The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York. Lewis Alfred Henry

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ me:

      “Come ag’in.”

      That was all I had from Old Mike that journey.

      Big Kennedy it should be said was a model for all sons. He kept his father in ease and comfort in a house of his own. He was prone to have Old Mike’s advice, particularly if what he proposed were a step novel or one dangerous in its policy, and he never went to anything in the face of Old Mike’s word. It wasn’t deference, it was faith; Big Kennedy believed in the wisdom of Old Mike and relied upon it with a confidence that was implicit. I shall have more to tell of Old Mike as my story unrolls to the eye. If Big Kennedy were my example, Old Mike should be called my mentor. Taking the cue from Big Kennedy, I came to own for Old Mike that veneration which the youths of Ancient Greece felt for their oracles, and as utterly accepted either his argument or conclusion. It stood no wonder that I was impressed and played upon by this honor of an introduction to Old Mike. To bring you before Old Mike and name you for his consideration was the extremest proof of Big Kennedy’s regard. As I’ve said, it glittered on one like the chain and spurs of knighthood, and the fact of it gave me a pedestal among my fellows.

      After my bout with that erring one who came out of his own ward to sup grief at my hands, there began to collect about me a coterie of halfway bruisers. This circle – and our enemies were quick to bestow upon it the epithet of “gang” – never had formal organization. And while the members were of the rougher sort, and each a man of his hands, the argument of its coming together was not so much aggression as protection.

      The town forty years ago was not a theater of peace and lambs’-wool safety. One’s hand must keep one’s head, and a stout arm, backed by a stout heart, traveled far. To leave one’s own ward, or even the neighborhood where one lived, was to invite attack. In an alien ward, one would be set upon and beaten to rags before one traveled a mile. If one of the enemy were not equal to the business, others would lend a hand. Whether it required one or two or three or twenty, the interloper was fated to heir a drubbing. If his bones were not broken, he was looked upon as fortunate, while those who had undertaken to correct his wanderings went despised as bunglers who had slighted a task.

      Now and then a war-party would make a sortie from their own region to break windows and heads in the country of an enemy. Such hands often descended upon the domain of Big Kennedy, and it was a notion of defense against these Goths which brought the militant spirits I have mentioned to my shoulder. It was we who must meet them, when they would make desolate our territory. The police were of no use; they either walked the other way in a spirit of cautious neutrality, or were driven into hiding with a shower of stones.

      By the common tongue, this coterie to collect at my back was named the “Tin Whistle Gang.” Each member carried a whistle as part of his pocket furniture. These were made of uniform pattern, and the same keen note, like the screech of a hawk, was common to all.

      The screaming fife-like song would bring out the Tin Whistles as hotly bent for action as a colony of wasps. In those days, when might was right, the sound of these whistles was a storm signal. Quiet people shut their doors and drew their bolts, while apothecaries made ready to sell lint and plasters.

      It is required that I speak of the Tin Whistles in this place. I was now for the first time to be called into political activity by Big Kennedy. I was eighteen, and of a sober, steady, confident cast, and trustworthy in a wordless way. Because I was sober of face and one not given to talk or to laughter, men looked on me as five years better than my age; I think these characteristics even imposed on Big Kennedy himself, for he dealt with me as though I were a man full grown.

      It was in the height of a campaign. Two days before the balloting, Big Kennedy sent for me. There was a room to the rear of his bar. This room was a holy of holies; no one entered there who was not established in the confidence of Big Kennedy. It was a greater distinction even than the acquaintance of Old Mike. Knowing these things, my brow flushed when Big Kennedy led me into this sanctum of his policies.

      “Now, if I didn’t trust you,” said Big Kennedy, looking me hard in the eye, “if I didn’t trust you, you’d be t’other side of that door.” I said nothing; I had found that silence pleased Big Kennedy, and I learned early to keep my tongue between my teeth. Big Kennedy went on: “On election day the polls will close at six o’clock. Half an hour before they close, take that Bible Class of yours, the Tin Whistles, and drive every one of the opposition workers an’ ticket peddlers away from the polling place. You’ll know them by their badges. I don’t want anyone hurt mor’n you have to. The less blood, the better. Blood’s news; it gets into the papers. Now remember: half an hour before six, blow your whistle an’ sail in. When you’ve got the other fellows on the run, keep’em goin’. And don’t let’em come back, d’ye see.”

      CHAPTER V – THE BATTLE OF THE BALLOTS

      BIG KENNEDY’S commands concerning the Tin Whistles taught me that lurking somewhere in the election situation he smelled peril to himself. Commonly, while his methods might be a wide shot to the left of the lawful, they were never violent. He must feel himself hard pressed to call for fist and club. He lived at present cross-purposes with sundry high spirits of the general organization; perhaps a word was abroad for his disaster and he had heard some sigh of it. This would be nothing wonderful; coarse as he seemed fibered, Big Kennedy had spun his web throughout the ward as close-meshed as any spider, and any fluttering proof of treason was certain to be caught in it.

      The election, while the office at local bay came to be no weightier than that of Alderman, was of moment to Big Kennedy. Defeat would mean his eclipse, and might even spell his death of politics. To lose the Alderman was to let fall the reins of ward direction. The Alderman and his turtle-devouring fellows cracked the whip over the police whom they appointed or dismissed, and the police were a ballot-engine not to be resisted. He who held the Alderman, held the police; and he who had the police, carried victory between his hands.

      Doubtless it was some inner-circle treachery which Big Kennedy apprehended. The regular opposition, while numerous and carrying on its muster rolls the best respectability of the ward, lacked of that organization which was the ridgepole of Big Kennedy’s supremacies. It straggled, and was mob-like in its movements; and while, as I’ve written, it showed strong in numbers, it was no more to be collected or fashioned into any telling force for political effort than a flock of grazing sheep. If there were to come nothing before him more formidable than the regular opposition, Big Kennedy would go over it like a train of cars and ask no aid of shoulder-hitters. Such innocent ones might stand three deep about a ballot-box, and yet Big Kennedy would take from it what count of votes he chose and they be none the wiser. It would come to no more than cheating a child at cards.

      The open opposition to Big Kennedy was made up of divers misfit elements. At its head, as a sort of captain by courtesy, flourished that reputable peppery old gentleman who aforetime took my part against Sheeny Joe. A bit in love with his own eloquence, and eager for a forum wherein to exercise it, the reputable old gentleman had named himself for Alderman against Big Kennedy’s candidate. As a campaign scheme of vote-getting – for he believed he had but to be heard to convince a listener – the reputable old gentleman engaged himself upon what he termed a house-to-house canvass.

      It was the evening of that day whereon Big Kennedy gave me those orders touching the Tin Whistles when the reputable old gentleman paid a visit to Old Mike, that Nestor being as usual on his porch and comforting himself with a pipe. I chanced to be present at the conversation, although I had no word therein; I was much at Old Mike’s knee during those callow days, having an appetite for his counsel.

      “Good-evening, sir,” said the reputable old gentleman, taking a chair which Old Mike’s politeness provided, “good-evening, sir. My name is Morton – Mr. Morton of the Morton Bank. I live in Lafayette Place. Incidentally, I am a candidate for the office of Alderman, and I thought I’d take the freedom of a neighbor and a taxpayer and talk СКАЧАТЬ