University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

WHAT were the prospects of Weathercock
John in the face of that terrible scrutiny of
political character, a new election?

He had now served two years in the honorable
Congress of the United States, after such a
fashion that, could he have had his deserts, he
would have served ten more in jail.

But—as the mountain brigands of Greece and
the municipal highwaymen of New York can
both testify—it is not the custom of some communities
to execute justice upon criminals, so
long as injustice is procurable for love or money.
Moreover, our ignominious member had thus far
been able to keep that cardinal eleventh commandment,
“Thou shalt not be found out.” He
was still worshiped by the simple and lowly
masses of his district as Honest John Vane;
and, furthermore, he had store of that golden oil

which is one of the best of all lubricators for the
wheels of political fortune.

Thus, instead of going to the tread-mill and
becoming an object of reverential pity to sentimental
philanthropists, he went into a canvass for
re-election at the head of a faithful flock of baaing
adherents, who did not see how he had led them
through the brambles of needless taxation, and
who were so bewitched with the instinct of following
a bellwether that, had they discovered all
of Vane's ignorance and rascality, they would not
have deserted him. Not that he bought the
popular suffrage with money, or could do it.
Thanks be to the remaining mercy of Heaven,
few freemen as yet sell their votes in Slowburgh.
Having no feculent system of special legislation
to rot them with its drippings, they are for the
most part of sounder morals than the adventurers
who contrive to represent them. But there were
wirepullers to be conciliated, oratorical forums to
be hired, posters and ballots to be printed, vote-distributers
to be paid. Vane's tithes from his

relief and subsidy bills covered these expenses
nicely, and to the entire satisfaction of an enlightened
and moral constituency, fond of economy
in national legislation, and boastful of the honesty
which a republic is supposed to generate.

Of course he found the franking privilege as
useful as if he had never denounced it. He was
almost grateful in these campaigning days for the
congressional insignificance which had disenabled
him from reforming that abuse. A so-called secretary,
whom he had left in Washington with
several thousand “franks,” sold one half of those
autographs as his own perquisite, and deluged
Vane's field of labor with the other half. Every
mechanic in Slowburgh got a report on agriculture,
and every farmer got a report on manufactures.
The speeches which the so-called secretary
had written, and which our member had obtained
leave to print in the Congressional Globe without
preliminary delivery, fell in such abundant showers
throughout the district that it was a wonder they
had not been foretold in the almanac. The Washingtonian

assistant, by the way, must have been
a fellow of some ability; he managed this system
of political irrigation not only with vigor, but
with judgment. For example, among all the
public documents with which he fructified Slowburgh,
there was not a single copy of the Report
on the Corruption of Members of Congress. It
was judicious, certainly; for had we been brought
to remember the infamy of Matteson, we might
not have been so happy in voting for Vane.

There was, indeed, one ugly week, when it
seemed as if the torches of our nocturnal processions
burned blue, and we almost feared to look at
our candidate lest we should see signs of unworthiness
in his face. Certain lobbyists, who had not
been able to get what they thought their allowance
of eggs out of the Hen Persuader, set afloat
vindictive stories to the effect that that wonderful
financial machine was nothing but a contrivance
to corrupt Congressmen into voting favors to the
Great Subfluvial, and that its retaining fees had
been pocketed by some of the most famous champions

of our party, such as Christian, Greatheart,
and Honest John Vane.

These charges were picked up and used for
ammunition by a brazen opposition which was as
deep in the mud as we were in the mire. Every
shot spread consternation through our array.
There was danger lest we should set up the Gaulish
war-cry of Nous sommes trahis, and either
flinch from the polls or vote a split ticket. Even
the political priesthood of wirepullers, who stood
about Vane as the Scotch Presbyterian elders
encompassed Leslie, began to doubt whether it
would not be well to make another nomination.
But in the end this select and tried synagogue (of
Satan?) decided to stick to their candidate and to
patch up the rents in his ephod. They began by
denying flatly that he owned any Hen Persuader
stock, or any other property connected with the
Great Subfluvial. Next they set a committee
over him to prevent him from avowing such ownership.
This committee guarded him all day and
put him to bed at night; it went before him like

a cloud and behind him like a darkness, keeping
him constantly shrouded in non-committalism; it
held interviewing reporters at a distance, or whispered
evasive answers to their questions. Never
was a Grand Lama or a Roi Fainéant more completely
secluded. Only a deaf-mute, with all his
fingers amputated, could be laid under such a conversational
embargo.

This inspired discretion had its reward; various
providences arrived to favor it. Good and true
men perceived that the whole air was full of
“campaign lies,” and naturally inferred that this
story about the Hen Persuader briberies was one
of them. Moreover, it was soon “nailed to the
counter” by positive and public letters of denial
from Christian, Greatheart, and other implicated
seraphim. Of course such men would not prevaricate,
we argued, and considered the charges
entirely refuted. And now we justified Weathercock
John; we imputed his silence to the conscious
rectitude of a worthy soul; we said that he
had done rightly in treating slander with unresponsive

scorn. Thus reassured, we went in a
solid phalanx to the polls, and triumphantly sent
our special legislator back to Congress.

Nobody was better pleased with the victory
than Darius Dorman. It was, by the way, somewhat
of a satire upon our human joy that such a
“burnt eyed nigger” of the pit, such a mere field-hand
in the earthly plantation of Lucifer, should
have shared it. The moment he heard the result
he looked up Vane and congratulated him in forms
and liturgies of profanity not often heard above
ground.

“It is a triumph of the good cause,” he continued,
with so sarcastic a grin that our heavy-witted
member thought him either impertinent or crazy;
“and, by the infernal hoofs and horns, the good
cause needed it. If we had been beaten, the
Great Subfluvial would have been smashed to
make way for some other national enterprise. As
it is, I think we can keep things white-washed,
and perhaps head off an investigation altogether.”

“An investigation!” exclaimed Vane, his genial

smile falling agape with dismay. “Do you think
there will be an investigation?”

“You may bet what soul you have on it,” declared
the lobbyist. “Just as sure as the party
believes those charges to be false, it will demand
an overhauling of them of course, to confound the
opposition.”

Our Congressman saw the point, and seemed
to feel it in his marrow. “If they look this thing
up,” he gasped, “what 's to become of me?”

“I don't know and I don't care,” responded
Dorman, with a frank brutality which made Vane
resolve not to quarrel with him; “what I want to
know is, what 's to become of me? Here I have
all my results and my materials of labor in those
two companies. If the Hen Persuader is called
on to refund to the Subfluvial, or if the Subfluvial
is foreclosed on by the government, I am a poor
devil for certain. Well, we are in the same boat;
we must pull together. if you won't expose my
fashion of doing business, I won't expose your
share in the profits of it.”

Vane answered in his non-committal fashion;
he said nothing, and he did not even look at his
guide and ruler in sin; but he gently nodded
his assent.

“I always meant to pay you for that stock,” he
continued, for he was very anxious now to make
friends with this Mammon of unrighteousness.
“I 'll settle with you for it some day, Darius; I 'm
a little short now. This election, you know.”

“O, yes, I know,” Dorman grinned epileptically.
“It has cost us both a good bit of money. Well,
take your time about it; pay me when it comes
handy. I can trust your honesty, John, under the
circumstances.”

The Congressman turned away, full of an
inward wrath, but placid, meek, and sleek on the
surface, for his tallowy nature did not come easily
to an open boil. He was angry at the lobbyist
for his sarcasm; he perfectly hated him for that
avarice and hardness which would not give a
receipt for payment on those shares, without the
money; but he must not and would not quarrel
with him, so brotherly is the communion of Satan!