Death of an Old Sinner Read Free

City.”
    “It’ll be distinction enough,” said Al, “that he’s the great-grand-nephew of a president.”
    Jimmie winced at the endless commercial.
    “Great-grand-nephew,” another delegate weighed the words ponderously. “Wouldn’t it be all right at this distance to call him your great-grandfather?”
    “It might be risky, sir,” said Jimmie, “his having been a bachelor.”
    And no one found that amusing. Jimmie sighed. It was fortunate that the people had more wit than their delegates, and maybe more wisdom.
    But the subject of bachelorhood had been turned up again, as though it had not already been well explored: he had been cautioned to marry a widow before summer; no, better a young girl of modest means and no renown; but the best advice was finally calculated to be that of the two female delegates who were unanimous in their recommendation that he go before the people uncommitted in that regard; not a woman in the state then but would vote herself into the governor’s mansion pulling the lever in his behalf.
    With the bulldog air of having held onto one thought until he could spring it, Mike Zabriski waited till the lady’s last remark and then said: “I don’t suppose you’ve ever done anything in your life, young fella, that couldn’t stand the scrutiny of the public eye?”
    “I think, sir, the public eye would have long since found it,” Jimmie said. “Look how it finds my father, every tumble he takes.”
    “An old man’s tumbles, as you call them, are news—a young man’s are maybe gossip. But in a man your age, they’re dangerous.”
    In a man my age they are inevitable, Jimmie thought, but he put on a long face and said: “Yes, sir.”
    “Now answer my question,” said Bulldog Mike.
    Jimmie drew a deep breath. “I have been as honest as any man, Mike, and more discreet than most.” To tell a lie as though it were the truth, he thought. But it was not a lie the way he had said it. Once only he had been less than cautious, and at a time in the world’s history when caution was labeled the worth of fool’s gold. And even in that instant, the cloak fate put about him and the lady resembled honor: she belonged to that noble race of people, who, if they were not proud of their sins, at least did not stoop to call them folly.
    “That’s good enough for me,” said Mike, referring to Jimmie’s avowal of honor and discretion.
    With old Mike satisfied, no other delegate present dared complain. The meeting adjourned in good spirits. His enemies would not bare their fangs until he showed some weakness, and that was not to be at this, the king-making caucus. The Buffalo and New York timetables were already passing from hand to hand. Jimmie was bade by several gentlemen to give his father, the General, their warmest regards. He was asked if the old man would take to the stump on his behalf when the time came, and it was said that many an aging heart would flutter if the old boy strode out again.
    Jimmie held Judge Turner’s coat for him. He shrugged himself into it like a tired bear. The Judge, actually retired from the Appeals bench and a friend of his father’s, would take upon himself more than ordinary arrangements in the forthcoming elections. He would try to arrange as well Jimmie’s life for him. The Judge belonged to the Morals Squad of his party. He took Jimmie’s arm. “It would be a fine thing to see your father in the reviewing stand for the St. Patrick’s Day parade, a general in all his decorations.”
    “Better certainly than a mere major,” said Jimmie, referring to his own rank in World War II.
    “Is that as far as you got?” said the Judge as though a major were a very minor thing indeed.
    Jimmie nodded.
    “Didn’t you go overseas?”
    “Oh, yes. That I managed.”
    “Where?”
    “I was stationed outside London,” Jimmie said, wishing the Judge would get off the subject.
    “Oh yes, yes. I remember. Well, just let your father stand in for you in matters