.

"It's the cursed education you speak of," said Parks fiercely. "I am with the masses, but not of them. They mistrust me. Try as I will I can't get their confidence. I can't rouse them. They shout for me, they applaud me, but I can't stir them as they must be stirred before the Revolution can begin."

"What sort of man do you want?" I asked.

"He must be a man of the people," said Parks.

"By which you mean a day-laborer, I judge."

Parks ignored the interruption and went on:

"He must have eloquence, courage, and he must understand men; he must be a statesman by nature–a man of brains. But he must be one of the class he addresses."

"But how are you going to get a man of brains out of that class?" I inquired.

Parks struck the table a sounding blow with his fist, shook his head until his shock of hair stood out in protest, and glared at me fiercely.

"Do you mean to deny," he began hotly, "that brains are born to what you call the lowest classes? Do you deny the divine spark of intelligence to the sons of toil? Do you say that genius is sent to the houses of the rich and not to those of the poor? Do you dare to say that the son of a banker may have brains and that the son of a hodman may not?"

"By no means, my dear fellow. I only say if he has brains he won't be a hodman."

"I've known some pretty smart hodmen in my time," said Clark, when he saw that Parks had no answer ready. "I knew a fellow who made four hundred dollars on a contract. But," he added regretfully, "he lost it in stocks."

"I'm afraid that instance doesn't prove anything, Clark," said Merwin with a thin laugh. "He should have had brains enough to keep out of stocks."

"There's not many as has that," said a heavy-jowled Englishman who sat across the table. "I wish I had 'em myself."

"I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Hampden," said Clark. "We can't get a leader from the hodman class."

Parks leaned forward and spoke quietly and impressively.

"By God, we must!" he said. "I'll be the brains. I'll find the hodman for the mouth, and I'll teach him to talk in a way to set the world on fire."

"And then what?" I asked.

Parks gave his head a shake, and closed his lips tightly as though he feared that some secret would escape them. But the excitable little German with spectacles and a bushy black beard gave me an answer.

"Leeberty, equality, fraternity!" he exclaimed.

"And justice," added the heavy-jowled Englishman.

"These are words, and very good ones," I returned. "But what do you mean by them? You have these things now, or you don't have them–just as you happen to look at it. It usually depends on whether you are successful or not. What does all this mean in action?"

"For one thing," said the square-jawed man seriously, "it means an end of the sort of robbery by law that our friend Merwin here has suffered. Now, twenty years ago he was a prosperous contractor. He took a lot of contracts from old Peter Bolton for filling in some of these water-front blocks down here. He spent two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, d'ye know, and has been lawing for it ever since."

I turned and looked at the face of the old man with more interest. The case of Merwin against Bolton was celebrated in the law books. It was now before the Supreme Court for the sixth time. In the trial court the juries had invariably found for Merwin with costs and interest, and the appellate court had as invariably sent the case back for retrial on errors committed by the lower court, until it had become an impersonal issue, a jest of the law, a legal ghost, almost as far removed from affairs of to-day as "Shelley's case" of unblessed memory.

Merwin looked up quickly, the dreamy gaze no longer clouding his eye.

"I have been kept out of my property for more than twenty years, sir," he said. "It has been a great wrong. If you are interested I should like to tell you about it."

"I am pretty well informed about it already," I replied. "You have been much abused." The legal jest had become a living tragedy, and I felt a glow of shame for the futility of the law that had been unable to do justice to this man.

"I have been made a poor man," said Merwin. "My money was stolen from me by Peter Bolton, and I tell you, sir, he is the greatest scoundrel in the city." And in a sudden flash of temper he struck his fist upon the table.

"He ought to be hanged," said the heavy-jowled man.

"No, no," cried Parks. "It isn't Bolton you should blame. It is the system that makes such things possible. Bolton himself is but the creature of circumstances. As I have reason to know, his heart is stirred by thoughts of better things for humanity. Hang Bolton and another Bolton would take his place to-morrow. Abolish the system, and no man could oppress his neighbor."

"But how are you going to abolish it?" I asked. "It won't go for fine words."

"Rouse the people," cried Parks with passion. "The men who are suffering from these evils are the strength of the nation. Those who profit by the evils are a small minority. Once the people rise in their might the oppressors must fly or be overwhelmed."

"Here's to guns, and the men who know how to use them!" said the heavy-jowled man, draining his glass.

"Oui, oui! Vive la barricade!" croaked a harsh voice behind me, and I turned to see the pasty face of H. Blasius over my shoulder.

"Shut up!" said Parks. "We're not ready to talk of guns and barricades."

At this moment a sudden noise of scuffle and angry voices rose above the sounds of conversation and argument that filled the room. Some one made an abortive attempt to blow a police whistle; curses and blows thrilled the air; and then the swinging doors fell apart and a man staggered in, holding dizzily to the door-post for support. His hat was crushed, his clothing torn, and his face covered with blood that seemed to blind him.

As he staggered into the saloon, ten or twelve young men, hardly more than boys, crowded after him, striking at him with fists and clubs. Their faces were hard at best, the lines written upon them by vice and crime giving plain warning to all who might read; but now rage and hatred and lust for blood lighted their eyes and flushed their cheeks, till they might have stood as models for escapes from the infernal regions.

"The cop!" cried a voice; and others took it up, and I recognized in the battered man the policeman who had shown me my way.

"He's the cop as got Paddy Rafferty sent across the bay for ten years," shouted one of the hoodlums, striking a blow that was barely warded off.

"Kick him!" "Do him up!" "Kill him!" came in excited chorus from all parts of the room and swelled into a roar that lost semblance of articulate sound.

Parks and I jumped to our feet at the first sound of the riot.

"Here! this won't do!" said Parks roughly, throwing me back in my chair. "Sit down! You'll get killed without doing any good. I'll settle this." And before I could remonstrate he was running down the room shouting wrathfully.

As I got to my feet again, I saw him pulling and hauling at the mob, shouting lustily in the ears of the men as he threw them aside.

"Come on!" I cried. "We must take a hand in this." And at my call Clark and the Englishman and the little German rose and followed in the wake of the young agitator.

Parks worked his way into the crowd, shouting, appealing, using hands and tongue and body at once to carry his point. He was soon at the side of the policeman, who swayed, half raised his arms, and would have fallen had Parks' arm not come to steady him. The shouting hoodlums paused at this reinforcement. Then the leader, with a curse, struck wildly at Parks' face, and the cries of rage rose louder than before. At this moment, however, the tall, broad-shouldered Irishman, whom I had noticed at my entrance, deftly caught the hoodlum with a blow on the chin that sent him back into the midst of his band.

"Hould on!" he shouted in a resonant voice. "There's to be fair play here! Here's two against the crowd to save a man's life. If there's any more men here let them come next us."

"Here are four," I cried, and our reinforcement shouldered through the throng to the side of the two defenders. The tumult stilled for a little, and Parks seized the moment to burst into indignant speech. He had a high, keen, not unpleasant voice, though it thrilled now with anger and scorn, as he denounced the assault.

"He's the cop that got Paddy Rafferty sent up, I tell you," replied one of the hoodlums. "We said we'd fix him and we done it."

"Well, you get home now or you'll be fixed yourself, sonny," said Parks. "The cops will be on you in just three minutes by the watch. Git!"

"Come on, youse!" said the leader sullenly, rubbing his jaw and giving a spiteful glance at the stout Irishman. "We'll fix these tarriers some other time,"–and the band slunk out into the darkness.

"That's the kind of cattle that keep back the cause," cried Parks, turning to the crowd with keen eye for the opportunity for speech. And he went on with rude eloquence to expound the "rights of the people," which I judged from his language to be the right to work eight hours for about eight dollars a day and own nobody for master.

"Well said for you, Mr. Parks!" said the Irishman. "I'm of your way of thinkin'. My name's Kearney–Denis Kearney–maybe you've heard of me."

"Maybe I have," said Parks. "I hope to hear more of you, Mr. Kearney. You came in the nick of time to-night."

The policeman now sat in a chair with his face washed and his head bound up in a cloth, and with a sip of liquor was recovering strength and spirit.

"There comes the boys," he said. "They've heard of the shindy." And in another minute four policemen burst into the place.

"Cowdery's gang!" was the brief comment of the commanding officer. "We'll have them under lock and key before morning."

H. Blasius had assumed a most pious expression in a most inconspicuous position behind the bar, but dropped it as the policemen left.

"I've found my hodman," whispered Parks to me.

"Where?"

"Here. He isn't a hodman, but he's just as good. He's a drayman with a voice like a fog-horn and a gift of tongue."

"And the brains?"

"I carry them under my hat," said Parks.

"What's his name?"

"Mr. Kearney–Mr. Hampden," said Parks, raising his voice and introducing me gravely. Then, taking the arm of his new-found treasure, Parks walked out of the saloon.

CHAPTER III

A GLIMPSE OF SUNSHINE

My watch-hands pointed to eight o'clock as I was ushered into Wharton Kendrick's library. It was a handsome room, with handsome books and handsome solid leather-covered furniture to match the leather-covered volumes that lined its walls, but the effect of dark walls, dark ceilings, and dark bindings was a trifle gloomy. I made up my mind that my library should be a light and cheerful room with white and gold trimmings, and was trying to decide whether it should be in the southwest or southeast corner of my château in Spain, when my architectural studies were interrupted by the opening of a door.

I rose in the expectation of meeting my employer; but it was not my employer who entered. Instead of Wharton Kendrick I found myself facing a young woman, who halted, irresolute and surprised, a pace or two from the door. Had it not been for her trailing dress I should at first glance have thought her but a young girl. She was short of stature and slender of figure, and for an instant I had the idea that the long gown and the arrangement of the yellow hair that crowned her head were part of a masquerade. But when I looked in her face I saw that she was a woman grown, and her years might have reached twenty.

"Why, I didn't know you were here," said the startled intruder. Her voice was even-pitched, but it had a curious piquant quality about it.

As I hesitated in surprise, she repeated her thought in more positive form: "I didn't know that any one was here."

"I was waiting for Mr. Kendrick. I was told to wait here," I said apologetically.

The gas-light fell on her face and I saw that she was pretty. Her head was small, but well shaped. Her color was that of the delicate blonde type, but her large eyes were of a deep brown.

"I don't believe you know me, after all," she said, with a sudden mischievous look.

I wanted to lie, but my tongue refused its office.

"You'd better not tell any stories," she added.

"I'm afraid–" I began.

"Oh, if you're afraid I shall go away. I was going to read a book, but it doesn't matter."

"I'm sure it does matter," I said. "If you go away I shall certainly feel as though I'm the one who ought to have gone."

"I don't believe I ought to stay here talking with a man who thinks he doesn't know me."

"I'm a very stupid person, I fear," I said.

"I'm afraid some people would say so," she said with another mischievous look, though her face was perfectly grave; "but I shouldn't dare."

"I'm on the lookout for a good bargain," I said desperately. "I should like very much to exchange names with you."

"Oh, that wouldn't be a fair exchange at all," said the girl, shaking her head gravely. "I know Mr. Hampden's name already. You must offer a better bargain than that."

"Then I must sue for pardon for a treacherous memory," I said.

"It's a very serious matter," said the girl, "but I'll give you three chances to guess. If that's not enough, you'll have to ask uncle."

"Miss Laura–Miss Kendrick!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, did I tell you, after all?" she cried in dismay. "I said uncle, didn't I? Now, you see, I'm quite as stupid as other people."

"Indeed, no," I said. "It's quite unpardonable that I should have forgotten."

"It ought to be, but I'm afraid I shall have to forgive you," she said, dropping into a chair. "It's a longish time."

"How many years has it been?" I asked.

"I'm afraid you're adding to your offenses," she said, with a shake of the head. "You should certainly remember that it was five years ago this summer."

"Have you been away so long?" I exclaimed.

"Oh, dear! what shall I do with such a man? First he doesn't remember me at all, and then he doesn't know how many years I've been gone, and then he has no idea it was so long."

"But you were only a little girl then," I urged.

"And not worth noticing, would you say if you dared? I used to think I was quite grown up in those days."

"You didn't–er–quite give the impression."

"I see I didn't make one," she said. "It's a very good lesson for one's vanity, isn't it?"

"And haven't you been back in all these years?"

"'All these years' sounds better," she said. "I believe you are learning. I've been back twice, if you want your question answered."

"It was kept quite a secret."

"Oh, dear, no! Everybody knew who cared anything about knowing."

"And where have you been, and what doing?"

"I was in the East. First I finished the seminary."

"And then?"

"Then I went through college."

"Indeed?"

"Oh, you needn't be so surprised. It's nothing so very wonderful. You didn't suspect it from my looks?"

"You certainly don't look like a blue-stocking."

"I'm afraid I'm not. I never could get enough into my head at one time to be worthy of such a title. I believe a blue-stocking is a lady who has a great deal of learning."

"Or at least," I said, "is very fond of showing it."

"Oh, I think I have her main characteristic then," laughed my companion. "If I know anything I can't rest till I let somebody else know about it, too."

"I believe you're not alone. They say that failing has descended to all the daughters of Mother Eve. How long are you to be here?" I asked.

"Ages, I'm afraid," said Miss Kendrick. "Six months at least–maybe a year."

"Then I can hope for the pleasure of seeing you sometimes?" I said.

"I don't know," she answered, appealing to a bust of Homer on a book-shelf. "Do you think a man with such an uncertain memory could be trusted to keep it in mind that such a person is here?"

"I can vouch for him," I said.

"If you're quite sure–" she said.

"Quite sure," I repeated positively.

"Then you can be told that we are at home on Thursdays. There–I hear uncle showing that comical General Wilson out the door, so I'll be getting my book and go. It was uncle you came to see, I believe."

"It was Mr. Kendrick I called for, but–"

"You needn't go on," interrupted Miss Kendrick calmly. "I suppose you think it is only a white one, but I'd rather not hear it. Now if you wouldn't mind reaching that fourth book from the end of the second row from the top, you'll save me from the mortification of climbing on a chair."

"This one?"

"Yes, please," she said. "Thank you. Good night. I really don't see why I've talked so much."

"It was very good of you," I protested. "Good night."

The swish of her skirts had hardly died away when the opposite door–the one by which I had entered–opened, and Wharton Kendrick walked in.

"Come this way, Wilson. I can put my hand on the book in one second."

"You can't find your citation, Kendrick–it isn't there," said a short, stout, red-faced man, with short yellow-gray side-whiskers, as he bustled in the wake of my client. "I tell you you can't find it. I know the whole thing from cover to cover. Just give me the first line of any page and I'll repeat it right to the bottom. I never have to read a thing more than once and I can carry it on the tip of my tongue for years afterward. Lord bless us, whom have we here?"

"Oh, Hampden," said Kendrick. "I didn't see you. General Wilson, allow me to introduce you." And the magnate gave me a kind word of identification.

"A lawyer?" exclaimed General Wilson, his red face beaming in the frame of his yellow-gray side-whiskers. "Young man, you are entering on the greatest and noblest profession that the human mind has devised. You are following the most elevated and grandest principles that the wit of mankind is capable of evolving from the truths of the ages. I am a humble follower of the profession myself, and am proud to take you by the hand."

He was not proud enough to make the most of the honor, for he gave but a perfunctory grasp as I made some appropriate reply.

"I've been in the profession more decades than I like to tell about," said General Wilson, with a lofty wave of the hand, "but I've been trying to get out of it for the last five years. Perhaps you can't appreciate that, Hampden. Here you're trying to get into it, and I dare say finding it devilish hard; but if you're like me you'll be trying to get out of it some day and finding it a damned sight harder yet."

"I don't doubt it," said I with pious mendacity.

"Here's the book," said Kendrick. But General Wilson waved him aside.

"It's wonderful the way business sticks to a man. I've got clients who just won't be discharged. I thought a year ago that I was going to see the last of them, but no sooner did I mention it than they were all up in arms. 'We can't spare you,' they said. 'I must take a rest,' I told them. 'Take it at our expense,' they said. And the Ohio Midland gave me a special car and paid the expenses of a trip around the country, and the Pennsylvania Southern gave me a twenty-thousand-dollar check to settle for a vacation in Europe, and the Rockland and Western made me the present of a country place where I could go and have quiet; and after that what could I do?"

"They must have been irresistible," I admitted.

"Just so; but even then I tried to beg off. I told 'em I had enough money. It wasn't money I wanted. It was rest–freedom from worry of business, the grinding care of law cases–that I was after. But it wouldn't do. The Ohio Midland said, 'Wilson, if you can't be with us, you mustn't be against us. We know you'll be back again. Take twenty thousand a year as a retainer and count yourself as one of us yet. We shouldn't be easy else.' But the Pennsylvania Southern and the Rockland and Western wouldn't allow even that. They said, 'Wilson, we can't do without you. We'll give you all the help you want, but we must have you at the head. Name your own figures. It isn't a question of money. You must be our leading counsel, even if you don't look in on us more than once a quarter.' I couldn't shake 'em off, so, as I've been saying to Kendrick, I'm like to die in harness, though I'd give anything to be free and enjoy life as you young fellows do."

"Just so," said Kendrick cheerily; "but you're way out of the running about that Mosely matter. Here's the book, and here's the page, and it was just as I was telling you."

"Ahem!" growled General Wilson, turning redder than ever and taking the book gingerly. "Oh, this is the thing you were talking about, is it? Of course, of course, you were quite right–Mosely, of course. I don't need to read a word of it. I thought you were talking about that Moberly case. Mosely, of course. Well, I'll send you those papers as soon as I get to New York. I must be off now. I've got to see Governor Stanford to-night, and he's one of your early-to-bed men; so good night."