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The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him by Paul Leicester Ford

P >> Paul Leicester Ford >> The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him




In November Peter carried both reports to Albany, and had a long talk
with Catlin over them. That official would have preferred no reports,
but since they were made, there was nothing to do but to submit them to
the Legislature. Peter did not get much encouragement from him about the
chances for the bills. But Costell told him that they could be "whipped
through. The only danger is of their being amended, so as to spoil
them."

"Well," said Peter, "I hope they will be passed. I've done my best,
whatever happens."

A very satisfactory thing to be able to say of yourself, if you believe
in your own truthfulness.




CHAPTER XXIX.

IN THE MEANTIME.


In spite of nine months' hard work on the two Commissions, it is not to
be supposed that Peter's time was thus entirely monopolized. If one
spends but seven hours of the twenty-four in sleep, and but two more on
meals, there is considerable remaining time, and even so slow a worker
as Peter found spare hours not merely for society and saloons, but for
what else he chose to undertake.

Socially he had an evening with Miss De Voe, just before she left the
city for the summer; a dinner with Mr. Pell, who seemed to have taken a
liking to Peter; a call on Lispenard; another on Le Grand; and a family
meal at the Rivingtons, where he was made much of in return for his aid
to Ray.

In the saloons he worked hard over the coming primary, and spent
evenings as well on doorsteps in the district, talking over objects and
candidates. In the same cause, he saw much of Costell, Green, Gallagher,
Schlurger and many other party men of greater or less note in the city's
politics. He had become a recognized quantity in the control of the
district, and the various ward factions tried hard to gain his support.
When the primary met, the proceedings, if exciting, were never for a
moment doubtful, for Gallagher, Peter, Moriarty and Blunkers had been
able to agree on both programme and candidates. An attempt had been made
to "turn down" Schlurger, but Peter had opposed it, and had carried his
point, to the great gratitude of the silent, honest German. What was
more important to him, this had all been done without exciting hard
feelings.

"Stirling's a reasonable fellow," Gallagher told Costell, not knowing
how much Peter was seeing of the big leader, "and he isn't dead set on
carrying his own schemes. We've never had so little talk of mutiny and
sulking as we have had this paring. Moriarty and Blunkers swear by him.
It's queer. They've always been on opposite sides till now."

When the weather became pleasant, Peter took up his "angle"' visitings
again, though not with quite the former regularity. Yet he rarely let a
week pass without having spent a couple of evenings there. The
spontaneous welcome accorded him was payment enough for the time, let
alone the pleasure and enjoyment he derived from the imps. There was
little that could raise Peter in their estimation, but they understood
very well that he had become a man of vast importance, as it seemed to
them. They had sharp little minds and ears, and had caught what the
"district" said and thought of Peter.

"Cheese it, the cop, Tim," cried an urchin one evening to another, who
was about to "play ball."

"Cheese it yerself. He won't dare tech me," shouted Tim, "so long as
Mister Peter's here."

That speech alone showed the magnitude of his position in their eyes.
He was now not merely, "friends wid de perlice;" he was held in fear by
that awesome body!

"If I was as big as him," said one, "I'd fire all the peelers."

"Wouldn't that be dandy!" cried another.

He won their hearts still further by something he did in midsummer.
Blunkers had asked him to attend what brilliant posters throughout that
part of the city announced as:

HO FOR THE SEA-SHORE!

SIXTH ANNUAL

CLAM BAKE

OF THE

PATRICK N. BLUNKERS'S ASSOCIATION.

When Peter asked, he found that it was to consist of a barge party
(tickets fifty cents) to a bit of sand not far away from the city, with
music, clams, bathing and dancing included in the price of the ticket,
and unlimited beer for those who could afford that beverage.

"The beer just pays for it," Blunkers explained. "I don't give um whisky
cause some ---- cusses don't drink like as dey orter." Then catching a
look in Peter's face, he laughed rather shamefacedly. "I forgits," he
explained. "Yer see I'm so da--" he checked himself--"I swears widout
knowin' it."

"I shall be very glad to go," said Peter.

"Dat's bully," said Blunkers. Then he added anxiously: "Dere's somethin'
else, too, since yer goin'. Ginerally some feller makes a speech. Yer
wouldn't want to do it dis time, would yer?"

"What do they talk about?"

"Just what dey--" Blunkers swallowed a word, nearly choking in so doing,
and ended "please."

"Yes. I shall be glad to talk, if you don't mind my taking a dull
subject?"

"Yer just talk what yer want. We'll listen."

After Peter had thought it over for a day, he went to Blunkers's gin
palace.

"Look here," he said. "Would it be possible to hire one more barge, and
take the children free? I'll pay for the boat, and for the extra food,
if they won't be in the way."

"I'm damned if yer do," shouted Blunkers. "Yer don't pay for nothinks,
but der childers shall go, or my name ain't Blunkers."

And go they did, Blunkers making no secret of the fact that it was
Peter's idea. So every child who went, nearly wild with delight, felt
that the sail, the sand, the sea, and the big feed, was all owed to
Peter.

It was rather an amusing experience to Peter. He found many of his party
friends in the district, not excluding such men as Gallagher, Kennedy
and others of the more prominent rank. He made himself very pleasant to
those whom he knew, chatting with them on the trip down. He went into
the water with the men and boys, and though there were many good
swimmers, Peter's country and river training made it possible for him to
give even the "wharf rats," a point or two in the way of water feats.
Then came the regulation clam-bake, after which Peter talked about the
tenement-house question for twenty minutes. The speech was very
different from what they expected, and rather disappointed them all.
However, he won back their good opinions in closing, for he ended with a
very pleasant "thank you," to Blunkers, so neatly worded, and containing
such a thoroughly apt local joke, that it put all in a good humor, and
gave them something to tell their neighbors, on their return home. The
advantage of seldom joking is that people remember the joke, and it gets
repeated. Peter almost got the reputation of a wit on that one joke,
merely because it came after a serious harangue, and happened to be
quotable. Blunkers was so pleased with the end of the speech that he got
Peter to write it out, and to this day the "thank you" part of the
address, in Peter's neat handwriting, handsomely framed, is to be seen
in Blunkers's saloon.

Peter also did a little writing this summer. He had gone to see three or
four of the reporters, whom he had met in "the case," to get them to
write up the Food and Tenement subjects, wishing thereby to stir up
public feeling. He was successful to a certain degree, and they not
merely wrote articles themselves, but printed three or four which Peter
wrote. In two cases, he was introduced to "staff" writers, and even
wrote an editorial, for which he was paid fifteen dollars. This money
was all he received for the time spent, but he was not working for
shekels. All the men told him to let them know when he had more
"stories" for them, and promised him assistance when the reports should
go in to the legislature.

Peter visited his mother as usual during August. Before going, he called
on Dr. Plumb, and after an evening with him, went to two tenements in
the district. As the result of these calls, he carried three children
with him when he went home. Rather pale, thin little waifs. It is a
serious matter to charge any one with so grave a crime as changling, but
Peter laid himself open to it, for when he came back, after two weeks,
he returned very different children to the parents. The fact that they
did not prosecute for the substitution only proves how little the really
poor care for their offspring.

But this was not his only summering. He spent four days with the
Costells, as well as two afternoons later, thoroughly enjoying, not
merely the long, silent drives over the country behind the fast horses,
but the pottering round the flower-garden with Mrs. Costell. He had been
reading up a little on flowers and gardening, and he was glad to swap
his theoretical for her practical knowledge. Candor compels the
statement that he enjoyed the long hours stretched on the turf, or
sitting idly on the veranda, puffing Mr. Costell's good Havanas.

Twice Mr. Bohlmann stopped at Peter's office of a Saturday and took him
out to stay over Sunday at his villa in one of the Oranges. The family
all liked Peter and did not hesitate to show it. Mr. Bohlmann told him:

"I sbend about dree dousand a year on law und law-babers. Misder Dummer
id does for me, but ven he does nod any longer it do, I gifts id you."

On the second visit Mrs. Bohlmann said:

"I tell my good man that with all the law-business he has, he must get a
lawyer for a son-in-law."

Peter had not heard Mrs. Bohlmann say to her husband the evening before,
as they were prinking for dinner:

"Have you told Mr. Stirling about your law business?"

Nor Mr. Bohlmann's prompt:

"Yah. I dells him der last dime."

Yet Peter wondered if there were any connection between the two
statements. He liked the two girls. They were nice-looking, sweet,
sincere women. He knew that Mr. Bohlmann was ranked as a millionaire
already, and was growing richer fast. Yet--Peter needed no blank walls.

During this summer, Peter had a little more law practice. A small grocer
in one of the tenements came to him about a row with his landlord. Peter
heard him through, and then said: "I don't see that you have any case;
but if you will leave it to me to do as I think best, I'll try if I can
do something," and the man agreeing, Peter went to see the landlord, a
retail tobacconist up-town.

"I don't think my client has any legal grounds," he told the landlord,
"but he thinks that he has, and the case does seem a little hard. Such
material repairs could not have been foreseen when the lease was made."

The tobacconist was rather obstinate at first. Finally he said, "I'll
tell you what I'll do. I'll contribute one hundred dollars towards the
repairs, if you'll make a tenant named Podds in the same building pay
his rent; or dispossess him if he doesn't, so that it shan't cost me
anything."

Peter agreed, and went to see the tenant in arrears. He found that the
man had a bad rheumatism and consequently was unable to work. The wife
was doing what she could, and even the children had been sent on the
streets to sell papers, or by other means, to earn what they could. They
also owed a doctor and the above-mentioned grocer. Peter went back to
the landlord and told him the story.

"Yes," he said, "it's a hard case, I know, but, Mr. Stirling, I owe a
mortgage on the place, and the interest falls due in September. I'm out
four months' rent, and really can't afford any more." So Peter took
thirty-two dollars from his "Trustee" fund, and sent it to the
tobacconist. "I have deducted eight dollars for collection," he wrote.
Then he saw his first client, and told him of his landlord's concession.

"How much do I owe you?" inquired the grocer.

"The Podds tell me they owe you sixteen dollars."

"Yes. I shan't get it."

"My fee is twenty-five. Mark off their bill and give me the balance."

The grocer smiled cheerfully. He had charged the Podds roundly for
their credit, taking his chance of pay, and now got it paid in an
equivalent of cash. He gave the nine dollars with alacrity.

Peter took it upstairs and gave it to Mrs. Podds. "If things look up
with you later," he said, "you can pay it back. If not, don't trouble
about it. Ill look in in a couple of weeks to see how things are going."

When this somewhat complicated matter was ended, he wrote about it to
his mother:

"Many such cases would bankrupt me. As it is, my fund is dwindling
faster than I like to see, though every lessening of it means a
lessening of real trouble to some one. I should like to tell Miss
De Voe what good her money has done already, but fear she would
not understand why I told her. It has enabled me to do so much
that otherwise I could not have afforded. There is only one
hundred and seventy-six dollars left. Most of it though, is merely
loaned and perhaps will be repaid. Anyway, I shall have nearly six
hundred dollars for my work as secretary of the Food Commission,
and I shall give half of it to this fund."




CHAPTER XXX.

A "COMEDY."


When the season began again, Miss De Voe seriously undertook her
self-imposed work of introducing Peter. He was twice invited to dinner
and was twice taken with opera parties to sit in her box, besides
receiving a number of less important attentions. Peter accepted
dutifully all that she offered him. Even ordered a new dress-suit of a
tailor recommended by Lispenard. He was asked by some of the people he
met to call, probably on Miss De Voe's suggestion, and he dutifully
called. Yet at the end of three months Miss De Voe shook her head.

"He is absolutely a gentleman, and people seem to like him. Yet
somehow--I don't understand it."

"Exactly," laughed Lispenard. "You can't make a silk purse out of a
sow's ear."

"Lispenard," angrily said Miss De Voe, "Mr. Stirling is as much better
than--"

"That's it," said Lispenard. "Don't think I'm depreciating Peter. The
trouble is that he is much too good a chap to make into a society or a
lady's man."

"I believe you are right. I don't think he cares for it at all."

"No," said Lispenard. "Barkis is not willin'. I think he likes you, and
simply goes to please you."

"Do you really think that's it?"

Lispenard laughed at the earnestness with which the question was asked.
"No," he replied. "I was joking. Peter cultivates you, because he wants
to know your swell friends."

Either this conversation or Miss De Voe's own thoughts, led to a change
in her course. Invitations to formal dinners and to the opera suddenly
ceased, and instead, little family dinners, afternoons in galleries, and
evenings at concerts took their place. Sometimes Lispenard went with
them, sometimes one of the Ogden girls, sometimes they went alone. It
was an unusual week when Peter's mail did not now bring at least one
little note giving him a chance to see Miss De Voe if he chose.

In February came a request for him to call. "I want to talk with you
about something," it said. That same evening he was shown into her
drawing-rooms. She thanked him with warmth for coming so quickly, and
Peter saw that only the other visitors prevented her from showing some
strong feeling. He had stumbled in on her evening--for at that time
people still had evenings--but knowing her wishes, he stayed till they
were left alone together.

"Come into the library," she said. As they passed across the hall she
told Morden, "I shall not receive any more to-night."

The moment they were in the smaller and cosier room, without waiting to
sit even, she began: "Mr. Stirling, I dined at the Manfreys yesterday."
She spoke in a voice evidently endeavoring not to break. Peter looked
puzzled.

"Mr. Lapham, the bank president, was there."

Peter still looked puzzled.

"And he told the table about a young lawyer who had very little money,
yet who put five hundred dollars--his first fee--into his bank, and had
used it to help--" Miss De Voe broke down, and, leaning against the
mantel, buried her face in her handkerchief.

"It's curious you should have heard of it," said Peter.

"He--he didn't mention names, b-bu-but I knew, of course."

"I didn't like to speak of it because--well--I've wanted to tell you the
good it's done. Suppose you sit down." Peter brought a chair, and Miss
De Voe took it.

"You must think I'm very foolish," she said, wiping her eyes.

"It's nothing to cry about." And Peter began telling her of some of the
things which he had been able to do:--of the surgical brace it had
bought; of the lessons in wood-engraving it had given; of the
sewing-machine it had helped to pay for; of the arrears in rent it had
settled. "You see," he explained, "these people are too self-respecting
to go to the big charities, or to rich people. But their troubles are
talked over in the saloons and on the doorsteps, so I hear of them, and
can learn whether they really deserve help. They'll take it from me,
because they feel that I'm one of them."

Miss De Voe was too much shaken by her tears to talk that evening. Miss
De Voe's life and surroundings were not exactly weepy ones, and when
tears came they meant much. She said little, till Peter rose to go, and
then only:

"I shall want to talk with you, to see what I can do to help you in your
work. Please come again soon. I ought not to have brought you here this
evening, only to see me cry like a baby. But--I had done you such
injustice in my mind about that seven dollars, and then to find
that--Oh!" Miss De Voe showed signs of a recurring break-down, but
mastered herself. "Good-evening."

Peter gone, Miss De Voe had another "good" cry--which is a feminine
phrase, quite incomprehensible to men--and, going to her room, bathed
her eyes. Then she sat before her boudoir fire, thinking. Finally she
rose. In leaving the fire, she remarked aloud to it:

"Yes. He shall have Dorothy, if I can do it."

So Dorothy became a pretty regular addition to the informal meals,
exhibitions and concerts. Peter was once more taken to the opera, but
Dorothy and Miss De Voe formed with him the party in the box on such
nights. Miss De Voe took him to call on Mrs. Odgen, and sang his praises
to both parents. She even went so far as to say frankly to them what was
in her mind.

Mr. Ogden said, "Those who know him speak very well of him. I heard
'Van' Pell praise him highly at Newport last summer. Said all the
politicians thought of him as a rising man."

"He seems a nice steady fellow," said the mamma. "I don't suppose he has
much practice?"

"Oh, don't think of the money," said Miss De Voe. "What is that compared
to getting a really fine man whom one can truly love?"

"Still, money is an essential," said the papa.

"Yes. But you both know what I intend to do for Dorothy and Minna. They
need not think of money. If he and Dorothy only will care for each
other!"

Peter and Dorothy did like each other. Dorothy was very pretty, and had
all the qualities which make a girl a strong magnet to men. Peter could
not help liking her. As for Dorothy, she was like other women. She
enjoyed the talking, joking, "good-time" men in society, and chatted and
danced with them with relish. But like other women, when she thought of
marriage, she did not find these gingerbread ornamentations so
attractive. The average woman loves a man, aside from his love for her,
for his physical strength, and his stiff truth-telling. The first is
attractive to her because she has it not. Far be it from man to say why
the second attracts. So Dorothy liked Peter. She admired many qualities
in him which she would not have tolerated in other men. It is true that
she laughed at him, too, for many things, but it was the laughter of
that peculiar nature which implies admiration and approval, rather than
the lower feelings. When the spring separation came, Miss De Voe was
really quite hopeful.

"I think things have gone very well. Now, Mr. Stirling has promised to
spend a week with me at Newport. I shall have Dorothy there at the same
time," she told Mrs. Ogden.

Lispenard, who was present, laughed as usual. "So you are tired of your
new plaything already?"

"What do you mean?"

"Arn't you marrying him so as to get rid of his calls and his
escortage?"

"Of course not. We shall go on just the same."

"Bully for you, Ma. Does Dr. Brown know it?"

Miss De Voe flushed angrily, and put an end to her call.

"What a foolish fellow Lispenard is!" she remarked unconsciously to
Wellington at the carriage door.

"Beg pardon, mum?" said Wellington, blank wonderment filling his face.

"Home, Wellington," said Miss De Voe crossly.

Peter took his week at Newport on his way back from his regular August
visit to his mother. Miss De Voe had told him casually that Dorothy
would be there, and Dorothy was there. Yet he saw wonderfully little of
her. It is true that he could have seen more if he had tried, but Peter
was not used to practice finesse to win minutes and hours with a girl,
and did not feel called upon, bluntly, to take such opportunities. His
stay was not so pleasant as he had expected. He had thought a week in
the same house with Miss De Voe, Dorothy and Lispenard, without much
regard to other possible guests, could not but be a continual pleasure.
But he was conscious that something was amiss with his three friends.
Nor was Peter the only one who felt it. Dorothy said to her family when
she went home:

"I can't imagine what is the matter with Cousin Anneke. All last spring
she was nicer to me than she has ever been before, but from the moment I
arrived at Newport, and before I could possibly have said or done
anything to offend her, she treated me in the snippiest way. After two
days I asked her what the matter was, but she insisted there was
nothing, and really lost her temper at my suggesting the idea. There was
something, I know, for when I said I was coming home sooner than I had
at first intended, she didn't try to make me stay."

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ogden, "she was disappointed in something, and so
vented her feeling on you."

"But she wasn't cross--except when I asked her what the matter was. She
was just--just snippy."

"Was Mr. Stirling there?"

"Yes. And a lot of other people. I don't think anybody had a good time,
unless it was Cousin Lispenard. And he wasn't a bit nice. He had some
joke to himself, and kept making remarks that nobody could understand,
and chuckling over them. I told him once that he was rude, but he said
that 'when people went to a play they should laugh at the right points.'
That's the nice thing about Mr. Stirling. You know that what he says is
the real truth."

"Lispenard's always trying to be clever."

"Yes. What do you suppose he said to me as I came away!"

"What?"

"He shook my hand, laughing, and said, 'Exit villain. It is to be a
comedy, not a tragedy.' What could he mean?"

Lispenard stayed on to see the "comedy," and seemed to enjoy it, if the
amused expression on his face when he occasionally gave himself up to
meditation was any criterion. Peter had been pressed to stay beyond the
original week, and had so far yielded as to add three days to his visit.
These last three days were much pleasanter than those which had gone
before, although Dorothy had departed and Peter liked Dorothy. But he
saw much more of Miss De Voe, and Miss De Voe was in a much pleasanter
mood. They took long drives and walks together, and had long hours of
talk in and about the pleasant house and grounds. Miss De Voe had cut
down her social duties for the ten days Peter was there, giving far more
time for them to kill than usually fell to Newporters even in those
comparitively simple days.

In one of these talks, Miss De Voe spoke of Dorothy.

"She is such a nice, sweet girl," she said. "We all hope she'll marry
Lispenard."

"Do you think cousins ought to marry?"

Miss De Voe had looked at Peter when she made her remark. Peter had
replied quietly, but his question, as Miss De Voe understood it, was
purely scientific, not personal. Miss De Voe replied:

"I suppose it is not right, but it is so much better than what may
happen, that it really seems best. It is so hard for a girl in Dorothy's
position to marry as we should altogether wish."

"Why?" asked Peter, who did not see that a girl with prospective wealth,
fine social position, and personal charm, was not necessarily well
situated to get the right kind of a husband.

"It is hard to make it clear--but--I'll tell you my own story, so that
you can understand. Since you don't ask questions, I will take the
initiative. That is, unless your not asking them means you are not
interested?" Miss De Voe laughed in the last part of this speech.

"I should like to hear it."

People, no matter what Peter stated, never said "Really?" "You are in
earnest?" or "You really mean it?" So Miss De Voe took him at his word.

"Both my father and mother were rich before they married, and the rise
in New York real estate made them in time, much richer. They both
belonged to old families. I was the only child--Lispenard says old
families are so proud of themselves that they don't dare to have large
families for fear of making the name common. Of course they lavished all
their thought, devotion and anxiety on me. I was not spoiled; but I was
watched and tended as if I were the most precious thing the world
contained. When I grew up, and went into society, I question if I ever
was a half-hour out of the sight of one or the other of my parents. I
had plenty of society, of course, but it was restricted entirely to our
set. None other was good enough for me! My father never had any
business, so brought no new element into our household. It was old
families, year in and year out! From the moment I entered society I was
sought for. I had many suitors. I had been brought up to fear
fortune-hunting, and suspected the motives of many men. Others did not
seem my equals--for I had been taught pride in my birth. Those who were
fit as regarded family were, many of them, unfit in brains or
morals--qualities not conspicuous in old families. Perhaps I might have
found one to love--if it had not been for the others. I was surrounded
wherever I went and if by chance I found a pleasant man to talk to,
_tete-a-tete,_ we were interrupted by other men coming up. Only a few
even of the men whom I met could gain an _entree_ to our house.--They
weren't thought good enough. If a working, serious man had ever been
able to see enough of me to love me, he probably would have had very
little opportunity to press his suit. But the few men I might have cared
for were frightened off by my money, or discouraged by my popularity and
exclusiveness. They did not even try. Of course I did not understand it
then. I gloried in my success and did not see the wrong it was doing me.
I was absolutely happy at home, and really had not the slightest
inducement to marry--especially among the men I saw the most. I led
this life for six years. Then my mother's death put me in mourning. When
I went back into society, an almost entirely new set of men had
appeared. Those whom I had known were many of them married--others were
gone. Society had lost its first charm to me. So my father and I
travelled three years. We had barely returned when he died. I did not
take up my social duties again till I was thirty-two. Then it was as the
spinster aunt, as you have known me. Now do you understand how hard it
is for such a girl as Dorothy to marry rightly?"

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