All-Wool Morrison: Time -- Today, Place -- the United States, Period of Action -- Twenty-four HoursDay, Holman
General
All-Wool Morrison: Time -- Today, Place -- the United States, Period of Action -- Twenty-four Hours
Day, Holman
Political corruption -- Fiction; Politicians -- Fiction
"Yes! Promised the ringleader of the mob to come up here and run
everything on Capitol Hill. In behalf of the people--as the people's
protector!" The Senator's irony rasped like a file on metal.
Banker Daunt was provoked to add his evidence. "It's exactly as my friend
Corson says, Governor. I have been hearing some fine soviet doctrines from
the mouth of Morrison this evening. Not at all stingy about giving his
help to all those who need it! Gave his pledge of assistance to the fellow
in the ballroom, as Corson says. Understood him to say that he is coming
up here to help you, too!"
"I rather expected to find him here," pursued the Senator. "He went away
in a great hurry to go somewhere. But after my experience with your alert
soldiers down-stairs, Totten, I'm afraid our generous savior is going to
be bothered about getting in."
The adjutant-general pulled off his cap and scrubbed his palm nervously
over the glossy surface that was revealed.
"You might give some special orders to admit him," suggested Corson.
"He'll be a great help in an emergency."
"This settles it with me as to Morrison and his conception of law and
order," affirmed Governor North. "I have been depending on him to handle
his city. I'd as soon depend on Lenin and the kind of government he's
running in Russia."
"According to the samples furnished by both, I think Lenin would rank
higher as help," said the Senator. "At least he has shown that he knows
how to handle a mob. But we may as well calm down, North, and attend to
our own business. We are making altogether too much account of a silly
nincompoop. Daunt and I let our feelings get away from us this evening on
the same subject. But we woke up promptly. Morrison was in a position to
help his friends and to amount to something as an aid in that line. Now
that he is running with the rabble, for some purpose of his own, he can be
ignored. He amounts to nothing--to that!" He snapped a derogatory finger
into his palm. "We can handle that rabble, Morrison included." He turned
to the adjutant-general. "Your men seem to be alert enough in keeping out
gentlemen who ought to be let in. Do you think you can depend on them to
keep out real intruders?"
"Oh yes!" faltered Totten, absent-mindedly. He was trying to clear his
troubled thoughts in regard to the matter of Morrison, who was now
presented in a light where politeness might not be allowed to govern the
situation.
"Have they been put to any test of their courage and reliability? Have
they been up against any actual threats from the outside, this evening?"
"No, but I can depend on them to the limit, Senator Corson. I have been on
regular tours of inspection. They are a cool and nervy set of young men
and I have impressed on them a sense of what a soldier on duty should be."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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