Half a Rogue - Harold MacGrath (phonics books TXT) 📗

sudden halt. The tip of the rod threatened to break! Hooked! Patty swung round the canoe, which action gave the angler freer play. Ah, wasn't that beautiful! Two feet out of the water! Here he comes, but not more swiftly than the reel can take him. Off he goes again-take care for the unexpected slack. Another leap, like a bronze flame, and then a dash for the shallow bottom. He fought gallantly for his life and freedom. Patty reached for the net. Inch by inch Warrington drew him in. Twice he leaped over the net, but Patty was an old hand. The third effort landed him.

"Two pounds," said Patty. "Plenty for breakfast now."

"Tell you what, this is sport. How many have we?"

"Seven in half an hour." Patty began using her paddle.

"Finest sport in the world!" Warrington settled down on the cushion and leisurely watched the brown arms of his guide.

"You're a good fisherman. And I like to see a good fisherman get excited. John is like a statue when he gets a strike; he reels them in like a machine. He becomes angry if any one talks. But it's fun to watch Kate. She nearly falls out of the boat, and screams when the bass leaps. Isn't it beautiful?"

"It is a kind of Eden. But I'm so restless. I have to be wandering from place to place. If I owned your bungalow, I should sell it the second year. All the charm would go the first season. God has made so many beautiful places in this world for man that man is the only ungrateful creature in it. What's that smoke in the distance?"

"That's the mail-boat, with your newspaper. It will be two hours yet before it reaches our dock. It has to zigzag to and fro across the lake. I'm hungry."

"So am I. Let me take the paddle."

The exchange was made, and he sent the canoe over the water rapidly. Patty eyed him with frank admiration.

"Is there anything you can't do well?"

"A good many things," he acknowledged.

"I should like to know what they are."

Neither spoke again till the canoe glided around the dock and a landing was made. Warrington strung the fish, and together he and Patty went toward the kitchen. At seven-thirty the family sat down to a breakfast of fried bass, and Patty told how the catch had been made.

"He's a better fisherman than you, John."

"Just as you say, Patty. I care not who catches bass, so long as I may eat them," in humorous paraphrase.

There was no little excitement over the arrival of the mail-boat. They were all eager to see what the Times had to say. There was a column or more on the first page, subheaded. Warrington's career was rather accurately portrayed, but there were some pungent references to cabbages. In the leader, on the editorial page, was the master-hand.

"In brief, this young man is to be the Republican candidate for mayor. Grown desperate these half-dozen years of ineffectual striving for political pap, Senator Henderson resorts to such an expedient. But the coup falls flat; there will be no surprise at the convention; the senator loses the point he seeks to score. Personally, we have nothing to say against the character of Mr. Warrington. After a fashion he is a credit to his native town. But we reaffirm, he is not a citizen, he is not eligible to the high office. If he accepts, after this arraignment, he becomes nothing more than an impertinent meddler. What has he done for the people of Herculaneum? Nothing. Who knows anything about his character, his honor, his worth? Nobody. To hold one's franchise as a citizen does not make that person a citizen in the honest sense of the word. Let Mr. Warrington live among us half a dozen years, and then we shall see. The senator, who is not without some wisdom and experience, will doubtless withdraw this abortive candidate. It's the only logical thing he can do. We dare say that the dramatist accepted the honor with but one end in view: to find some material for a new play. But Herculaneum declines to be so honored. He is legally, but not morally, a citizen. He is a meddler, and Herculaneum is already too well supplied with meddlers. Do the wise thing, Mr. Warrington; withdraw. Otherwise your profit will be laughter and ridicule; for the Republican party can never hope to win under such equivocal leadership. That's all we have to say."

Warrington, who had been reading the articles aloud, grinned and thrust the paper into his pocket.

"What shall you do?" asked John curiously.

"Do? Go into the fight tooth and nail. They dub me a meddler; I'll make the word good."

"Hurrah!" cried Kate, clapping her hands. She caught Patty in her arms, and the two waltzed around the dock.

The two men shook hands, and presently all four were reading their private letters. Warrington received but one. It was a brief note from the senator. "Pay no attention to Times' story. Are you game for a fight? Write me at once, and I'll start the campaign on the receipt of your letter."

"Patty, where do you write letters?" he asked. He called her Patty quite naturally. Patty was in no wise offended.

"In the reading-room you will find a desk with paper and pens and ink. Shall I go with you?"

"Not at all. I've only a note to scribble to Senator Henderson."

Warrington found the desk. Upon it lay a tablet. He wrote hurriedly:

"Start your campaign; I am in it now to the last ditch."

As he re-read it, he observed a blur in the grain of the paper. On closer inspection he saw that it was a water-mark. He had seen one similar, but where? His heart began thumping his ribs. He produced the inevitable letter. The water-mark was identical. He even laid the letter unfolded on the tablet. It fitted exactly.

"Patty!" he murmured in a whisper.

Patty had never written him a single line; whenever she had communicated to him her commands, it had been by telephone. Patty Bennington! The window was at his elbow. He looked out and followed the sky-line of the hills as they rolled away to the south. Patty! It was a very beautiful world, and this was a day of days. It all came to him in that moment of discovery. He had drifted along toward it quite unconsciously, as a river might idle toward the sea. Patty! The light of this knowledge was blinding for a space. So Warrington came into his own romance. It was not the grand passion, which is always meteoric; it was rather like a new star, radiant, peaceful, eternal.

"Patty!" He smiled.


Chapter X


It was only when the whistle of the returning boat sounded close by that he realized he had been sitting there for nearly an hour. He roused himself, sealed and addressed his letter to the senator, and hurried down to the dock. Patty was alone, mending some tackle.

"It must be a long letter," she remarked, standing up and shaking her skirts.

"Why, this is only the beginning of it," he replied ambiguously. "It is never going to end."

"Mercy! It must be a postscript."

He had no retort handy, so he contented himself with watching the approach of the boat.

"Some men are never satisfied," she said owlishly. "If I were a successful dramatist, such as you are, a public office would look rather tawdry."

"But it's real, Patty; it's life and not mummery."

"I don't know," doubtfully; "from what I have read, there are more puppets in and about a City Hall than ever dangled in the puppet booth. Did I give you permission to call me Patty?" demurely.

"Not that I recollect." The boat came sweeping up to the dock, and he tossed the senator's letter to the boy. The boat went on with a musical gurgle. "But when I especially like anything, I usually appropriate it."

"I can see that you will make a good politician."

He laughed happily.

"Evidently you like the name. You have applied it to me three times this morning."

"Like it? Why, I think it is the most charming name I ever heard. It smells of primroses, garden-walls, soldiers in ragged regimentals, of the time when they built houses with big-columned porches."

"My!"

"May I not call you Patty?"

"Oh, if you ask my permission, you may."

"I do."

"That is better."

"Patty?"

"Well."

"Do you ever look in your mirror?"

"The idea! Of course I do. I look in it every morning and every night. And as often as I find the time. Why?"

"Nothing; only, I do not blame you."

"What's all this leading to?" frowning.

"Heaven knows! But I feel sentimental this morning. There is so much beauty surrounding me that I feel impelled to voice my appreciation of it."

"There is no remedy, I suppose."

"None, save the agony of extemporization."

"I have never heard you talk like this before. What IS the matter?"

"Perhaps it is the exhilaration I feel for the coming fight. Would you like to see me mayor?"

"Indeed I should. Think of the circus tickets you'd have to give away each year! You know they always give the mayor a handful for his personal use. No, Mr. Warrington, I shall be very proud of you when you are mayor."

"What's the matter with your calling me Richard or Dick?"

"We must not advance too suddenly."

"Is there anything the matter with the name?"

"Oh, no; Richard is quite musical in its way. But I am always thinking of the humpbacked king. If I called you anything it would be Dick."

"Richard was not humpbacked. Moreover, he was a valiant king, greatly maligned by Mr. Shakespeare."

"I see that I shall not dare argue with you on the subject; but we can not banish on so short a notice the early impressions of childhood. Richard Third has always been a bugaboo to my mind. Some day, perhaps, I'll get over it."

"Make it Dick, as a compromise."

"Some day, when I have known you a little longer. Has John ever told you about Mr. McQuade?"

"McQuade?" Warrington realized that he had been floating on a pleasant sea. He came upon the hidden shore rather soundly. "McQuade?" he repeated.

"Yes. He had the audacity to propose to mother shortly after father's death. Think of it! John wrote to him very definitely that his presence in the house would no longer be welcomed or tolerated. Father had some slight business transactions with Mr. McQuade, and he came up to the house frequently. He continued these visits after father's death. We treated him decently, but we simply could not make him feel welcome. The third time he called he proposed.

"Mother left the room without even replying. He understood. A few minutes afterward we heard the door slam. John wrote him the next morning. Did you ever hear of anything to equal the cold-bloodedness of it?"

Warrington looked at her in absolute amazement.

"Well, of all the nerve! Why the deuce didn't John punch his head?" savagely.

"Mr. McQuade is not a gentleman; John is," simply. "But Mr. McQuade hasn't forgotten; not he. He pays no attention to any of us; but that is no sign that he does not think a good