The Washington herald., 1913-02-16

All day long Gel: Talbot sat in his
leather chair in the lobby of the Grand
twiddling his cane. smoking his cigar
and talking politics. Under the broad
hrim Of his black slouch hat his hair fell
In silver wisps almost to his shoulders
and the long mustache, dropping like
Georgian's at the corners of his mouth
was as white as his hair, save at the
sDot where his cigar had tinged 1t yel-
low.
There was not q politician OF either
party between Dunleith and Cairo who
was not proud to bend over the old
fellows chair, take his thin hand, and
say: Hello, colcnel: what's new in poll
tics:" The colonel had an invariabls
reply: I'm out Of politics, and don
know anything What do you hear"
Sometimes If the passing politician hap
pened to be of the old day. the colonel
would take him by the arm. and they
would saunter away TO the bar. IL the
politician came from Northern Illinois,
the colonel would take rye: If from
Southern Illinois, the colonel would take
bourbon; such was his idea of etiquette.
Though never would he take drink
before breakfast, for drink before
breakfast, he told Carroll, was back
log in the fire that would burn the live
long day.
Carroll was the staff of the coloners
old age The two would sit by the hour,
while the old man talked of the Nine
teenth Illinois Cavalry. OF Lincoln and
Douglas, OF David Davis and Elijah
Haipes, of State and national conven-
tions, in the days when he had made
and unmade Congressman. Governors.
and Senators, ruling his party in the
State. Carroll shrewdly thought. with a
discipline as rigid as that with which
he had welded the Nineteenth Illinois
Into a fighting regiment
To those who knew the veterans his
tory. his love for the boy was touching.
The story Is too long to tell now, but its
essential motif must always be the in
gratitude OF 81 Warren. The colonel had
picked Warren up in the old Fifteenth
district, sent him 10 Congress. and finally
made a United States Senator Of him.
Warren. developing quickly as n politi-
clan. had turned around, defeated the
colonel for reelection as chairman OF
the State executive committee, a posi-
tion he had held for sixteen years. had
frozen him out OF the Arizona deal. and
somehow caused the coloners only son TO
go wrong out there in Tucson. The boys
mother had died: of 4 broken heart,
they said. Since then decade had
passed, a decade which the colonel had
spent in the grim lonesomeness of Il
crowded hotel He never mentioned War
rens name. If he heard it. he clenched
his bony fists so tightly that the knuckles
showed white. Once a year. perhaps. in
the springtimc. when the State central
committee met. he got out his white
waistcoat and was invited up TO the or
dinary5 to make speech on the state
of the party and once a year, in the
summertime. he attended a reunion OF
his regiment. now decimated to a squad
ron of tottering old men, whom the col
Unel called boys
Spring came. rclling up from the muddy
Ohio, shOweTing its apple blossoms in
the orchards of Egypt. sprinklinG with
purple flowers the prairies of central
Illinois, and finally flooding with tardy
sunshine the cold waters of Lake Michi-
gan. 1t was the year the Legislature
that chose Warren's successor in the
Senate was TO be eletced. and when the
Senator came home from Washington he
found his fences in sad repair. The
Silas Warren on the parlor suite in a
Lake Front hotel was not the ST War
rem whom Cot. Talbot had rescued from
the dusty little law office down in Shell
byville fifteen years before. The clothes
OF that time were faded by the sun in
which p" loafcd all day on the post
office corner. whereas the clothes of this
morning bespoke New York tailor and
a valet.
The Senator was not in a plea SAINT
mood. There WAS opposition to his re-
election. and while his machine ignored
it. and while George Y. Baldwin, the
lawyer who watched the interests of
certain big corporations during the ses-
sions of the Legislature. said ii was but
a sporadic demonstration of sorcheads.
back numbers. and labor skates. it was
spreading as the picturesque politicians
from the corn lands of Central Illinois
would say, like a prairie fire. Jackson
willie. where the standard of revolt had
first been raised. was in Morgan. the
Culonel's home county. and SO il came to
pass that the detection was laid to the
Vaccinations Of the colonel himself. And
Yet. as the politicians who We're always
dropping into Chicago TO correct their
rcckOnngs. paused an instant by the
leather chair, the old white head would
slowly sway from side TO side, and the
old man would say:
No I'm out of politics"
II Carroll had not conceived the idea
~ running for Office perhaps the colonel
would have remained out of politics. but
the boy after week of dreaming. dram
atized himself as making speech in the
State Senate chamber at Springfield.
The colonel. as mans duty is, advised
him to keep out OF politics, and Yet WITH
in an hour after Carroll shyly confessed
his ambition, the fever awoke in the old
fellows bones, his eyes famed with the
old fire, and he admitted that the ex-
perience might help boy who was
struggling in a pitiless city for a law
practice.
Within week the colonel had intro
duced Carroll TO Superintendent of Street
and Alley Cleaning Patrick F. Gibbons.
who promised to be with him. and had
taken him to the city nail for an au-
dience with the Mayor. -lftcr that the
newspapers said that john -. Carroll
had been slated for the senatorial NOM
ination in the First District.
When Warren learned -: the colonel's
new interest in the campaign, he cum
ning!y decided &c utilize it by throwing
his strength to Carroll in the first
provided the colonel would withdraw his
a man who harbored no resentments. So
he sent Dan Ford. his private secretary,
to open negotiations for peace.
The colonel had recognized the coming
OF the heat by donning his suit of linen.
with a red tie at his throat to give the
touch of color lie always loved, and he
had got out his broad-leaved Panama
hat for its fifteenth season. Ford found
him seated in the leather chair, swinging
one thin leg over the other, his white
hose wrinkling over his low shoes, tell
ing Carroll how Grant came to Spring
field from Galena, seeking a commission
in the army. Ford automatically
tween the colonel and the Senator. The
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