A Gentleman from Mississippi | Page 5

he stopped in front of Sanders, stretched his five feet three inches of stature on tiptoe, and shook a withered fist in the boss' firmly set, determined face.
"Infamous!" shrieked the deacon. "You're a monster! You're unrighteous! You should have belonged to the political machine of Cataline or Pontius Pilate!"
"Never heard tell o' them," muttered Sanders, deeply puzzled. "Guess they was never in Mississippi in my time."
His accompanying gesture of perplexity caused the deacon to hasten his exit. Tripping over the leg of a chair, he fell headlong into the arms of the watchful Jackson, who received the deacon's blessing for "uplifting the righteous in the hour of their fall."
Relieved at the departure of the witnesses, Sanders showed increased aggressiveness. "To be sure, Senator, you were careful not to personally promise me anything for my support at the election, as you say," the leader sneered; "but you had Jim Stevens to make promises for you, which was smooth, absolute an' artistic smooth--"
"Stop, sir!" Langdon furiously shouted. "You forget, sir, that your insinuation is an insult to a man elected Senator from Mississippi, an insult to my State and to my friend Senator Stevens, who I know would make you no promises for me, for he had not my authority."
"Certainly you're a Senator, but what's a Senator, anyhow? I'll tell you, Mr. Colonel Langdon, a Senator is a man who holds out for his own pocket as much as us fellows that make him will stand for. When we don't get our rightful share, he's through."
With a sudden start, as though to spring at Sanders' throat, Langdon, with compressed lips and eyes blazing, grasped the edge of the table with a grip that threatened to rend the polished boards. With intensest effort he slowly regained control of himself. His fury had actually weakened him. His knees shook, and he sank weakly into a chair. When he finally spoke his voice was strained and laborious. "Sanders, you and I, sir, must never meet again, because I might not succeed in keeping my hands off you. What would my old comrades of the Third Mississippi say if they saw me sitting here and you there with a whole body, sir, after what you have said? They would not believe their eyes, thank God, sir. They would all go over to Stuart City and buy new glasses, sir." A suspicious moisture appeared on the Colonel's cheeks which he could not dry too quickly to escape Sanders' observation.
"But I had to let you stay, sir, because you, the sole accuser, are the only one who can tell me what I must know."
"What do you want to know?" asked Sanders, who had realized his great mistake in losing his temper, in talking as openly and as violently as he had and in dragging the name of Senator Stevens into the controversy. He must try to keep Stevens from hearing of this day's blunder, for Jim Stevens knew as well as he, didn't he, that the man who loses his temper, like the man who talks too much, is of no use in politics.
"I want to know how you formed your opinion of political matters--of Senators. Is it possible, sir, that you have actual knowledge of actual happenings that give you the right to talk as you have? I want to know if I must feel shame, feel disgrace, sir, to be a Senator from Mississippi; that State, sir, that the Almighty himself, sir, would choose to live in if he came to earth."
"There, there, Senator, don't take too seriously what I have said," Sanders replied in reassuring tone, having outlined his course of action. "I lost my head because you wouldn't promise me something I needed--that appointment for Hagley. What I said about Senators an' such was all wild words--nothin' in 'em. Why, how could there be, Senator?" This query was a happy afterthought which Sanders craftily suggested in a designedly artless manner.
"Just what I thought and know!" exclaimed Langdon, sharply. "It couldn't be; it isn't possible. Now you go, sir, and let it be your greatest disgrace that you are not fit to enter any gentleman's house."
"Oh, don't rub it in too hard, Senator. You may need my help some day, but you'll have to deliver the goods beforehand."
"I said, 'Go!'"
"I'm goin', but here's a tip. Don't blame me for fightin' you. I've got to fight to live. I'm a human bein', an' humans are pretty much the same all over the world; all except you--you're only half natural. The rest of you is reformer."
After Sanders' departure the Colonel sat at his table, his head resting in his hand, the events of the day crowding his brain bewilderingly.
"The battles of peace are worse than any Beauregard ever led me into," he murmured. "Fighting o conquer oneself