lowers, and
beautiful, the more beautiful for its absence.

IX

TO THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY

We, our party, carried the state, as usual. Our legislative majority was
increased by eleven, to thirty-seven on joint ballot. It was certain
that Dunkirk's successor would be of the same political faith; but would
he be Dunkirk? At first that venerable custodian of the plum tree hadn't
a doubt. He had come to look on it as his personal property. But, after
he had talked to legislators-elect from various parts of the state, he
became uneasy. He found that the party's members were dangerously evenly
divided between himself and the "Dominick-Croffut" faction. And soon he
was at me to declare for him.

I evaded as long as I could,--which did not decrease his nervousness.
When he put it to me point-blank, I said: "I can't do it, Senator. I
will not mix in quarrels within the party."

"But they are saying you are against me," he pleaded.

"And your people are saying I am for you," I retorted.

"But surely you are not against _me_ and for Schoolcraft? What has he
done for you?"

"And what have _you_ done for me?" I replied,--a mere interrogation,
without any feeling in it. "Tell me. I try to pay my debts."

His eyes shifted. "Nothing, Sayler, nothing," he said. "I didn't mean to
insinuate that you owed me anything. Still, I thought--you wouldn't have
been state chairman, except--"

As he halted, I said, "Except that you needed me. And you will recall
that I took it only on condition that I should be free."

"Then you are opposed to me," he said. "Nobody can be on the fence in
this fight."

"I do not think you can be elected," I replied.

As he sat silent, the puffs under his eyes swelled into bags and the
pallor of his skin changed to the gray which makes the face look as if a
haze or a cloud lay upon it. I pitied him so profoundly that, had I
ventured to speak, I should have uttered impulsive generosities that
would have cost me dear. How rarely are our impulses of generosity
anything but impulses to folly, injustice, and wrong!

"We shall see," was all he said, and he rose and shambled away.

They told me he made a pitiful sight, wheedling and whining among the
legislators. But he degraded himself to some purpose. He succeeded in
rallying round him enough members to deadlock the party caucus for a
month,--members from the purely rural districts, where the sentiment of
loyalty is strongest, where his piety a