City and town life -- Fiction; United States -- Fiction
Kennedy looked after him wistfully, and the workmen stood still, holding
their tools and looking after him. He noticed it as he turned away, and
it occurred to him to wonder how it happened that he knew so many men
like Kennedy, who seemed to have a sort of feudal attachment for him.
He passed through Tecumseh Street on his way home, and noticed where the
policeman had ripped off the advertising boards. Hicks must be a queer
specimen, he thought. But relatively to mechanics, every man was an
eccentric.
Tecumseh Street was absorbed in its daily business. It seemed to have no
conscience-smitten, excited memories. A mob and a flash of gunpowder, a
runaway horse, the breaking down of a truck, everything went the way
of incident. “Everything goes,” was the phrase there, meaning it is
accepted and goes away, for the street has not time to remember it.
Hennion glanced up at the window of the little room in _The Press_
building. Why had Wood chosen an engineer and contractor to make of him
a machine politician? Machinery made of men, with the notions of men
to drive it--what kind of machinery was that to work with! Aidee, the
enthusiast, was a man! Hicks, the mad, was another; Freiburger, the
mollusk, another. Wood, with his complicated sympathies and tolerances
and hand-to-mouth flexible common sense, was a specially developed type
to run that kind of machinery. Wood was dead, and as for his “job,” and
what “the boys” wanted, why, they wanted _their_ “jobs,” like everybody
else. Hennion wanted his own.
Carroll came flitting around the corner of Hancock Street at that
moment, and nearly ran into him.
“Oh! Committee meets to-morrow night.”
“I don't want it.”
“Come off! You can't help it.”
Carroll flitted away in the direction of _The Press_ building.
Before seven o'clock the sparrows in the dark maples were forgetting in
sleep all the great issues of their day.
Hennion left his rooms, in the apartment building that was splendidly
called “The Versailles,” and came out in the street. It was too early to
see Camilla. He walked a few blocks north, and turned down Maple Street
presently, past St. Catherine's Church, and Freiburger's saloon across
the street from the church. They were the seats of the two rulers of the
Fourth Ward, church and state--Father Harra and Frei-burger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account