Ten North Frederick (45 page)

“I think so, Mike.”

“Joe, if you say no to what I'm going to ask you, I'll accept no for your answer. If you say maybe, I'll accept maybe. If you say
yes
, I'll be overjoyed. Is that fair?”

“Seems fair.”

“All right. The question: will you run for Judge of Common Pleas?”

Joe paused, then said, “No.”

Mike nodded. “You have your reasons and I respect them. I won't even ask you what they are. You're the first man I've asked, and the only favor I ask of you now is, in fairness to all concerned, please keep it to yourself that I asked you. I have two other men in mind, but I wanted to ask you first. Well, that's all, Joe. Thanks for your time. Highest regards to Edith.”

Mike knew when to leave, and he left. That evening he said to Peg: “Talked to Joe Chapin. I offered him a judgeship, but he wants something bigger.”

“He wants to fly higher,” said Peg.

“That's right, he wants to fly higher. I wonder how high he thinks he can fly.”

At approximately the same moment, at
10
North Frederick Street, Joe was saying to Edith: “He offered me a judgeship and he was very nice about it when I turned him down.”

“What else can he offer you?”

“Assemblyman, state senator.”

“I know Mike is the state senator. Who is our assemblyman?” said Edith.

“A fellow named Harvey Goodright.”

“You're not going to take that?”

“No,” said Joe. “I could have been a judge, ten years. And I could resign. But I've decided something that I haven't had a chance to tell you.”

“Which is?”

“No matter what Mike offers me, I'm going to refuse. All the way up to and including the governorship. He's not going to offer me the governorship, but if he did, I'd say no. Do you know what I'm going to do?”

“What?”

“I'm going to start doing all over the state what we've been doing just in this section. I don't want to have to go to meetings of the state legislature, and run for minor offices every two or four or six years, and I don't want to be buried in the courthouse. I'm going to start getting to know people all over the state, and getting myself known. That's going to take longer than two or three years, the way I want to do it, but it's going to be worth it in the long run. Look at Gifford Pinchot and his trees. I'm going to make friends all over the state. If I could arrange to be appointed to some Federal office, that would help too, but I'll have to find out what's exactly right. I'm what is usually spoken of as a deserving party man, and I've never asked for anything in return. There might be something.”

“Federal? Would that mean living in Washington?”

“It wouldn't mean closing this house, if that's what you're worrying about.”

“That's good.”

“But I hope you won't
mind
living in Washington,” said Joe, smiling.

“At the right address,” said Edith.

A fortnight later, at
10
North Frederick Street.

“Did you see tonight's paper?” said Edith.

“I haven't had a chance to,” said Joe. “Something interesting?”

“You'll think so. I think so,” said Edith. “On the third page, the article about City Council.”

Joe read the article to himself, then aloud quoted a passage from it: “‘The regular party organization is proud of the ticket submitted to the voters of Gibbsville,' said Senator Slattery. ‘It is additional proof that the organization has answered the charge of party insurgents that we are afraid of new blood. The ticket contains the names of four outstanding citizens who are making their first entrance into the local political arena.
In next year's mayoralty campaign there will be further proof of the progressive policy of the regular organization when I hope to persuade Joseph B. Chapin, the well-known attorney, philanthropist and one of Gibbsville's first citizens, to run for Mayor of his native city.
' And so forth and so on.”

“Did you know anything about that?” said Edith.

“I most certainly did not,” said Joe. “I wonder why he did it.”

“Isn't that what they mean by smoking you out?”

“Yes, but he knows I'm not going to like it,” said Joe.

“Tell him so,” said Edith.

“I will, but first I want to think about what I'm going to say. I'll go upstairs and lie in the tub for a while.”

He soaked for a quarter of an hour, toweled himself, and telephoned Mike Slattery.

“Mike, I imagine you were expecting this call. This is Joe Chapin.”

“Good evening, Joe. You mean the article in tonight's
Standard?
”

“I mean the article in tonight's
Standard,”
said Joe.

“I trust you were pleased with it,” said Mike.

“Pleased with it? Why should I be? Mike, that's taking liberties that I haven't given you permission to take. I'm not in politics, except for serving on the county committee. You must have realized that when I turned down the Common Pleas job.”

“I thought you'd be pleased, Joe. I wouldn't do anything to offend you, you know that. You're too good a friend and too valuable a man in the party. All I did was think out loud, dream out loud, you might say.”

“Then you must have been smoking opium, Mike. You haven't the slightest reason to think I'd run for mayor or anything else. I refused the judgeship, and that's a high honor, higher than mayor, in my estimation.”

“Well, I'm very sorry, Joe. I guess I could get Bob Hooker to print a retraction, although that's going to make me look like a slob.”

“Never mind the retraction. I could get Bob Hooker to retract it myself. We'll let the matter die down of its own accord. But in future, before you nominate me for public office, I hope you'll consult me first. And I'd appreciate it if you would call Arthur and tell
him
the story is out of whole cloth. I haven't heard from him, but he's going to be just as amazed as I was.”

“I'll do that as soon as we hang up,” said Mike. “But there's one promise I won't make, Joe.”

“What's that?”

“I'm not going to give up trying to persuade you to run for office. We need you.”

“That's very nice, but
persuade
me, don't do it by way of announcing it in the
Standard
.”

“No hard feelings, Joe?”

“Well, they'll probably soften up.”

They said their good-byes.

Edith, who had been listening to Joe, nodded. “Very good,” she said.

“It
is
good. Do you know why? Because now I'll be able to do something I've wanted to do and didn't know how. I'm going to Washington and see about a Federal appointment.” He lit a cigarette. “Does What's Her Name, the society editor—”

“Lydia Faunce Brown,” said Edith.

“Does she still call you for news?”

“About once a week.”

“Regularly?”

“Quite regularly. Tomorrow or next day it's time for her next call. Why?”

“When she calls, tell her quite casually that Mr. and Mrs. Joseph B. Chapin expect to spend a few days next week in Philadelphia. Shopping. Business.”

“Philadelphia?” said Edith.

“Well, it's on the way to Washington, but we don't have to tell her everything,” said Joe. “If Mike can use the
Standard
, so can I.”

“Joe, you're very clever,” said Edith.

“Well, don't say it with such surprise. There are hidden resources in me that even you don't know about, Edith.”

“Then it's all right for me to be surprised.”

“Touché,” said Joe.

Joe deliberately made no appointment with the U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. “You go have a look at the cherry blossoms,” he told Edith. “I'm going to beard the lion in his den.”

“It's the wrong time for the cherry blossoms.”

“I hope it's not the wrong time for the Senator.”

He went to the Senator's office and was told that the Senator was not seeing anyone without an appointment. The secretary, an intelligent-looking woman of middle age, was immediately aware that the caller was not a pest or a time-waster, but a handsome gentleman in well-cut clothes. “Would you take in my card?”

“I'd be glad to, but I can't hold out any hope that the Senator will see you, sir.”

He handed her his card:

Mr. Joseph Benjamin Chapin

Gibbsville, Pennsylvania

She looked at it and quickly looked up at him. “Oh, Mr. Chapin. The Lantenengo County Committee, is that right?”

“Thank you, yes,” said Joe.

She stepped into the Senator's office, and came back in less than a minute.

“The Senator would like very much to see you for five minutes,” she said.

The man behind the large desk was white-haired but with a comparatively unlined face. He rose to shake hands with Joe. “Mr. Chapin, this is a long-delayed pleasure.”

“Thank you, Senator. I'll try not to take up too much of your time.”

“Well, I'd like nothing better than to have a nice leisurely chat with you, but I'm going to be needed on the floor very shortly. How are things in the coal regions?”

“Well, the strike hasn't helped us any.”

“No. A mess. That union has gotten out of hand. But of course don't quote me,” he said with a smile. “Do you see much of my old friend Billy English?”

“Oh, yes. Our family doctor, and a close friend of ours.”

“Billy was a fraternity brother of mine at Lafayette. I believe you're a Princeton man?”

“Oh, no, sir. The
higher
seat of learning, in New Haven.”

“Forgive me, forgive me. Now you have the advantage, what can I do to make amends?”

“I'm looking for a job,” said Joe.

“Well, those words have a familiar ring, but I have a feeling that Chapin of McHenry & Chapin doesn't want to be appointed postmaster of—whatever the smallest town in Lantenengo is.”

“No, the time may come, but not now. The kind of job I have in mind would be on some Federal commission that would preferably keep me in our own Commonwealth.”

“I see,” said the Senator. “A man in your circumstances usually wants to be made ambassador—London, Paris, or Rome. I'm glad to hear that you're not anxious to supplant the incumbents in those posts.”

“They're quite safe, Senator.”

“Good. Have you got any one commission in mind, or a specific job?”

“No, sir,” said Joe.

“Well, there are some commissions, like Interstate Commerce, that are tough jobs. Then there are others like Battle Monuments that are more or less honorary. The pay varies, too.”

“The pay isn't an important factor.”

“Then I imagine what you have in mind
is
more of an honorary type.”

“But not just sitting with my hands folded.”

“Of course not,” said the Senator. “You want to serve the country, and our state, in some worthwhile capacity as a Federal appointee. Is that about it?”

“I think that's well put, sir,” said Joe.

“Well, I have all sorts of charts and tables of appointive offices, most of them filled, but vacancies do occur, and there may be one or two right now. How long are you going to be in Washington?”

“I'd planned to go back tomorrow.”

“It would take me a week or so to see what there is, so would you like me to write you a letter sometime next week or the week after, telling you what there is, and then we can get together again? Does that suit you?”

“Very much, Senator. Suits me to a T.”

“Good,” said the Senator. He rose, held out his hand. “Mrs. Chapin. She was a Laubach, if I'm not mistaken?”

Joe smiled. “A Stokes, but the Laubachs are also two of our best friends.”

“Oh, dear. Two mistakes out of two tries. I ought to watch my step or I'll be out of politics.”

“Not if I can help it,” said Joe.

“What a gracious reply!
Thank
you, Mr. Chapin. This
has
been a pleasure.”

Joe, a smiling man, left a smiling man. But Joseph B. Chapin had made his first serious political mistake.

“Joe? Mike Slattery. I'd like to have a word with you. I can come right over if you're free.”

In a few minutes Mike appeared in Joe's office. He closed the door and placed his fedora on top of a case of law books.

“Joe, you know enough about mining to know what a pillar-robber is, don't you?”

“Yes, of course,” said Joe.

“What is it?”

“A man who pulls out timbers and the coal falls down for lack of support.”

“Correct. It's a dangerous job, highly paid.”

“All right, Mike. What's on your mind?” said Joe.

“Do you have to go all the way to Washington, D.C., to be a pillar-robber?”

“Who do you think you're talking to, Mike?”

“I'm talking to a man with political ambitions. I'm talking to a man that goes behind my back to
further
his own political ambitions. I'm talking to a man that I could help, and that I offered to help. I'm talking to a man that goes out of his way to weaken the support of an organization that I built up. I'm talking to a man that pretends to be aloof from dirty politics, but that doesn't seem to need any lessons from me. Now what have you got to say?”

“I say you can get the hell out of my office,” said Joe.

“I'm gone before you can say Inland Waterways Commission, Mr. Machiavelli.”

He picked up his hat and was gone.

And thus ended Joe Chapin's chance of a Federal appointment, even to the postmastership of the smallest village in Lantenengo County.

 • • • 

“It probably was a mistake,” said Edith.