Men of No Property (41 page)

“I remember somethin’ about it.”

“I remember it very well because I shared its fate. It undertook to look at Irishmen as they were in this country, and it dared to place the blame on certain men of Irish origin. It was a short-lived paper. The
Irish American
was founded to put it out of business, and it was so blessed by the bishop that it’s still flourishing today. What happened to
The Nation
must not happen to
The Citizen,
Lavery, whether John Mitchel is for you or against you.”

“I give you my word,” Dennis said, “I’ll not raise hand or tongue against it.”

“That is easily given,” Farrell said, stuffing away the handkerchief. “I hope that if you have the power to solicit us and are using it, you will also have the power to protect us, and will use it as willingly. Shall we go?”

After talking with Farrell, Dennis found Mitchel no trouble at all. There was no exchange of commitments, but no wiles, Dennis thought, for Mitchel was a man of zeal and direct attack. It was Farrell had the legal mind and looked for snares finding them whether or not they were there. He had much preferred himself to forget the implications of the customs man’s remark that night on the sudden death of a newspaper. But Farrell had forced him to take a look at it. Well, it was queer, the things a man could stand or fall on. Here he was, measuring his future by a newspaper he had scarcely read. But it was a principle he was standing on, and a fair one. He would have preferred not to have had to stand on it at all, but that choice wasn’t given him. To hell with it, he thought, waiting day after day, and reading at last
The Citizen.
And then the day came when
The Citizen
ran an editorial on the duties of American citizens of Irish origin, and foremost among them was the exercise of their franchise on behalf of men of good will.

The Citizen
was sound. Fernandy could not ask more.

H
IS SUCCESS WITH
THE
Citizen
gave Dennis the confidence to move in the General Committee boldly. He exposed his plan to certain key Softs and the creation of the Executive Committee was handily accomplished. He then favored the opposition by confiding to Mulrooney the opportunity to nominate Fernando Wood its chairman. Mulrooney took a long pull at his cigar and saw in its smoke a vision of the future. The regular Hards put up a howl, but enough of them followed Mulrooney to combine with the Softs and carry the nomination. There might be a fight on it, but every man present knew that the mayoralty nominations would go the same way in the fall. Fernando Wood wanted to be mayor of New York. To that purpose his forces were already regimented, and foremost among them was a young and able lieutenant, Dennis Lavery.

Norah, on reading in the
Irish American
of Dennis’ coup, remarked: “It’s a wonder you wouldn’t’ve told me.”

“I’m near discoverin’ it first myself,” he said, for while he had followed one sound move with another sounder in the committee, he could not say that he had planned the full course beforehand. He explained as much to Mr. Finn, who knocked on their door at teatime.

The little man looked sour as a quince, Dennis thought, for all the smile he put on to Norah, apologizing to her for not having sent word of his coming before his arrival.

“And why would you need to send word,” said Norah, “when we mightn’t have a door to open at all if it wasn’t for you? There’s no one welcomer.”

“You do me more credit than is due, but thank you, my dear,” Finn said, and Dennis was inclined to agree with him. “Well, Dennis,” he started when Norah had left them, “you have fashioned quite a position for yourself.”

It was as much a reprimand as a compliment, Dennis thought, and in a way Mr. Finn had the right to be hurt: he had always been interested and willing to help. So Dennis explained the steps he had taken up the ladder, but he thought it best to make no mention of Mulrooney. “In truth,” he concluded, “I wouldn’t’ve called myself Wood’s lieutenant. It was him gave the story.”

“Mmmm,” Mr. Finn said. “You put me in mind of another gentleman much in the news these days, Senator Douglas.”

It was only then that Dennis realized to what extent Finn’s visit was in the way of a reprimand. Finn had exerted himself strongly against the Nebraska bill. He was in fact an enemy at the other end from the Hards, he was a Free-soiler. “You don’t like Douglas,” he said, “so I’m in for a talkin’ to, am I?”

“I shouldn’t say I don’t like Douglas,” Mr. Finn said. “I didn’t like his bill, but I dare say it was not his bill at the end. I make the comparison because he, too, is a man who cannot wait, who must act whether or not he has thought out the full consequences. What, may I ask, and in all honesty, Dennis, tell me: what recommends Mr. Wood to your admiration?”

“You’ve said the word yourself, sir: his honesty. He’s willin’ to admit what most Democrats won’t—and this should please the likes of you—he admits the corruption of the Common Council. I think if he’s mayor, he’ll unbalance them.”

“Mmm,” Mr. Finn said again, and Dennis was beginning to find it an irritating noise. “I’ve known a master thief to stand in the street and cry out
Stop thief!
and while the storekeeper ran out in pursuit, to go about plundering the store at leisure.”

“And that’s your opinion of Fernandy Wood,” Dennis said evenly.

“It’s the opinion of many people, Dennis, including his former partner in business. For my own part, I should be willing to admit a man could reform. I am more concerned with what seems to recommend him most to you: his confidence in his ability to undo the Council—‘unbalance’ I believe was your word.

“I wonder, Dennis, would you concede that perhaps it is his promise of efficiency which so attracts you—his efficiency in combination with the impossible situation in the Council?”

“I’d concede that.”

“So,” Mr. Finn said, and with such precision that Dennis regretted even that concession. “The world has known many despots, benevolent and malign, and I do believe all of them were efficient men. Would you not hate to see us abandon a democratic form of government for the sake of efficiency?”

“The word was yours, Mr. Finn, not mine.”

“So. ‘Unbalance the Council.’ Those were your words, weren’t they? The Constitution of this country was devised to obtain a balance in government: the executive, the legislative, the judiciary; and by and large the pattern holds in state and city government. You will forgive me if I am talking to you as I might to Vincent—if he did not already know more than either of us—but I want to show you, Dennis, what I and the country have learned from an experience in my lifetime, and something I think you must consider before binding yourself to Mr. Wood. In my lifetime a way has been discovered to, in effect, circumvent the Constitution: it is called the Spoils System.”

“I’m for it,” Dennis said bluntly, for he knew what it meant well: by no other means did the common man get a chance at government office. Without it, the aristocracy would rule the country. And it occurred to him then for the first time how much it would mean to a man of Finn’s origins, standing and stature to be counted amongst the aristocracy. Wasn’t he raising Vinnie like a crown prince?

Mr. Finn folded his hands. “Then we need go no further. I had thought once you were a man of open and independent mind. Well, Dennis, I tell you now: I shall oppose your Mr. Wood, and to the full ability of my heart and lungs. If, as seems inevitable, he is nominated by the Democrat party, I shall vote the Whig ticket for the first time since Jackson’s second term.”

“And elect a Know-Nothing,” Dennis said, feeling his temper edge out of control. “What do I care, God damn it, sir, for your delicate balance and unbalance when there’s Irishmen starvin’ for want of a job? When a nigger is given the nod if there’s but the choice of the two? I’ve crawled on my belly to worse than Fernandy Wood to find a place for a man whose only sin was his church and his race.”

“But not to Daniel Mulrooney,” Mr. Finn said in his irritatingly quiet way. “I understand he’s ready to crawl to you now.”

“I ask no man to crawl to me, sir,” Dennis said.

“It will be interesting to see if you can make reptiles walk.” Mr. Finn got up and took his hat. “Suppose you were told that Mr. Wood himself has been in the high council of a Know-Nothing lodge?”

“I’d put my fist down the throat of the man tellin’ it.”

“It will be told, and I hope you’ll weigh the evidence before losing your fist. I understand you’ve been reconciled, as it were, with Stephen Farrell.”

“We’re together in this, if that’s your meanin’.”

“I’m happier about that than I am your reconciliation with Mulrooney at least. But I wonder if Farrell will stay in your camp when the true nature of Mr. Wood is exposed.”

“I’ll know who took him out if he goes,” Dennis said.

“Oh, my,” Mr. Finn said, “don’t credit me with such influence. I have but a small voice and it doesn’t carry very far, really.”

V
INNIE FINISHED THE SCHOOL
term in high spirits. He stood in the upper tenth of his class in written examinations, and the upper fifth in oral; he had won himself an oarsman’s place on the senior crew, and he had been elected to the debating society. Above all, he was respected by his classmates, and most of all by those who had made his first year miserable. Humor did it, the Dean of Studies said, the humor of adversity. On the fifteenth of July he shipped his trunk home by rail, and on the seventeenth, pushed off with three chums on the
Gay Blade,
a sloop belonging to his roommate, Alexander Taylor. Such an exploit was frowned upon by the school during terms, but the boys had their parents’ written consent and all were excellent swimmers. More than one professor saw them off and sighed after his own bold youth. It was a glorious sail they ran through the Sound and many a fisherman cursed them, wiping their spray from his eyes. They poked and lolled in the little inlets along the Connecticut coast, sometimes lying the night at anchor and invading a town like sailors home from across the world. Then with the rising wind they would scud across the Sound and count the new construction along the Long Island shore. At sunset of the fourth day, they tacked under the railway bridge and sailed down the East River. Even around the Battery the wind sustained them, and with skill as great as their daring, they maneuvered amongst the Brooklyn ferries, the tows, the packets, and the steamers loading for moonlight cruises. All over the island the myriad lights were flickering up as they hauled their riggings at a slip in the North River.

Vinnie, with his share of the work done and his seabag at his feet on the dock, drew the smell and the sight and the feel of the city into him. He felt he could stretch his arms and fold every sliver and slab of it to his breast. Whatever its scent in the heat of day, there was the sweetness now of hot corn in the air, and little splotches of fire dotted the gloom where the pots were kept a-boil. Roasting chestnuts he could smell, too, and the burnt sugar of taffy. The cries of the vendors quivered in the air and yet were constant as buoys upon the waves, the crack-ho of the draymen to their horses both late to their suppers and the long Johnny-oh of a mother to a child fishing past bedtime at the river’s edge, the wash, sw-wash, wash of water that would not let up its sighing before the brash and gaudy city: he harkened to every sound. And of this Stephen proclaimed a loathing—an island where at this very moment, Vinnie thought, he could envision the details of a hundred lives, from the cellar of Maggie Shins to the bohemia of Windust’s, from Norah’s kitchen to good black Nancy saying prayers to her Baptist God for him every time she heard the Catholic church bells. How could Stephen despise all this and yet love any man, even himself? Ah, that was it, Vinnie thought, his vision seeming as sudden clear as the star-flecked night: it was himself that Stephen despised that moment New Year’s. How little one man understood of another when he set his mind like a clock! He had tweaked and prodded Stephen with the righteousness of a Low Church deacon, Stephen, his friend, while at this moment he was forgiving the vilest sinners abroad—even to Maggie Shins!

Taylor came up from his boat and flung his arm about Vinnie. “Glad to be home?”

“I am,” Vinnie said. He shook hands around for his companions went uptown while he went down.

“See you in September, Dunne, God wots!”

“Tomorrow night, Alex,” Vinnie said, “ten minutes to seven.”

“Never fear. Even if you have to pass me in in your pocket.”

The date Vinnie and his friend set was to attend the theatre—the last performance of the season of
Camille.
They had timed their cruise home by it and Vinnie needed to persuade Mr. Finn to relinquish his booking to Taylor. It would not be hard, Vinnie thought, Mr. Finn’s having seen the play twice and every other role Peg had essayed since her return: that and Vinnie following home the College’s report of his standing. It was a wonderful world to him that midsummer’s night. His hands were callused and his body tanned. He could knot the muscles in his arms into bulges the size of potatoes. Sure, he could balance an ox in the palm of his hand!

Vinnie dressed the next night with the care of a dandy, Nancy standing by with her iron hot on the stove and a cloth half wet and half dry to attack the faintest of wrinkles. “Them country tailors makes too much allowance for a gen’leman’s appetite,” she complained, sticking a hand the size of a raven between his coat and his stomach. She liked a tighter fit obviously, her own bodice straining its buttons like Dickens’ Peggoty. “There. Go show yourself to Mista’ Finn.”

Mr. Finn approved, of course, although he murmured about the difficulty in keeping a white coat clean.

“He don’t slop no more,” said Nancy, “and where he’s goin’ they’ll be napkins big as bedsheets.”

“Oh?” said Mr. Finn.

Vinnie took his wallet from his pocket and from that a note in answer to one he had sent that afternoon. Mr. Finn carried it to the light by the window.

My dear Vinnie:

I shall be delighted to have supper with you and your friend, but let it be at my apartment for I am not quite up to dining out after a performance. You will understand?

Peg.