Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 675
Mr. Dill, president of the Board of Aldermen, and the handsomest incumbent of the office that the city ever beheld, had been courted so persistently that, fearful of being picked up, he remained in hiding disguised as a Broadway fortune teller, where the Mayor came at intervals to consult him on pretense of having his palms read.
But now the suffragettes threw off all restraint; men, frightened and confused, were being not only spoken to on Fifth Avenue, but were being seized and forcibly conducted in taxicabs toward the marriage license bureau.
It was a very St. Bartholomew for bachelors.
“John,” said the Governor to his capable young Military Secretary, “take off that uniform. I’m going to flee in disguise.”
“What does your excellency expect me to flee in — dishabille?” stammered the Military Secretary.
“I don’t care what you flee in,” said the Governor bluntly; “but I will not have it said that the Governor of the great State of New York was seized by a dozen buxom eugenists and hurried away to become the founder of a physically and politically perfect race of politicians. Get out of those gold-laced jeans!”
“I’ll flee disguised as a chambermaid,” muttered the handsome, rosy-cheeked young Mayor. And he rang for one.
While the Governor and his Secretary were exchanging clothes they heard the Mayor in the hallway arguing with a large German chambermaid in an earnest and fatherly manner, punctuated by coy screams from the maid.
By and by he came back to the room, perspiring.
“I bought her clothes,” he said; “she’ll throw them over the transom.”
The clothing arrived presently by way of the transom; the Governor and the Secretary tried to aid the Mayor to get into the various sections of clothing, but as they all were bachelors and young they naturally were not aware of the functions of the various objects scattered over the floor.
The Governor picked up a bunch of curls attached to a cup-shaped turban swirl.
“Good heavens!” he said. “The girl has scalped herself for your sake, John!”
“I bought that, too,” said the Mayor, sullenly. “Do you know which way it goes on, George?”
They fixed it so that two curls fell down and dangled on either side of his Honour’s nose.
Meanwhile the unfortunate Military Secretary had dressed in the top hat and cutaway of the Governor.
He said huskily, “If I can’t outrun them they’ll catch me and try to start raising statesmen.”
“It’s your duty to defend me,” observed the Governor.
“Yes, with my life, but not with my p-progeny—”
“Then you’d better run faster than you’ve ever run in all your life,” said the Governor coldly.
At that moment there came a telephone call.
“Lady at the desk to speak to the Governor,” came a voice.
“Hello, who is it?” asked his excellency coyly.
“Professor Elizabeth Challis!” came a very sweet but determined voice.
At the terrible name of the new President of the National Federation of American Women the Governor jumped with nervousness. Anonymous letters had warned him that she was after him for eugenic purposes.
“What do you want?” he asked tremulously.
“In the name of the Federation I demand that you instantly destroy the draft of that infamous bill which you are preparing to rush through at Albany.”
“I won’t,” said the Governor.
“If you don’t,” she said, “the committee on eugenics will seize you.”
“Let ’em catch me first,” he replied, boldly; and rang off.
“Now, John,” he said briskly, “as soon as they catch sight of you in my top hat and cutaway they’ll start for you. And I advise you to leg it if you want to remain single.”
The unfortunate Military Secretary gulped with fright, buttoned his cutaway coat, crammed his top hat over his ears, and gazed fearfully out of the window, where in the avenue below the riot was still in lively progress. Terrified young men fled in every direction, pursued by vigorous and youthful beauty, while the suffragette band played and thousands of suffragettes cheered wildly.
“Isn’t it awful!” groaned the Mayor, arranging the lace cap on his turban-swirl and shaking out his skirts. “The police are no use. The suffragettes kidnap the good-looking ones. Are you ready for the sortie, Governor?”
The Governor in the handsome uniform of his Military Secretary adjusted his sword and put on the gold-laced cap. Then, thrusting the draft of the obnoxious bill into the bosom of his tunic, he strode from the room, followed by his Secretary and the unfortunate Mayor, who attempted in vain to avoid treading on his own trailing skirts.
“George,” said the Mayor, spitting out a curl that kept persistently getting into his mouth every time he opened it, “I’ll be in a pickle unless I can reach Dill’s rooms. . . . Wait! There’s a pin sticking into me — —”
“Too late,” said the Governor; “it will spur you to run all the faster. . . . Where is Dill’s?”
The Mayor whispered the directions, spitting out his curl at intervals when it incommoded him; the Governor walked faster to escape.
Down in the elevator they went, gazed at by terror-stricken bell-hops and scared porters.
As the cheering and band playing grew louder and more distinct the Secretary quailed, but the Governor admonished him:
“You’ve simply got to save me,” he said. “Pro bono publico! Come on now. Make a dash for a taxi and the single life! One — two — three!”
The next moment the Secretary’s top hat was carried away by a brick; the Mayor’s turban-swirl went the same way, amid showers of confetti and a yell of fury from a thousand suffragettes who saw in his piteous attempt to disguise himself, by aid of a turban-swirl, an insult to womanhood the world over.
A perfect blizzard of missiles rained on the terrified politicians; the Secretary and the Mayor burst into a frantic canter up Thirty-fourth Street, pursued by a thousand strikingly handsome women. The Governor ran west.
* * *
XV
THE GOVERNOR OF the great State of New York was now running up Broadway with his borrowed sword between his legs and his borrowed uniform covered with confetti — footing it as earnestly as though he were running behind his ticket with New York County yet to hear from.
After him sped bricks, vegetables, spot-eggs, and several exceedingly fashionable suffragettes, their perfectly gloved hands full of horsewhips, banners, and farm produce.
But his excellency was now running strongly; one by one his eager and beautiful pursuers gave up the chase and fell out, panting and flushed from the exciting and exhilarating sport, until, at Forty-second Street, only one fleet-footed young girl remained at his heels.
The order of precedence then shifted as follows: First, the young and handsome Governor running like a lost dog at a fair and clutching the draft of the obnoxious bill to his gold-laced bosom; second, one distractingly lovely young girl, big, wholesome-looking, athletic, and pink of cheeks, swinging a ci-devant cat by the tail as menacingly as David balanced the loaded sling; third, several agitated policemen whistling and rapping for assistance; fourth, the hoi polloi of the Via Blanca; fifth, a small polychromatic dog; sixth, the idle wind toying carelessly with the dust and refuse and hats and skirts of all Broadway.
“Only one fleet-footed young girl remained at his heels.”
This municipal dust storm, mingling with the brooding metropolitan gasoline fog, produced a sirocco of which no Libyan desert needed to be ashamed; and it alternately blotted out and revealed the interesting Marathonian procession, until one capricious and suffocating flurry, full of whirling newspapers and derbies, completely blotted out the Governor and the young lady at his heels.
And when, a moment later, the miniature tornado had subsided into a series of playful sidewalk eddys, only the policemen, the hoi polloi, and the dog were still going; the Governor and the beautiful suffragette had completely disappeared.
They had, it is true, chosen a very good time and place for such an occult performance; Long Acre at its busiest.
Several mounted policemen had now joined in the frantic festivities. They galloped hurriedly in every direction. The crowd cheered and pursued the police, the small dog barked in eddying circles till he resembled an expiring pinwheel.
Meanwhile a curious thing had occurred; the youthful Governor was now chasing the suffragette. It occurred abruptly, and in the following manner:
No sooner had the dust cloud spread a momentary fog around the radiant young man — like a hurricane eclipse of the sun — than he darted into the narrow and dark hallway of an old-fashioned office building devoted to theatrical agencies, all-night lawyers, and “astrologists,” and started up the stairs. But his unaccustomed sword tripped him up, and as he fell flat with a startling outcrash of accoutrements, there came a flurry of delicately perfumed skirts, the type-written papers were snatched from his gloved hands, and the perfumed skirts went scurrying away through the dusky corridor which ought to have opened on the next cross street. And didn’t.
After her ran the Governor, now goaded to courage by the loss of his papers, and she, finding herself in a cul-de-sac, turned at bay, launched the cat at his head, and attempted to spring past him. But he caught the whirling feline in one white-gloved hand and barred her way with the other; and she turned once more in desperation to seek an egress which did not exist.
A flight of precipitate and rickety stairs led upward into an obscurity rendered deeper by a single gas jet burning low on the landing above.
Up this she sprang, two at a time, the young man at her heels; up, up, passing floor after floor, until a dirty skylight overhead warned her that the race was ending.
On the top corridor there was a door ajar; she sprang for it, opened it, tried to slam and lock it behind her, then, exhausted, she shrank backward into the room and sank into a red velvet chair, holding the bunch of papers tightly to her heaving breast.
There was another chair — a gilt one. Into it fell his excellency, gasping, speechless, his spurred and booted legs trailing, his borrowed uniform all over confetti and dust from his tumble on the stairs.
Minute after minute elapsed as they lay there, fighting for breath, watching each other.
She was the first to stir; and instantly he dragged himself to his feet, staggered over to the door, locked it, dropped the key into his pocket, returned to his chair, and collapsed once more.
After a few moments he glanced down at the cat which he was still clutching. A slight shiver passed over him, then, as he inspected it more closely, over his features crept an ironical smile.
For the cat was not even a ci-devant cat; it had never been a cat; it was only an imitation of a defunct one made out of floss and chenille, like a teddy-bear; and he smiled at her scornfully and dangled it by its black and white tail.
“Pooh,” he panted; “I suppose even your bricks and vegetables and eggs were cotillion favours full of confetti.”
“They were,” she admitted defiantly. “Which did not prevent their serving their purposes.”
“As what?”
“As symbols!”
“Symbols?” he retorted in derision.
“Yes, symbols! The three most ancient symbols of an insulted people’s fury — the egg, the turnip, and the cat.”
“Mala gallina, malum ovum,” he laughed, adjusting his sword and picking several streamers of confetti from his tunic. “Did they hurl spot-eggs in ancient Rome, fair maid?”
“They did; and cats — ex necessitate rei,” she observed with composure.
“Ex nihilo felis fit — a cat-fit for nothing,” he retorted, flippantly.
Half disdainfully she straightened out the slight disorder of her own apparel, still breathing fast, and keeping tight hold of the bundle of papers.
“How soon are you going to let me have them?” he asked good-humouredly.
“Never.”
“I can’t permit you to leave this room until you hand them to me.”
“Then I shall never leave this room.”
“You certainly shall not leave it until I have those papers.”
“Then I’ll remain here all my life!” she said defiantly.
“What do you expect to do when the people who live here return?”
She shrugged her pretty shoulders, and presently cast an involuntary and uneasy glance around the room.
It was not a place to reassure any girl; gilt stars were pasted all over walls and ceilings, where also a tinsel sun and moon appeared. The constellations were interspersed with bats.
The remaining decorations consisted of a cozy corner, some pasteboard trophies, red cotton velvet hangings, several plaster casts of human hands, and a frieze of half-burnt cigarettes along the mantel-edge.
“Are you going to give me those papers?” he repeated, secretly amused.
“No.”
“What do you expect to do with them?”
“Deliver them to Professor Elizabeth Challis, President of the National Federation of Independent Women of America.”
“Is this a private enterprise of yours,” he asked curiously, “or just a — a playful impulse, or the militant fruition of a vast and feminine conspiracy?”
She smiled slightly.
“I suppose you mean to be impertinent, but I shall not evade answering you, Captain Jones. I am acting under orders.”
“Betty’s?” he inquired, flippantly.
“The orders of Professor Elizabeth Challis,” she said, with heightened colour.
“Exactly. It is a conspiracy, then, complicated by riot, assault, disorderly conduct, and highway robbery — isn’t it?”
“You may call it what you choose.”
“Oh, I’ll leave that to the courts.”
She said disdainfully: “We recognize no laws in the making of which we have had no part.”
“There’s no use in discussing that,” said the Governor blandly; “but I’d like to know what you suffragettes find so distasteful in that proposed bill which the Mayor and — and the Governor of New York have had drafted.”
“It is reactionary — a miserable subterfuge — a treacherous attempt to return to the old order of things! A conspiracy to re-shackle, re-enslave American womanhood with the sordid chains of domestic cares! To drive her back into the kitchen, the laundry, the nursery — back into the dark ages of dependence and acquiescence and non-resistance — back into the degraded epochs of sentimental relations with the tyrant man!”
She leaned forward in her excitement and her sable boa slid back as she made a gesture with her expensive muff.
“Once,” she said, “woman was so ignorant that she married for love! Now the national revolt has come. Neither sentiment nor impulse nor emotion shall ever again play any part in our relations with man!”
He said, trying to speak ironically: “That’s a gay outlook, isn’t it?”
“The outlook, Captain Jones, is straight into a glorious millennium. Marriage, in the future, is to mean the regeneration of the human race through cold-blooded selection in mating. Only the physically and mentally perfect will hereafter be selected as specimens for scientific propagation. All others must remain unmated — pro bono publico — and so ultimately human imperfection shall utterly disappear from this world!”
Her pretty enthusiasm, her earnestness, the delicious colour in her cheeks, began to fascinate him. Then uneasiness returned.
“Do you know,” he said cautiously, “that the Governor of New York has received anonymous letters informing him that Professor Elizabeth Challis considers him a proper specimen for the — the t-t-terrible purposes of s-s-scientific p-p-propagation?”
“Some traitor in our camp,” she said, “wrote those letters.”
“It — it isn’t true, then, is it?”
“What isn’t true?”
“That the Governor of the great State of New York is in any danger of being seized for any such purpose?”
She looked at him with a curious veiled expression in her pretty eyes, as though she were near-sighted.
“I think,” she said, “Professor Challis means to seize him.”
The Governor gazed at her, horrified for a moment, then his political craft came to his aid, and he laughed.
“What does she look like?” he inquired. “Is she rather a tough old lady?”
“No; she’s young and — athletic.”
“Barrel-shaped?”
“Oh, she’s as tall as the Governor is — about six feet, I believe.”
“Nonsense!” he exclaimed, paling.
“Six feet,” she repeated carelessly; “rowed stroke at Vassar; carried off the standing long jump, pole vault, and ten-mile swimming — —”
“This — this is terrible,” murmured the young man, passing one gloved hand over his dampening brow. Then, with a desperate attempt at a smile, he leaned forward and said confidentially:
“As a matter of fact, just between you and me, the Governor is an invalid.”
“Impossible!” she retorted, her clear blue eyes on his.
“Alas! It is only too true. He’s got a very, very rare disease,” said the young man sadly. “Promise you won’t tell?”
“Y-yes,” said the girl. Her face had lost some of its colour.
“Then I will confide in you,” said the young man impressively. “The Governor is threatened with a serious cardiac affection, known as Lamour’s disease.”
She looked down, remained silent for a moment, then lifted her pure gaze to him.
“Is that true — Captain Jones?”
