Mayordomo

“ CHAPTER II. The Mayor is so protected that be cannot help himself.
A commotion without,—a kind of howl, a kind of hoot. Mr. Williams, the warehousemen, the tanners, Mike Callaghan, share between them the howl and the hoot. The Mayor started: is it possible! His door is burst open, and, scattering all who sought to hold him back,—scattering them to the right and left from his massive torso in rushed the man who had taken in the Mayor,—the fellow with one eye, and with that fellow, shaggy and travel-soiled, the other dog! ”

“ All men have their ambitions—Abraham's one ambition since boyhood had been to wear the mayoral chain, the mayoral robes, to sit in the mayoral seat, to be the chief magistrate of his adopted town, to know himself its foremost burgess, to have everybody's cap raised to him, to have himself addressed by high and low as Mr. Mayor. ”

“ THE MAYOR’S OUTING
“That’s the Mayor, that is,” said the Giant in a terrified whisper, and he practically stood on his head in his efforts to wriggle part of his face under the seat. “If there is one thing that frightens me more than another it is a Mayor! I remember in 1615, or thereabouts—but that will keep till another time. Do you think he can see me? Can’t we go on now?”
“Certainly not!” said Peggy. “I want to hear what he’s going to say. He can’t do anything to us, you know. Really, I think this is the best adventure of all!” ”

“ But the mayor, satisfied that he made his point, smiled calmly, saying:
“No, not the devil, but yourself. You, even the you of seven years back, would not have lived in any country town if necessity, or let us say, safety, had not demanded it. You, with your looks and your ambitions,—to marry at twenty-five a girl from the kitchen! any girl, even if she had the making of an Olympia Packard, if you did not know that it was in your power to shake her off when you got ready to assert yourself, or better prospects offered? ”

“ Naturally, the one particular event to which an Alderman looks forward with the most especial anticipations of honour and renown, is the year of his Mayoralty, when he will have his otherwise humble name associated with those of the famous men who, in very different times to those in which we live, ruled the great City, with courage and discretion. ”

“ It is almost impossible for a friend to pass the mayor's without being stopped by just such a welcome. The twinkle in his eyes and the hearty genuineness of his greeting are irresistible. The next moment you have crossed his threshold and entered a square, low-ceiled room that for over forty years has served Monsieur le Maire as living room, kitchen, and executive chamber. ”

“ If the many thousands of spectators who fill the streets and occupy the balconies and windows on Lord Mayor's day, and witness the glorious institutions of the Livery of the largest and most wealthy city of the world, and to gaze at the magnificent cavalcade preceding the state carriage of the Lord Mayor, think that the Aldermen, Sheriffs, and under-Sheriffs have but to mount their chargers, and be comfortably seated in the saddle, to receive the shouts of approbation from the multitude, they are in error. ”

“ The fact is, that a great deal too much is expected from the Mayor. There is an inaugural banquet every year at which some two hundred burgesses, and several of the local gentry, and Members of Parliament, with a bishop, a rural dean, and an occasional chaplain to the forces, sit down on the invitation of the incoming Mayor.—He is expected to pay for everything, and as the feast is founded on the noblest traditions of civic catering, his bill cannot but be a heavy one. In no way is the menu inferior in interest to that to be found on the table of the Mansion House in the City of London. ”

“ The lord mayor is the real king of London, and takes precedence of royalty in all processions in the city, as, for instance, the funeral procession of the Duke of Wellington, after it passed Temple Bar. All lord mayors are elected from the board of aldermen; they serve but one year, during which time they live in a very handsome residence, called "The Mansion House," and ride in a splendid, but rather gaudy and old-fashioned coach—something such as you have seen pictures of in the story of Dick Whittington. ”

“ I HAVE often mentioned to you an earnest desire I had, and still have, to record the merit and services of the lord mayor, Humphrey French; whom I often desired, after his mayoralty, to give me an account of many passages that happened in his mayoralty, and which he has often put off, on the pretence of his forgetfulness, but in reality of his modesty: I take him to be a hero in his kind, and that he ought to be imitated by all his successors, as far as their genius can reach. ”

“ Let us make our own selections—or, rather, help our mayor to make hers—and show this town what can be done with an honest and sane council, every man of whom has at heart the framing of a model municipality and the development of an ideal city. ”

“ He is just taking up the paper again when the door from the hall is opened, and the manservant TOPPING, dried, dark, sub-humorous, in a black cut-away, announces:
TOPPING. The Mayor, Sir, and Mr Harris!
THE MAYOR of Breconridge enters, He is clean-shaven, red-faced, light-eyed, about sixty, shrewd, poll-parroty, naturally jovial, dressed with the indefinable wrongness of a burgher; he is followed by his Secretary HARRIS, a man all eyes and cleverness. TOPPING retires.
BUILDER. [Rising] Hallo, Mayor! What brings you so early? ”

“ Madame Guibert will have to be told.”
“I don’t deny it. Only it isn’t necessary that you should put yourself out about it. A Mayor is not at everybody’s beck and call. When a Mayor bestirs himself it is the State which acts. You send a deputy, or even a councillor, where enemies of the Republic are concerned. Devil take it! One is either a republican or one isn’t, Mr. Mayor!”
“Mélanie, fetch us a pint!” cried the Mayor, torn between his natural duty and his duty as a republican which was being instilled into him. “And send the boy to look for Randon, Pitet, and Détraz.” ”

“ But on the other hand, the Aldermen shewed by many reasons, that unto them belongs the election of Mayor, both because they, the Aldermen are the heads, as it were, and the populace the limbs, as also because it is the Aldermen who pronounce judgments in pleas moved within the City. Of the populace on the other hand there are many who have neither lands, rents, nor dwellings in the City, being sons of divers mothers, some of them of servile station, and all of them caring little or nothing about the City’s welfare. ”

“ Still, if Newgate's doom'd to go,
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor,
To the Carliol Croft—heigh-ho!
Mr. Mayor,
As sure as you're alive,
(And long, sir, may you thrive,)
The shock we'll ne'er survive,
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor. ”

“ A mayor has from one hundred to three hundred servants. He pays them no salary. Some became his servants for the name, some from fear, and others from choice. Most of these servants get their living from fines and bribes. Some of them are detailed to settle quarrels between men in some village that belongs to the city. This is their opportunity and they early learn to make the most of it. The mayor has great power. He is judge, sheriff, tax-collector, etc. He has things his own way. When there is an injustice done there is no other local officer to appeal to. ”

“ The Lord Mayor threw himself back in his chair, in a state of frantic delight at his own joke; every vein in Mr. Hobler’s countenance was swollen with laughter, partly at the Lord Mayor’s facetiousness, but more at his own; the constables and police-officers were (as in duty bound) in ecstasies at Mr. Hobler and the Lord Mayor combined; and the very paupers, glancing respectfully at the beadle’s countenance, tried to smile, as even he relaxed. A tall, weazen-faced man, with an impediment in his speech, would be endeavouring to state a case of imposition against the red cab’s driver ”

“ During the year of his magistracy, he is obliged to live so magnificently, that foreigner or native, without any expense, is free, if he can find a chair empty, to dine at his table, where there is always the greatest plenty. When the mayor goes out of the precincts of the city, a sceptre, a sword, and a cap, are borne before him, and he is followed by the principal aldermen in scarlet gowns, with gold chains ”

“ For a bowed head becomes a mourner best.
[They lay harps and trumpets down one by one, and then go out very solemnly and slowly, following one another. Enter mayor, two cripples, and brian, an old servant. The mayor, who has been heard, before he came upon the stage, muttering 'Chief Poet,’ ‘Ireland,’ etc., crosses in front of seanchan to the other side of the steps. brian takes food out of basket. The cripples are watching the basket. The mayor has an Ogham stick in his hand. mayor [as he crosses] . ”

“ On the morrow my brother departed with the painter for the old town, and there the painter painted the mayor. I did not see the picture for a great many years, when, chancing to be at the old town, I beheld it.
The original mayor was a mighty, portly man, with a bull's head, black hair, body like that of a dray horse, and legs and thighs corresponding; a man six foot high at the least. ”

“ In the mayor's office the mayor himself told me he was happy though it is a hard job to satisfy all the office-seekers and eat all the dinners he is asked to eat.
Down in Gilpin Place, near Hull House, was a man with his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache,
And he had it all over the butter millionaire, Jim Kirch and the mayor when it came to happiness.
He is a maker of accordions and guitars and not only makes them from start to finish, but plays them after he makes them. ”

“ Before becoming Secretary of War in President Wilson’s cabinet, Newton D. Baker served two terms as mayor of Cleveland, and Brand Whitlock was thrice mayor of Toledo before he became minister to Belgium. A few other mayors have become governors, ambassadors, or members of Congress; but when we remind ourselves that nearly 400 men have held the office of mayor in the fifty largest cities of the United States since 1900, we may well wonder what became of all the rest. Apparently the office of mayor is not a good political stepping-stone. ”

“ Packard’s secretary,” said she. “He will join the mayor just as soon as he has finished certain preparations intrusted to him.”
“Oh!” was their quiet rejoinder, but a note of disappointment rang in both voices as the door shut behind him.
“One does not often see a perfectly handsome man.” ”

“ In case the mayor and president shall be absent from any meeting of the common council, they shall proceed to elect a temporary presiding officer, who, for the time being, shall discharge the duties of mayor. The president, or temporary presiding officer, while presiding over the council or performing the duties of mayor, shall be styled 'acting mayor,' and acts performed by them shall have the same force and validity as if performed by the mayor.' 'Chapter 3, § 3. ”

“ Mayor.—"Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you'd be glad to have two members to support Ministers after the next election."
Mr. Egerton, smiling.—"Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor."
Mr. Mayor.—"And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say I have the town in my pocket; so I ought, I spend a great deal of money in it. Now, you see, Mr. Egerton, I have passed a part of my life in a land of liberty—the United States—and I come to the point when I speak to a man of the world. I'm a man of the world myself, sir. ”

“ All that remains of the lord mayor’s show, to remind the curiously informed of its ancient character, is in the first part of the procession, wherein the poor men of the company to which the lord mayor belongs, or persons hired to represent them, are habited in long gowns and close caps of the company’s colour, and bear painted shields on their arms, but without javelins. ”

“ At City Hall, the chairman of the board of aldermen took the helm, becoming acting-mayor for the time being. Although he directed the search for the mayor and her secretary with much skill and patience, the Honorable Otis H. Mann was enjoying an inflated sense of independence, such as does not come often to a small man on large occasions. ”

“ It is a matter of grave public concern for the people to know in what spirit an officer intrusted for the first time in the history of our city with such powers purposes to use them. The whole theory of the law is that the Mayor shall be responsible for the administration of the city's affairs, and for the policy which animates the different departments. It makes the relation of the different commissioners and heads of departments to the Mayor practically that of the cabinet officer to his chief. ”

“ The feeble efforts of a worn out man to serve them can never answer their sanguine expectations. I will do my best, and will sacrifice ease and retirement, the chief comfort of old age, to their wishes. I do accept the office of lord [Pg 91] mayor. I shall hope for the assistance of your Lordship and my brethren the Court of Aldermen. ”

“ Mayor."
"Well, we can differ without disagreein', sir. Besides," he added, with something like a wink, "customers differ too."
"Most true."
"Business is business, sir, especially with a growin' fam'ly. I always think of my fam'ly, Mr. Hume, and how I should leave 'em if I was took—taken."
"A man's first duty, Mr. Mayor."
"You wouldn't catch me goin' on like this young Roberts."
"Why, what's he been up to now?" asked Philip uneasily.
"You aint seen the Standard, sir?" The Mayor, of course, meant the East Denshire Standard, not the London paper of the same name. ”