Brassfield

“ The circumscribed mind of Brassfield which, with the intensity of observation rendered necessary and inevitable by its narrow field, had noted, as he stepped out in the street, the intangible shifting of relations in his surroundings incident to the mere passage of time in the few days of his obliteration, now felt, as a blind man feels the mountain in his approach, or as the steersman in a Newfoundland fog apprehends the nearing of the iceberg, some subtle alteration in the attitude toward him of the young woman by his side. ”

“ In some way, he felt sure, Eugene Brassfield's body must have been removed from those natty clothes of his, before Florian Amidon could have put them on, and with them donned the personality of their former owner.
And here entered a mystery deeper still—the strange deception he seemed to impose on the dead man's acquaintances. And this filled him, somehow, with the most abject dread and fear. Brassfield seemed to have been a well-known man; for porters and clerks in New York do not call the obscure countryman by name. ”

“ It was Eugene Brassfield who opened his eyes on a circle of his friends, associates and cronies. He rose lightly and confidently, and laughed at the chaffing of his friends. He bowed to Madame le Claire, and moved across the room to Elizabeth's side, with an air of incipient proprietorship.
"No true lover of carnations," he confided to her, "could wish you to wear them as you do to-night."
"Really? I suppose I ought to ask why?"
"It isn't fair to the flowers," said he. "Flowers have rights, you know, and to be outdone in sweetness—— Ah, Jim! Go away, and don't bother me! ”

“ Why, it was you all the time; and I always felt, even at the worst, that hidden in the Brassfield personality was the one man for me in all the world. It was this woman's instinct, that men never believe in, and the girl's eyesight. ”

“ She has taken him, just as she took him before. But the man she thinks loves her—her Eugene—I'm sure he's coming to love me; and to be tired of her! And I could keep him Brassfield, if I chose—if I chose! I wonder—I wonder if it would be wrong? What would she do if she had my power? Twice I had to try, before I could restore him. I could! I could!"
Small wonder, therefore, that Madame le Claire sat wild-eyed and excited, and flew fearfully to Judge Blodgett and the professor, when Mr. Brassfield went free, with Alderson at heel. ”

“ Brassfield is an enterprising citizen, broad and liberal, safe and sane, and fully in touch with the great business interests of the country. His nomination will reflect credit on Bellevale."
Inasmuch as such citizens as Conlon, Pierson, Sheehan and Zalinsky were equally well contented, no one, it would seem, ought to have been dissatisfied. The fact that Mr. Brassfield's success meant the giving away of Bellevale's streets to Brassfield's interurban trolley line must be considered in connection with the fact that Bellevale seemed only too anxious to give them away. ”

“ The professor grasped his note-book, the judge the arms of his chair, as the door opened, and in the front room they heard Madame le Claire's voice joining in companionable chat with that of Brassfield.
"Oh, how slow Aaron is!" she said. "And I'm so hungry. Aren't you?"
"Not so much so as I was," said he. "Sweets take away the appetite. I'd rather call the supper off, and exclude Abraham—or whatever his name is: much rather." ”

“ Could I take it and find my home?"
"Damn it, Florian!" said the judge, "I'm not here to be jumped on, am I? No one can remember everything all the time. We'll get those things and put them into a supplement, you know."
"Not for me," said Florian. "I've made up my mind definitely about this. I'll not depend on it. If I go back to Bellevale, I must have at hand at all times the means of connecting things as I find them with the life of this Brassfield. I must take with me the bridge which spans the chasm between Brassfield and Amidon—I mean our friend Clara. ”

“ The other man has about as much show—well, the next is on me. Would you mind pressing the button, Jim?"
The waiter came, bringing a penciled note to Mr. Brassfield.
"One of your constituents," it read, "would like a moment's conversation with you in the lobby."
Brassfield drew the waiter aside.
"Who is this, George?" asked he, tapping the note. "A woman?"
"A young lady, suh," was the answer. "A mahty hahnsome young lady, suh."
"Bright auburn hair?" asked Brassfield, "and short?"
"Er—no, suh," answered the waiter, "sutn'y not that kin' o' haiah; an' tall, suh." ”

“ He took and eyed the yellow envelopes with "E. Brassfield" scrawled on them, as if they had been infernal machines; but he made no movement toward opening them. Something in the clerk's look admonished him that his own was extraordinary. He felt that he must seek solitude. To be called by this new and strange name; to have thrust on him the acting of a part in which he knew none of the lines and dared not refuse the character; and all these circumstances made dark and sinister by the mysterious maladjustment of time and place; the possession of another man's property ”

“ Brassfield's treatment—of—of me—when I made him think—that I—was Elizabeth! Oh, don't you see that I had to do it, so as to know, and tell you? Oh, I wish I had never, never begun this! I do, I do!"
A parlor-car has no conveniences whatever for heroics, hysterics or weeping, so miserably are our American railways managed; and Clara winked back into her eyes the tears which filled them, and Amidon looked at her tenderly. ”

“ Brassfield appeared to be the only right thing from the standpoint of party expediency or business wisdom. Brassfield can be elected. He is strong in business circles. His integrity is unquestioned, and there'll be no graft or shady deals under him. He stands well in society, too. I just saw Doctor Bulkon, who expressed himself as thoroughly delighted with the nomination of so good a man as Brassfield, and intends to preach next Sunday on 'The Christian's Vote,' handling the subject in such a way as to point to Brassfield as the right man. ”

“ You people may know some good excuse, but——"
Madame le Claire was not only a diplomat: she was a strategist. Now, she saw, was the supreme moment in which to complete for Florian the good work she had begun.
"Please excuse Mr. Brassfield," said sha. "He is wanted in the back parlor; come, Mr. Brassfield, give me your arm!"
Through the portière she swept, bearing Amidon as on wings. There sat Elizabeth, her face bowed down upon her arms, on the back of a sofa. She rose as they entered.
"Elizabeth!" cried Florian. "My darling!" ”

“ Amidon during the episode of the Wrong House, and so terrified him as to give him thoughts of flight from Bellevale. It glared more brightly in the chat at the Club. It flamed concretely on our sight when Mr. Brassfield met its source on the street that day he made his fatal escape. Mr. Alvord slangily called it "the Strawberry Blonde." Mr. Brassfield very improperly pinched its elbow, and called it "Daise." It is high time that we put on our smoked glasses and look it in the face in such a formal introduction as will enable us to do it tardy justice—for we may have been guilty of misjudgment! ”

“ The judge felt like seizing his man forcibly, and taking him to Madame le Claire for restoration. The Brassfield cunning was an impenetrable defense. Bellevale's chief business man seemed to be himself again, a keen, cool man of affairs, to whom Judge Blodgett, Professor Blatherwick and Clara were, except for the brief and troubled intervals during which the Amidon personality had been brought uppermost, strangers,—until she could once more bring him within the magic ring of her occult power. ”

“ She had seen his devotion to Elizabeth, and, be it confessed, was jealous in spite of herself. Pity and jealousy inspired the resolution which now formed in her mind: she would for an interval—an interval definitely limited—restore Eugene Brassfield to this company in which he was so completely at home, and lay the troubled ghost, Amidon. He would appear to better advantage altogether and do himself more credit; he would, in fact, be more convincingly Bellevale's "chief citizen." ”

“ He was offended; yet he knew that it was to the turpitude of Brassfield that he owed this, rather than to any fault of Edgington's.
"How could such a fellow as Brassfield reap such success!" was Amidon's mental ejaculation. "Ready to rob the community, he enjoys the confidence of all; full of the propensities of Don Juan, he wins the respect and love of Elizabeth Waldron! Shameful commentary upon society, and—— Yes, Miss Strong, who is there? Judge Blodgett: send him right in.... Judge, I'm glad you came in. I'm very glad! I need your advice and aid." ”

“ To step out on the street was, perhaps, to run into the very arms of some one who would penetrate the disguise. Yet he could not long remain in this room; his very retirement—any extraordinary behavior (and how did he know Brassfield's ordinary courses?) —would soon advertise his presence. Amidon walked to the window and peered down into the street. His eyes traveled to the opposite windows, and finally in the blind stare of absent-mindedness became fixed on a gold-and-black sign which he began stupidly spelling out, over and over. "Madame le Claire," it read, "Clairvoyant and Occultist." ”

“ But what Phyllis thought, what were the plans of Thestylis, and how Jane felt when William jilted her, and why William did it—all of which difficult circumstances were canvassed with equal certitude—are things, the knowledge of which, as I said above, was not to be accounted for on any theory at all consistent with respect for the people possessing it, until thought-transference came into fashion. Now all is clear, and our debt to science is increased by another large item.
Mr. Brassfield and his affairs were as a city set upon a hill, and could not be hid. ”

“ Defending some one? Why, certainly not! And how long this paragraph is growing! Yes, I feel sure Clara Blatherwick repulsed these advances as she should, and that Brassfield, being fully under "control," did not—why, of course not, as you say!
But I am going no further with the matter now; except to say that in something like an hour Mr. Amidon departed much perturbed by the prospect of the nearness of his happiness, fully convinced of his unworthiness, and quakingly uncertain as to many things, but most of all, just then, as to his clothes! ”

“ You haven't any time to bother with me, anyhow. Haven't you your platform to complete? A public man must attend to public matters first, and, anyhow, I shall be denied to all my friends, and you must wait with the rest!"
"It is hard to wait," he answered, "when you are so near."
"I shall try to make amends," said she, "by endeavoring to be as beautiful as—as you used to describe me—at the reception. Good night! Good night!"
He once more violated the Brassfield traditions; he simply raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. To do more, he felt, would spoil all. ”

“ Let us despatch Chutche Blotchett to spy out te landt. In a day or two he can tiscofer vere dis man Brassfield lifes, vere te fair Fraulein Elizabeth resides, and chenerally get on to te logal skitivation. He vill meet up with us at te train, and see that ve don't put our foots in it. Ve vill dus be safed te mortification of hafing Alderman Brassfield, chairman of te street committee, asking te boliceman te vay to his lotchings; or te fiancé of Miss Valdering bassing her on te street vit a coldt, coldt stare of unrecognition or embracing her young laty friendt py mistake. Goot! ”

“ Brassfield's caution, emerged hastily that young woman's accomplices—her father and Judge Blodgett—who had shamelessly listened to the whole conversation. With more of haste than seemliness they sped before Le Claire and her captive, and by vigorous expletives put the patient Aaron into unwonted motion in the procuring of the "little supper" which they had heard Clara promise to the candidate for mayor. Then, in a chamber farthest from the door, and well sheltered by draperies, they sat them down and waited for their prey.
"He's hooked!" said the judge, "hooked well ”

“ You're already beaten. The other side knew about this last night, and you'll be blown out of water before to-morrow morning. Doctor Bulkon and his crowd are already lined up against you: the doctor will take the position that Brassfield's proposal to segregate vice is a compromise with sin, and that that's the paramount issue. Why, Pumphrey and Johnson and the Williams set are all among his best-paying parishioners, and they've put the screws to Bulkon—who doesn't see the point, anyhow. ”

“ Tell them the rest."
"You vill vonder, berhaps," said the professor, "at sairtain egsentricities of gonduct of our friendt, in his later Brassfield phace, in vitch he has shown de kvality of sportiness—or sportif—vat iss de vort?"
"Sportiness," said Miss Scarlett, "is the word."
"T'anks!" said the professor. "Vell, de egsblanation is dus: te Brassfield state vas vun of gontinuous self-hypnotismus. It iss apnormal. Its shief garacteristic is suchestibility. ”

“ He turned short upon the chained men, who were already on their feet, a murderous couple: the one, a square-headed, heavy man of past middle life, with hanging chops and not a hair upon him; the other, the Egyptian, hatchet-faced, lithe, and walnut-brown, with restless eyes which could never meet yours, and tight lips never soothed by smiling. The bigger was enormously strong. His muscles rippled as he moved, like incoming waves. The younger was all wire and brain; no ruth was in either, nor law, nor quarter. Captain Brazenhead sized them up and down when he had set them free. ”