"Whom?"
"With the Honorable, or by courtesy dubbed Honorable, William Barry,"
Dick replied triumphantly.
"'Piggy' Barry?" ejaculated Ellery, turning on Dick in surprise.
"Alderman Barry? The boss?"
"'Piggy' does somehow sound more appropriate than 'Honorable'," Dick
said meditatively.
"And is he one of the people you like?" questioned Ellery with unfeigned
surprise.
"For business purposes, yes. If I'm going to get into politics some day,
it becomes me to cultivate local statesmen, doesn't it? I took the great
man to the theater, or at least to something that called itself the
theater, and I gave him an excellent supper afterward. He seemed to
appreciate it and my society."
"I dare say you made yourself agreeable. Do you expect he will help you
in your public career?"
"Not voluntarily, perhaps; but I wanted to know him, better and better.
Under benign influences, he is indiscreet. He reminded me last night of
Louis XIV. He might have said, 'St. Etienne, it is I,' but in his
simpler and less sophisticated language, he was content to remark, 'I'm
the whole damn show, see?'"
"I'm glad he knew enough to put the appropriate adjective before show,"
said Ellery grimly.
"And yet I suspect that, even in that statement, he lied," Dick went on.
"I studied him last night. You'll never persuade me that that man, whose
head is all face and neck, does the intricate planning and wire-pulling
that runs this city. I've an idea Barry is only the two placards on each
side of the sandwich-man. He may be the adjective show, but I doubt if
he's the man."
"Have you discovered who is the real sandwich-man?"
"No, I haven't. My reasoning is inductive. I see numerous little holes
with small tips of threads sticking through them, but when I try to get
hold of the threads to pull them out and examine them, the ends are too
short or my fingers are too big. But get hold of them I shall, sooner or
later, by hook or crook. If I don't give some of those fellows the
slugging of their lives, my name isn't Richard Percival."
"I suspect that it is Richard Percival," said Ellery with a whimsical
glance of affection.
"This, as I read it, is the history," Dick went on. "Six years ago, when
you and I were sub-freshmen, and unable to take an active part, there
was a brief spasm of reform. It was a short episode of fisticuffs and
fighting, which is for a day--a very different thing from governing,
which goes steadily on from year to year. But this reform movement did
result in giving the city a good charter."
"The Garden of Eden was once fitted out with an excellent system of
government."
"Exactly. Charters, left to themselves, do not regulate human nature.
The good citizens of St. Etienne went their own busy business way and
left the less occupied bad citizens to adapt the charter to the needs of
life; and that was an easy job, so easy that it has apparently been
possible for one man to manage it. The charter put great power into the
hands of the mayor. There have been three mayors elected under it, and
they have all been 'friends' of Billy Barry."