All-Wool Morrison | Page 9

of a conference?" suggested
the director of moves.
"But I want to tell you right now, Morrison, seeing that you're mayor of
the city where our state Capitol is located, that I expect your full
co-operation in case of trouble to-night or to-morrow," His Excellency
declared, with vigor.
"Oh, there will be no trouble," asserted the Senator, airily. "Coming in
fresh from the outside--from a wider horizon--I can estimate the
situation with a better sense of proportion than you can, North, if you'll
allow me to say so. We can always depend on the sane reliability of our
grand old state!"
The Governor was not reassured or placated.
"And you can always depend on a certain number of sore-heads to
make fools of themselves here--you could depend on it in the old days;
it's worse in these times when everybody is ready to pitch into a row
and clapper-claw right and left simply because they're aching for a
fight."
The closed door had no more revelations to offer to Morrison; he
turned his mystified gaze on the Senator and the Governor as if he
desired to solve at least one of the problems that had come to hand all
of a sudden.
"I can take care of things up on Capitol Hill, Morrison! I'm the
Governor of this state and I have been re-elected to succeed myself, and
that ought to be proof that the people are behind me. But I want you to
see to it that the damnation mob-hornets are kept at home in the city
here, where they belong."

"When father kept bees I used to save many a hiveful for him by
banging on mother's dishpan when they started to swarm. As to the
hornets--"
"I don't care what you bang on," broke in His Excellency. "On their
heads, if they show them! But do I have your co-operation in the name
of law and order?"
"You may surely depend on me, even if I'm obliged to mobilize Mac
Tavish and his paper-weights," said the mayor, and for the first time in
the memory of Miss Bunker, at least, Mac Tavish flushed; the
paymaster had been hoping that the laird o' St. Ronan's had not noted
the full extent of the belligerency that had been displayed in making
mill rules respected.
But the abstraction that had marked Morrison's demeanor when he had
looked over the Governor's head at the closed door and the later glint of
jest in his eyes departed suddenly. The eyes narrowed.
"You talk of trouble that's impending this night, Governor North!"
"There'll be no trouble," insisted the Senator.
"Fools can always stir a row," declared His Excellency, with just as
much emphasis. "Fools who are led by rascals! Rascals who would
wreck an express train for the chance to pick pocketbooks off corpses!
There's been that element behind every piece of political hellishness
and every strike we've had in this country in the last two years since the
Russian bear stood up and began to dance to that devil's tune! On the
eve of the assembling of this legislature, Morrison, you're probably
hearing the blacklegs in the other party howl 'state steal' again!"
"No, I haven't heard any such howl--not lately--not since the November
election," said Morrison. "Why are they starting it now?"
"I don't know," retorted the Governor. But the mayor's stare was again
wide-open and compelling, and His Excellency's gaze shifted to Mac
Tavish and then jumped off that uncomfortable object and found refuge

on the ceiling.
"The licked rebels know! They're the only ones who do know," asserted
the Senator.
Col. Crockett Shaw, practical politician, felt qualified to testify as an
expert. "Those other fellows won't play the game according to the rules,
Morrison! They sit in and draw cards and then beef about the deal and
rip up the pasteboards and throw 'em on the floor and try to grab the pot.
They won't play the game!"
"That's it exactly!" the Governor affirmed.
Senator Corson patted Morrison's arm. "Now that you're in politics for
yourself, Stewart, you can see the point, can't you?"
"I don't think I'm in politics, sir," demurred the mayor, smiling
ingenuously. "At any rate, there isn't much politics in me!"
"But the game must be played by the rules!" Senator Corson spoke with
the finality of an oracle.
"If you don't think that way," persisted Governor North, nettled by
Morrison's hesitancy in jumping into the ring with his own party, "what
do you think?"
"I wouldn't presume," drawled Stewart, "to offer political opinions to
gentlemen of your experience. However, now that you ask me a blunt
question, I'm going to reply just as bluntly--but as a business man! I
believe that running the affairs of the people on the square is
business--it ought to be made