"Trusting that your recovery will be rapid, I am "Yours truly, "H. FISBEE."
Harkless dropped the typewritten sheets with a sigh.
"I suppose I ought to get well," he said wearily.
"Yes," said Meredith, "I think you ought; but you're chock full of malaria
and fever and all kinds of meanness, and----"
"You 'tend to your own troubles," returned the other, with an imitation of
liveliness. "I--I don't think it interests me much," he said querulously.
He was often querulous of late, and it frightened Tom. "I'm just tired. I
am strong enough--that is, I think I am till I try to move around, and
then I'm like a log, and a lethargy gets me--that's it; I don't think it's
malaria; it's lethargy."
"Lethargy comes from malaria."
"It's the other way with me. I'd be all right if I only could get over
this--this tiredness. Let me have that pencil and pad, will you, please,
Tom?"
He set the pad on his knee, and began to write languidly:
"ROUEN, September 2d.
"Dear Mr. Fisbee: Yours of the 1st to hand. I entirely approve all
arrangements you have made. I think you understand that I wish you to
regard everything as in your own hands. You are the editor of the
'Herald' and have the sole responsibility for everything, including
policy, until, after proper warning, I relieve you in person. But until
that time comes, you must look upon me as a mere spectator. I do not fear
that you will make any mistakes; you have done very much better in all
matters than I could have done myself. At present I have only one
suggestion: I observe that your editorials concerning Halloway's
renomination are something lukewarm.
"It is very important that he be renominated, not altogether on account of
assuring his return to Washington (for he is no Madison, I fear), but the
fellow McCune must be so beaten that his defeat will be remembered for
twenty years. Halloway is honest and clean, at least, while McCune is
corrupt to the bone. He has been bought and sold, and I am glad the proofs
of it are in your hands, as you tell me Parker found them, as directed, in
my trunk, and gave them to you.
"The papers you hold drove him out of politics once, by the mere threat of
publication; you should have printed them last week, as I suggested. Do so
at once; the time is short. You have been too gentle; it has the air of
fearing to offend, and of catering, as if we were afraid of antagonizing
people against us; as though we had a personal stake in the convention.
Possibly you consider our subscription books as such; I do not. But if
they are, go ahead twice as hard. What if it does give the enemy a weapon
in case McCune is nominated; if he is (and I begin to see a danger of it)
we will be with the enemy. I do not carry my partisanship so far as to
help elect Mr. McCune to Congress. You have been as non-committal in your
editorials as if this were a fit time for delicacy and the cheaper
conception of party policy. My notion of party policy--no new one--is that
the party which considers the public service before it considers itself
will thrive best in the long run. The 'Herald' is a little paper (not so
little nowadays, after all, thanks to you), but it is an honest one, and
it isn't afraid of Rod McCune and his friends. He is to be beaten,
understand, if we have to send him to the penitentiary on an old issue to
do it. And if the people wish to believe us cruel or vengeful, let them.
Please let me see as hearty a word as you can say for Halloway, also. You
can write with ginger; please show some in this matter.