"RichardHardingDavis-TheFrameUp" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Richard Harding)

The First Men In The Moon


The Frame Up
Richard Harding Davis
When the voice over the telephone promised to name the man who killed Hermann
Banf, District Attorney Wharton was up- town lunching at Delmonico's. This was
contrary to his custom and a concession to Hamilton Cutler, his distinguished
brother-in-law. That gentleman was interested in a State constabulary bill and
had asked State Senator Bissell to father it. He had suggested to the senator
that, in the legal points involved in the bill, his brother-in-law would
undoubtedly be charmed to advise him. So that morning, to talk it over, Bissell
had come from Albany and, as he was forced to return the same afternoon, had
asked Wharton to lunch with him up-town near the station.
That in public life there breathed a man with soul so dead who, were he offered
a chance to serve Hamilton Cutler, would not jump at the chance was outside the
experience of the county chairman. And in so judging his fellow men, with the
exception of one man, the senator was right. The one man was Hamilton Cutler's
brother-in-law.
In the national affairs of his party Hamilton Cutler was one of the four
leaders. In two cabinets he had held office. At a foreign court as an ambassador
his dinners, of which the diplomatic corps still spoke with emotion, had upheld
the dignity of ninety million Americans. He was rich. The history of his family
was the history of the State. When the Albany boats drew abreast of the old
Cutler mansion on the cast bank of the Hudson the passengers pointed at it with
deference. Even when the search lights pointed at it, it was with deference. And
on Fifth Avenue, as the "Seeing New York" car passed his town house it slowed
respectfully to half speed. When, apparently for no other reason than that she
was good and beautiful, he had married the sister of a then unknown up State
lawyer, every one felt Hamilton Cutler had made his first mistake. But, like
every thing else into which he entered, for him matrimony also was a success.
The prettiest girl in Utica showed herself worthy of her distinguished husband.
She had given him children as beautiful as herself; as what Washington calls " a
cabinet lady " she had kept her name out of the newspapers; as Madame
L'Ambassatrice she had put archduchesses at their ease; and after ten years she
was an adoring wife, a devoted mother, and a proud woman. Her pride was in
believing that for every joy she knew she was indebted entirely to her husband.
To owe everything to him, to feel that through him the blessings flowed, was her
ideal of happiness.
In this ideal her brother did not share. Her delight in a sense of obligation
left him quite cold. No one better than himself knew that his rapid-fire rise in
public favor was due to his own exertions, to the fact that he had worked very
hard, had been independent, had kept his hands clean, and had worn no man's
collar. Other people believed he owed his advancement to his brother-in-law. He
knew they believed that, and it hurt him. When, at the annual dinner of the Amen
Corner, they burlesqued him as singing to "Ham" Cutler, "You made me what I am
to-day, I hope you're satisfied," he found that to laugh with the others was
something of an effort. His was a difficult position. He was a party man; he had
always worked inside the organization. The fact that whenever he ran for an
elective office the reformers indorsed him and the best elements in the