JUDGE HARRISON SUSPECTS

When Janeway stood again with Louise before Judge Harrison, the Judge surveyed them critically. In particular, while Louise threw out a calculated barrage of abuse for the difficulties of the swamp, the Judge scrutinized first her feet, then Janeway’s. When the adventurers took up their story together, his eyes wandered unobtrusively from Louise’s ruined pumps to Janeway’s shoes, which indicated something like trench service. Janeway understood perfectly well the suspicions hidden behind the expressionless gaze of his long-time associate, but showed no interest in his mental attitude.

“Fell in, didn’t you?” grumbled the Judge, addressing Janeway, while Louise continued a diversion.

Janeway decided it to be a good time to take all comers firmly in hand. He set his disreputable shoes well forward and looked at them approvingly, and then at Louise’s, with all composure. “Not so, Judge,” he replied, with deliberate emphasis, “I did not fall in.”

“Didn’t fall in, eh?”

Janeway eyed the old man calmly. “I jumped in.”

“Jumped in,” echoed the Judge, in an uncomfortable nasal tone of bafflement. “I see.”

Janeway hoped he did not see, but could not be sure of it.

“I never in the world could have got such beauties, if Mr. Janeway hadn’t come to my rescue,” declared Louise, displaying her rushes. But Judge Harrison had the scent of bigger game; his curiosity had been roused, and the cattails were irrelevant to the larger issue.

While the three were talking, Mrs. Harrison joined the party. And while Mrs. Harrison held her in confab, Louise was dismayed to see Gertrude and Kennedy coming out of the house. “Gertrude!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“What should I be doing anywhere else?” asked Gertrude.

“Haven’t you a dinner on to-night?” demanded Louise. “And haven’t I been on needles and pins half an hour, for fear I’d be late?” Either Janeway’s eyes were fixed mildly in reproach on Louise, or she imagined they were.

Gertrude regarded her with surprise. “To-morrow night, dear, to-morrow night,” she said gently, and turned to Janeway. “You could have told her that.”

“How, I?” asked Janeway. “I knew I was invited for to-morrow night, but I presumed you dine every night.”

“Yes, but to-night I dine out--down-town, with the Child’s Welfare League--to arrange for our hospital bazaar. And I brought you a telegram, Louise,” continued Gertrude, fishing in her hand-bag.

Louise read her message. “It’s from Brother George!” she announced. “He’s on his way from Washington, and will be here to-morrow.”

Judge Harrison sniffed political news from the capital and was content. Fargo reached Gertrude’s in time for lunch next day. He spent the afternoon with his sister, and in the evening Judge Harrison and his wife joined Gertrude’s dinner-party.

Fargo, fresh from Newspaper Row, was full of gossip, and Harrison, as soon as he decently could, began to quiz him on the campaign. Knowing that George hated all political parties with impartial candor, Harrison regarded him as an unprejudiced observer, and was much elated at hearing that in Fargo’s opinion the West was solidly Republican. “But the Socialists,” added George, “will poll the biggest vote in their history.”

“They do that every time they vote,” commented Harrison drily. “You’re a good authority, George,” he added, “on everything except Socialism--hm? What do you hear about Governor Cox?”

“Lots of our people will vote the Republican ticket to get even with the bunch that put Debs in prison,” declared George, with much personal resentment in his manner.

“And the sad feature of it,” remarked the Judge meditatively, “is that he ought to have been put in prison.”

“Instead of sending Debs to prison,” retorted George, “they ought to have sent the whining Allies to prison for obtaining American goods under false pretenses. They bunked us, Judge. They got our money and our men and our gush, and now our people have waked up to find their game was the same old game, played with the same old marked cards in the same old way. And this man”--George pointed accusingly at Janeway--“spent his time preaching to us to uphold the law--to obey the law--and let the thing be put over.”

“What else should you expect me to preach?” asked Janeway, unperturbed. “You say the laws are bad. You say, make the question of war a referendum--don’t leave it in the hands of dishonest politicians to determine. Very well; get your law put on a statute basis and I’ll obey it. But I’d rather obey bad laws or fool laws than overturn all law. The farmer that burned his barn to get rid of the rats was an exemplar of good reasoning compared to your reasoning, George. No matter what opinion I held of the laws or of the action of the President or of Congress, it was my business to obey when the laws were put on the books--and your business.”

“It’s not quite fair, George,” interposed the Judge, “to say Janeway spent all his time preaching that doctrine. Part of it was spent keeping you out of jail.”

“George!” exclaimed Louise, aghast. “I never heard anything of this--put you in jail!”

Janeway disclaimed. “It wasn’t quite as bad as that, Mrs. Durand,” he said, dismissing the subject mildly. “George annoyed the district attorneys occasionally when he got mad. But he usually managed to cool off at the psychological moment.”

“That’s all right,” persisted the Judge. “George is young. He doesn’t know who pulled the strings. I do.”

“Mr. Janeway certainly kept them off me,” said Fargo. “I ought to be grateful. I hope I am. But I think I’d respect myself more now if I’d gone to Leavenworth with the rest of the men that stood for their principles. There ought never to have been any necessity for pulling strings,” he added. “And there wouldn’t have been if we’d had a Congress in Washington to stand up for the right of free speech.

“But I shouldn’t expect too much of Congressmen, I suppose,” he continued. “As a newspaper man, I’ve had to mix with them. They struck me mostly as pitiful lawyers, men that have traded, in their so-called profession, on the contemptible vices of their fellow men; men that strive to throw a glamour of legality over sharp practice, smirk at crookedness, incite dishonest litigation, and then blossom out from their professional dunghills into public life. What, for instance, is to be expected of men who by a rising vote--so there should be no record--exempt themselves from a draft that sends their constituents to the rats and mud and shells and gas of European trenches? And when they vote taxes, filch candy pennies from the pockets of little children, in order to exempt their own salaries from income tax?”

“We can’t expect much from Congress, George,” said Janeway deprecatingly. “We must look to the press for better things,” he added, winking soberly at Louise.

Fargo laughed cynically. “The press!” he cried. “Untrammelled, free; palladium of our liberties, tribune of the people! We tried that bunk out during the war, too. Of course it couldn’t be anything _but_ bunk. Every time you scratch a newspaper owner, you uncover a millionaire; nobody else can afford to run a newspaper, and nothing is so cowardly as a million dollars--except two millions.”

“I see Chicago is having its periodical row over the collection of the city garbage,” sniffed Judge Harrison. “Why don’t you suggest, George, that the municipal authorities are overlooking their hand in not letting that contract to the newspapers? Of course, I don’t mean _your_ paper--I mean the papers that specialize in the daily collection of crime and social filth--the moral garbage. Their organization is so complete--so far-reaching--that practically none of it escapes them. Why not take advantage of such efficiency? Why not enlist this intelligent and highly trained agency, that might be put at the city’s disposal? Such an organization, it seems to me, could include the household refuse in their programme with slight additional expense, and thus collect the domestic and social garbage together.”

“You needn’t exclude my paper, Judge,” retorted Fargo. “We take second place to none in circulation and enterprise; in fact, we aim to lead. But to appreciate our moderation, Judge, you ought to see, not the stuff that we print but the stuff we keep out.”