'Young or old?' I said. 'Oh, a married lady,' he said, 'very much admired, who has been everywhere.' Wasn't that clever of him? I told him that a man usually sent a few flowers.
You saw the basket to-day--evidently regardless of expense.
And fancy, there was a card, a card with a gilt edge and his name written on it.""The card was his mother's. She has visiting cards, now, and pays visits once a year in a livery carriage. Poor Mrs. Fitzmaurice, she is always so scared; and she is such a good soul!
Tommy is very good to her."
"How about the father? Does he still keep that 'nice' saloon?"1"Poor people," said Mrs. Carriswood; "do you know, Grace, I can see Tommy's future; he will grow to be a boss, a political boss.
He will become rich by keeping your streets always being cleaned--which means never clean--and giving you the worst fire department and police to be obtained for money; and, by and by, a grateful machine will make him mayor, or send him to the Legislature, very likely to Congress, where he will misrepresent the honest State of Iowa.
Then he will bloom out in a social way, and marry a gentlewoman, and they will snub the old people who are so proud of him.""Well, we shall see," said Mrs. Lossing; "I think better things of Tommy.
So does Harry."
Part of the prophecy was to be speedily fulfilled.
Two years later, the Honorable Thomas Fitzmaurice was elected mayor of his city, elected by the reform party, on account of his eminent services--and because he was the only man in sight who had the ghost of a chance of winning.
Harry's version was: "Tommy jests at his new principles, but that is simply because he doesn't comprehend what they are.
He laughs at reform in the abstract; but every concrete, practical reform he is as anxious as I or anybody to bring about.
And he will get them here, too."
He was as good as his word; he gave the city an admirable administration, with neither fear nor favor. Some of the "boys"still clung to him; these, according to Harry, were the better "boys,"who had the seeds of good in them and only needed opportunity and a leader. Tommy did not flag in zeal; rather, as the time went on and he soared out of the criminal courts into big civil cases involving property, he grew up to the level of his admirers' praises. "Tommy," wrote Mr. Lossing, presently, "is beginning to take himself seriously.
He has been told so often that he is a young lion of reform, that he begins to study the role in dead earnest.
I don't talk this way to Harry, who believes in him and is training him for the representative for our district.
What harm? Verily, his is the faith that will move mountains.
Besides, Tommy is now rich; he must be worth a hundred thousand dollars, which makes a man of wealth in these parts.
It is time for him to be respectable."
Notwithstanding this preparation, Mrs. Carriswood (then giving Washington the benefit of her doubts of climate) was surprised one day to receive a perfectly correct visiting card whereon was engraved, "Mr. Thomas Sackville Fitzmaurice, M.C."The young lady who was with her lifted her brilliant hazel eyes and half smiled. "Is it the droll young man we met once at Mrs. Lossing's? Pray see him, Aunt Margaret,"said Miss Van Harlem.
Mrs. Carriswood shrugged her shoulders and ordered the man to show him up.
There entered, in the wake of the butler, a distinguished-looking personage who held out his hand with a perfect copy of the bow that she saw forty times a day. "He is taking himself very seriously," she sighed; "he is precisely like anybody else!"And she felt her interest snuffed out by Tommy's correctness.
But, directly, she changed her mind; the unfailing charm of his race asserted itself in Tommy; she decided that he was a delightful, original young man, and in ten minutes they were talking in the same odd confidence that had always marked their relation.
"How perfectly you are gotten up! Are you INSIDE, now?""Ah, do you remember that?" said he; "that's awfully good of you.
Which is so fortunate as to please you, my clothes or my deportment?""Both. They are very good. Where did you get them, Tommy? I shall take the privilege of my age and call you Tommy.""Thank you. The clothes? Oh, I asked Harry for the proper thing, and he recommended a tailor. I think Harry gave me the manners, too.""And your new principles?" She could not resist this little fling.
"I owe a great deal in that way to Harry, also," answered he, with gravity.
Gone were the days of sarcastic ridicule, of visionary politics.
Tommy talked of the civil service in the tone of Harry himself.
He was actually eloquent.
"Why, Aunt Margaret, he is a remarkable young man,"exclaimed Miss Van Harlem; "his honesty and enthusiasm are refreshing in this pessimist place. I hope he will come again.
Did you notice what lovely eyes he has?"
Before long it was not pure good-nature that caused Mrs. Carriswood to ask Fitzmaurice to her house. He was known as a rising young man, One met him at the best houses; yet he was a prodigious worker, and had made his mark in committees, before the celebrated speech that sent him into all the newspaper columns, or that stubborn and infinitely versatile fight against odds which inspired the artist of PUCK.
Tommy bore the cartoon to Mrs. Carriswood, beaming.
She had not seen that light in his face since the memorable June afternoon in the Opera-house. He sent the paper to his mother, who vowed the picture "did not favor Tommy at all, at all.
Sure Tommy never had such a red nose!" The old man, however, went to his ex-saloon, and sat in state all the morning, showing Tommy's funny picture.
It was about this time that Mrs. Carriswood observed something that took her breath away: Tommy Fitzmaurice had the presumption to be attentive to my lady's goddaughter, Miss Van Harlem.
