duelling pistols with long barrels, and carved
scrolls on their butts and hammers that stood
up high like the ears of a startled colt. And he
would bid you to decipher for yourself the name
of his grandfather inscribed upon the brass
trigger guards. You were given to understand
that in a day of big men, Braxton Montjoy
towered as a giant amongst them.
Aside from following the profession of being
a grandson, Quintus Q. had no regular business.
There was a sign reading Real Estate and Loans
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ACCORDING TO THE CODE
upon the glass door of his one-room suite in the
Planters' Bank building, but he didn't keep
regular hours there. With the help of an agent,
he looked after the collecting of the rents for
his town property and the letting upon shares
or leaseholds of his river-bottom farms; but
otherwise you might say his chief occupation
was that of being a sincere and conscientious
descendant of a creditable forebear.
So much for the grandfather. So much, at
this moment, for the grandson. Now we are
going to get through the rind into the meat
of our tale:
As may be recalled, State Senator Horace
K. Maydew, of our town and county, being a
leader of men and of issues, once upon a time
hankered mightily to serve the district in Con
gress and in the moment that he could almost
taste of triumph accomplished had the cup
dashed from his lips through the instrumentality
of one who, locally, was fancied as being rather
better than a dabster at politics, himself. Dur
ing the months which succeeded this defeat,
the mortified Maydew nursed a sharpened
grudge toward the enemy, keeping it barbed
and fletched against the time when he might
let fly with it. Presently an opportunity for
reprisals befell. May dew's term as State Sen
ator neared its close. For personal reasons,
which he found good and sufficient, the uv
cumbent did not offer as a candidate to suc-
ceed himself. But quite naturally, and per-
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OLD JUDGE PRIEST
haps quite properly, he desired to name his
successor. Privily he began casting about
him for a likely and a suitable candidate, which
to the senator's understanding meant one who
would be biddable, tractable and docile. Be
fore he had quite agreed with himself upon a
choice, young Tobias Houser came out into the
open as an aspirant for the Democratic nomina
tion, and when he heard the news Senator May-
dew re-honed his hate to a razor-edge. For
young Tobe Houser, who had been a farmer-
boy and then a country school teacher and
who now had moved to town and gone into
business, was something else besides: He was
the nephew of Judge Priest, the only son of the
judge's dead sister. It was the judge's money
that had helped the young man through the
State university. Undoubtedly so May dew
read the signs of the times it was the judge's
influence which now brought the youngster
forth as an aspirant for public office. In the
Houser candidacy Maydew saw, or thought he
saw, another attack upon his fiefship on the
party organisation and the party machinery.
On an evening of the same week in which
Tobe Houser inserted his modestly-worded
announcement card in the Daily Evening News,
Senator Maydew called to conference or to
concurrence two lieutenants who likewise had
cause to be stalwart supporters of his policies.
The meeting took place in the living room of
the Maydew home. When the drinks had been
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ACCORDING TO THE CODE
sampled and the cigars had been lighted
Senator Maydew came straight to the business
in hand:
"Well, gentlemen," he said, "I've got a
candidate a man none of us ever thought of
before. How does the name of Quintus Q.
Montjoy seem to strike you?"
Mr. Barnhill looked at Mr. Bonnin, and Mr.
Bonnin looked back at Mr. Barnhill. Then
both of them looked at Maydew.
"Montjoy, eh?" said Barnhill, doubtfully,
seeming not to have heard aright.
"Quintus Q. Montjoy you said, didn't you?"
asked Bonnin as though there had been any
number of Montjoys to choose from. He
spoke without enthusiasm.
"Certainly," answered Maydew briskly,
"Quintus Q. Montjoy, Esquire. Any objec
tions to him that you can think of, off-hand?"
"Well," said Mr. Barnhill, who was large of
person and slow of speech, "he ain't never done
anything."
"If I'm any judge he never will do anything
much," supplemented Mr. Bonnin, who was
by way of being small and nervous.
"You've said it both of you," stated their
leader, catching them up with a snap. "He
never has done anything. That gives him a
clean record to run on. He never will do any
thing on his own hook, I mean. That'll
make him a safe, sound, reliable man to have
representing this district up yonder at Frank-
OLD JUDGE PRIEST
fort. Last session they licked the Stickney
warehouse bill for us. This season it'll come up
again for passage. I guarantee here and now
that Quint Montjoy will vote right on that
proposition and all other propositions that'll
come up. He'll vote right because we'll tell him
how to vote. I know him from the skin out."
"He's so powerfully pompious and bumpious
so kind of cocksure and high-an'-mighty,"
said Mr. Barnhill. "D'ye reckin, Hod, as how
he'll stand without hitchin'?"
"I'll guarantee that, too," said Senator May-
dew, with his left eyelid flickering down over
his left eye in the ghost of a wink. "He don't
know yet that he's going to be our candidate.
Nobody knows it yet but you and me. But
when he finds out from us that he's going to
have a chance to rattle round in the same seat
that his revered granddaddy once ornamented
well, just you watch him arise and shine.
There's another little thing that you've over
looked. He's got money, plenty of it; as
much money as any man in this town has got.
He's not exactly what I'd call a profligate or a
spendthrift. You may have noticed that ex
cept when he was spending it on himself he's
very easy to control in money matters. But
when we touch a match to his ambition and it
flares up, he'll dig down deep and produce
freely or I miss my guess. For once we'll
have a campaign fund with some real money
behind it."
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ACCORDING TO THE CODE
His tone changed and began to drip rancour:
"By Judas, I'll put up some of my own
money! This is one time when I'm not count
ing the cost. I'm going to beat that young
lummox of a Houser, if it's the last thing I do.
I'm going to rub his nose in the mud. You
two know without my telling you why I'd
rather see Houser licked than any other man on
earth except one. And you know who that
one is. We can't get at Priest yet that
chance will come later. But we can get his
precious nephew, and I'm the man that's
going to get him. And Quint Montjoy is the
man I'm going to get him with."
"Well, Hod, jest ez you say," assented Mr.
Barnhill dutifully. "I was only jest askin',
that's all. You sort of tuck me off my feet at
fust, but the way you put it now, it makes
ever 'thing look mighty promisin'. How about
you, Wilbur?" and he turned to Mr. Bonnin.
"Oh, I'm agreeable," chimed Mr. Bonnin.
"Only don't make any mistake about one
thing Houser's got a-plenty friends. He'll
give us a fight all right. It won't be any walk
over."
"I want it to be a fight, and I don't want it
to be a walk-over, either," said Senator Maydew.
"The licking we give him will be all the sweeter,
then."
He got up and started for the telephone on
the wall.
"I'll just call up and see if our man is at
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OLD JUDGE PRIEST
home. If he is, we'll all three step over there
right now and break the news to him, that the
voice of the people has been lifted in an irre
sistible and clamorous demand for him to be
come their public servant at his own expense."
The Senator was in a good humour again.
"And say, Hod, whilst I'm thinkin' of it,"
put in Mr. Barnhill sapiently, "ef he should be
at home and ef we should go over there, tell
him for Goddle Midey's sake not to drag in
that late lamentable grandpaw of his'n, more'n
a million times durin' the course of the cam
paign. It's all right mebbe to appeal to the
old famblies. I ain't bearin' ary grudge ag'inst
old famblies, 'though I ain't never found the
time to belong to one of 'em myself. But there's
a right smart chance of middle-aged famblies
and even a few toler'ble new famblies in this
here community. And them's the kind that
does the large bulk of the votin' in primary
elections."
We've had campaigns and campaigns and
then more and yet other campaigns in our
county. We had them every year and we
still do. Being what they were and true to
their breeding the early settlers started run
ning for office, almost before the Indians
had cleared out of the young settlements.
Politics is breath to the nostrils and strong
meat to the bellies of grown men down our
way. . Found among us are persons who are
ACCORDING TO THE CODE
office-seekers by instinct and office-holders
by profession. Whole families, from one gen
eration to another, from father to son and from
that son to his son and his son's son become
candidates almost as soon as they have become
voters. You expect it of them and are not
disappointed. Indeed, this same is true of
our whole state. Times change, party lines
veer and snarl, new issues come up and flourish
for awhile and then are cut down again to make
room for newer crops of *newer issues still, but
the Breckinridges and Clays, the Hardins and
Helms, the Breathitts and Trimbles, the Crit-
tendons and Wickliffes, go on forever and
ever asking the support of their fellow-Ken-
tuckians at the polls and frequently are vouch
safed it. But always the winner has cause to
know, after winning, that he had a fight.
As goes the state at large, so goes the district
and the precinct and the ward. As I was say
ing just now, we have had warm campaigns
before now; but rarely do I recall a campaign
of which the early stages showed so feverishly
high a temperature as this campaign between
Quintus Q. Montjoy and young Tobias Houser
for the Democratic nomination for State
Senator. You see, beneath the surface of
things, a woman's personality ran in the under
currents, roiling the waters and soiling the
channel. Her name of course, was not spoken
on the hustings or printed in the paper, but her
influence was manifest, nevertheless.
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OLD JUDGE PRIEST
There was one woman and perhaps only
one in all that community who felt she had
abundant cause to dislike Judge Priest and all
that pertained to him by ties of blood, marriage,
affection or a common interest. And this
person was the present wife of the Hon. Horace
K. Maydew, and by that same token the former
wife of old Mr. Lysander John Curd. Every
time she saw Congressman Dabney Prentiss
passing by, grand and glorious in his long-
tailed coat and his broad black hat and his
white tie, which is ever the mark of a statesman
who is working at the trade, she harked back
to that day when Judge Priest had obtruded
his obstinate bulk between her husband and
her husband's dearest ambition; and she re
membered that, except for him, she might now
be Mrs. Congressman Maydew, going to White
House receptions and giving dinners for sena
tors and foreign diplomats and cabinet officers
and such. And her thoughts grew bitter as
aloes; and with rancour and rage the blood
throbbed in her wrists until her bracelets hurt
her. Being minded to have a part and a parcel
in the undoing of the Priest plans, she meddled
in this fight, giving to Mr. Montjoy the
benefit of her counsel and her open, active
advocacy.
Perhaps it was because he inclined a flattered
ear to the lady's admonitions rather than to her
husband's subtler chidings that Mr. Montjoy
confirmed the astute Mr. BarnhiU's forebodings
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ACCORDING TO THE CODE
and refused to stand without hitching. He
backed and he filled; he kicked over the traces
and got tangled in the gears. He was, as it
turned out, neither bridle-wise nor harness-
broken. In short he was an amateur in politics,
with an amateur's faults. He took the stump
early, which was all well and good, because in
Red Gravel county if a candidate can't talk to
the voter, and won't try, he might just as well
fold up his tents like the Arab and take his
doll rags and go on about his business, if he has
any business. But against the guidance and
the best judgment of the man who had led him
forth as a candidate, he accepted a challenge
from young Houser for a series of joint debates;
and whilst Mr. Barnhill and Mr. Bonnin wagged
their respective heads in silent disapproval,
he repeatedly and persistently made proclama
tion in public places and with a loud voice, of
the obligation which the community still owed
his illustrious grandparent, the inference being
that he had inherited the debt and expected
to collect it at the polls.
It is likewise possible that Candidate Mont-
joy listened over-much to the well meant words
of Mr. Calhoun Tabscott. This Mr. Calhoun
Tabscott esteemed himself a master hand at
things political. He should have been, at that.
One time or another he had been on opposite
sides of every political fence; other times he
bestraddled it. He had been a Greenbacker,
a Granger, and a Populist and once, almost
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OLD JUDGE PRIEST
but not quite, a Republican. Occasions were
when, in rapid succession, he flirted with the
Single Taxers, and then, with the coy reluctance
of one who is half-converted, harkened to the
blandishments of the Socialists. Had he been
old enough he would have been either a Know-
Nothing or a Whig either or perhaps both.
In 1896 he quit the Silver Democrats cold, they
having obtusely refrained from sending him as
a delegate to their national convention. Six
weeks later he abandoned the Gold Democrats
to their fate because they failed to nominate
the right man for president. It was commonly
believed he voted the straight Prohibition
ticket that year for spite.
In the matter of his religious convictions,
Mr. Tabscott displayed the same elasticity
and liberality of choice. In the rival fields of
theology he had ranged far, grazing lightly as
he went. When the Cumberland Presbyterians
put chime bells in their spire, thereby interfer
ing with his Sunday morning's rest, for he lived
just across the street, he took his letter out of
the church and thereafter for a period teetered
on the verge of agnosticism, even going so far
as to buy the works of Voltaire, Paine and
Ingersol combined and complete in six large
volumes. He worshipped a spell with the
Episcopalians and once during a space of
months, the Baptists had hopes of him. Rumour
had it that he finally went over to the Metho-
dists, because old Mr. Leatheritt, of the Traders
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ACCORDING TO THE CODE
National Bank, who was a Baptist, called one
of his loans.
Now, having been twice with Judge Priest
in his races for the Circuit Judgeship and twice
against him, Mr. Tabscott espoused the Mont-
joy candidacy and sat in Mr. Montjoy's amen
corner, which, indeed, was altogether natural
and consistent, since the Tabscotts, as an old
family, dated back almost as far and soared
almost as high as the Montjoys. There had
been a Tabscott who nearly fought a duel him
self, once. He sent the challenge and the pre
liminaries were arranged but at the eleventh
hour, a magnanimous impulse triumphed over
his lust for blood, and for the sake of his ad
versary's wife and helpless children, he decided
to spare him. Mr. Tabscott felt that as be
tween him and Mr. Montjoy a sentimental
bond existed. Mr. Montjoy felt it, too; and
they confabbed much together regarding ways,
means and measures somewhat to the annoy
ance of Senator Maydew who held fast to the
principle that if a master have but one man,
the man should have but one master.
The first of the joint debates took place,
following a barbecue, at Gum Spring School-
house in the northermost corner of the county
and the second took place three days later at
the Old Market House in town, a large crowd
attending. Acrimony tinctured Mr. Mont-
joy's utterances from the outset. Recrimina-
tion seemed his forte that and the claims of
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OLD JUDGE PRIEST
honourable antiquity as expressed in the person
of its posterity upon a grateful and remembering
constituency. He bore heavily upon the fact
or rather the allegation that Judge Priest
was the head and the front of an office-holding
oligarchy, who thought they owned the county
and the county offices, who took what spoils
of office and patronage they coveted for them
selves, and sought to parcel the remainder out
among their henchmen and their relatives. This
political tyranny, this nepotism, must end, he
said, and he, Quintus Q. Montjoy, was the in
strument chosen and ordained to end it. "Nom
inate Montjoy and break up the County ring,"
was the slogan he carried on his printed card.
Therein, in especial, might be divined the under
mining and capable hand of Senator Maydew.
But when at the second meeting between the
candidates Mr. Montjoy went still further and
touched directly upon alleged personal failings
of Judge Priest, one who knew the inner work
ings of the speaker's mind might have hazarded
a guess that here a certain lady's suggestions,
privately conveyed, found deliverance in the
spoken word.
The issue being thus, by premeditated intent
of one of the two gentlemen most interested,
so clearly and so acutely defined, the electors
took sides promptly, becoming not merely
partisans but militant and aggressive partisans.
Indeed, citizens who seldom concerned them-
selves in fights within the party, but were
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ACCORDING TO THE CODE
mainly content to vote the straight party ticket
after the fighting was over, came out into the
open and declared themselves. Perhaps the
'most typical exemplar of this conservative class,
now turning radical, was offered in the person
of Mr. Herman Felsburg. Until this time Mr.
Felsburg had held to the view that needless
interference in primary elections jibed but poorly
with the purveying of clothing to the masses.
Former patrons who differed with one polit
ically were apt to go a-buying elsewhere. No
matter what your own leanings might be, Mr.
Felsburg, facing you across a showcase or a
counter, without ever committing himself abso
lutely, nevertheless managed to convey the
impression that, barring that showcase or that
counter, there was nothing between him and
you, the customer that in all things you twain
were as one and would so continue. Such had
been his attitude until now.
When Mr. Montjoy speared at Judge Priest,
Judge Priest remained outwardly quite calm
and indifferent, but not so Mr. Felsburg. If
he did not take the stump in defence of his old
friend at least he frequented its base, in and
out of business hours, and in the fervour of his
championship he chopped his English finer and
twisted his metaphors worse than ever he had
done before, which was saying a good deal.
One afternoon, when he returned to the
store, after a two-hours' absence spent in side
walk argument down by the Square, his brother,
OLD JUDGE PRIEST
Mr. Ike Felsburg, who was associated in the
firm, ventured to remonstrate with him, con
cerning his activities in the curbstone forum,
putting the objections on the grounds of com
mercial expediency. At that he struck an
attitude remotely suggestive of a plump and
elderly Israelitish Ajax defying the lightning.
"Listen here, you Ike," he stated. "Thirty
years I have been building up this here Oak
Hall Clothing Emporium, and also hats, caps
and gents' furnishings goods. You you can
run around with your lodge meetings and your
benevolence societies, and all this time I work
here, sweating like rats in a trap, and never is a
word said by me to you, vicer or verser. I ask
you as brother to brother, ain't that so, or ain't
it? It is," continued Mr. Herman, answering
his own question.
"But, Hermy," interjected Mr. Ike, put on
the defensive by the turn which the argument
had taken, "but, Hermy, all what I have said
to you is that maybe somebody who likes Mont-
joy would get mad at you for your words and
take their custom up the street."
"Let 'em!" proclaimed Mr. Herman with a
defiant gesture which almost upset a glass case
containing elastic garters and rubber arm
bands, "let 'em. Anybody which would be a
sucker enough to vote for Montjoy against a
fine young fellow like this here Houser would also
be a sucker enough to let Strauss, Coleman
& Levy sell him strictly guaranteed all-wool
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ACCORDING TO THE CODE
suitings made out of cotton shoddy, and I
wouldn't want his custom under any circum
stances whatsoever!"
"But, Hermy!" The protest was growing
weaker.
"You wait," shouted Mr. Herman. "You
have had your say, and now I would have mine,
if you please. I would prefer to get one little
word in sideways, if you will be so good. You
have just now seen me coming in out of the
hot sun hoarse as a tiger from trying to con
vince a few idiots which they never had any
more sense than a dog's hind leg and never
will have any, neither. And so you stand
there my own brother and tell me I am
going too far. Going too far? Believe me,
Mister Ike Felsburg, I ain't started yet."
He swung on his heel and glared into the
depths of his establishment. "Adolph," he
commanded, "come here!" Adolph came, he
being head salesman in the clothing depart
ment, while Mr. Ike quivered in dumb appre
hension, dreading the worst and not knowing
what dire form it would assume.
"Adolph," said Mr. Herman with a baleful
side-glance at his offending kinsman. "To-day
we are forming here the Oak Hall and Tobias
J. Houser Campaign and Marching Club, made
up of proprietors, clerks, other employees and
well wishers of this here store, of which club I
am the president therefrom and you are the
secretary. So you will please open up a list
OLD JUDGE PRIEST
right away and tell all the boys they are already
members in good standing."
"Well, now, Mr. Herman," said Adolph,
"I've always been good friends with Quintus
Q. Montjoy and besides which, we are neigh
bours. No longer ago than only day before
yesterday I practically as good as promised
him my vote. I thought if you was coming
out for Houser, some of us here in the store
should be the other way and so
Mr. Herman Felsburg stilled him with a
look and removed his hat in order to speak with
greater emphasis.
"Adolph Dreifus," he said with a deadly
solemnity, "you been here in this store a good
many years. I would assume you like your
job here pretty well. I would consider that
you have always been well treated here. Am
I right, or am I wrong? I am right! I would
assume you would prefer to continue here as
before. Yes? No? Yes! You remember the
time you wrote with a piece of chalk white
marks on the floor so that that poor near
sighted Leopold Meyer, who is now dead and
gone, would think it was scraps of paper and
go round all day trying to pick those chalk
marks up? With my own eyes I saw you do so
and I said nothing. You remember the time
you induced me to buy for our trade that order
of strictly non-selling Ascot neckties because
your own cousin from Cincinnati was the sales
man handling the line which, from that day to
[254]
ACCORDING TO THE CODE
this, we are still carrying those dam* Ascot ties
in stock? Did I say anything to you then?
No! Not a word did I say. All those things is
years past and I have never spoken with you
regarding them until to-day. But now, Adolph,
I must say I am ashamed for you that you
should pick on that poor Leopold Meyer, who
was blind like a barn-door. I am ashamed for
you that you should boost up that cousin of
yours from Cincinnati and his bum lines. If
I s'hould get more ashamed for you than what
already I now am, there is no telling what I
should do. Adolph, you will please be so good
as to remember that all persons that work in
this here Oak Hall Clothing Emporium are for
Tobe Houser for State Senator and no one else,
whatsoever. Otherwise, pretty soon, I am
afraid there will be some new faces selling gar
ments around here. Do I make myself plain?
I do!
^,"My brother the junior partner here" he
dwelt heavily upon the word junior, making
of it a most disqualifying adjective "he also
thinks in this matter the same way as I do. If
you don't believe me, ask him for yourself.
There he stands like a dumb engraved image
ask him."
And Mr. Ike, making craven surrender,
raised both hands in token of his capitulation
and weakly murmured, "Yes."
The third of the joint debates, which, as it
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