GNORING for a moment the picturesque figure of the Rooster, we behold Jimmy Blaine, sitting gloomily on the doorstep of the Administration at Washington. Jimmy had one great urge, one overwhelming desire—he wanted to go out and fight the Hun. But every doctor who had examined him had finished with a shake of the head and a frown, and told him he really mustn't think of it. It seemed these was something wrong with Jimmy's heart.
The average young man would have given up right there, but Jimmy Blaine wasn't the average young man. So he hurried to Washington and sat on the aforesaid doorstep, and now that we have him firmly planted there, I am willing, dear reader, to succumb to your wishes. For I know that you also have a great urge—an overwhelming desire. Your eyes are straying back to the title, and you long to meet the Red-haired Rooster of the Rapaho.
He approaches. Note that walk, copied from Napoleon. Note the sweep of flaming hair, falling abundantly about the shoulders. His face beams, he holds out a pudgy hand. Reader, this is the Honorable Cyrus P. Cleek, orator and statesman, pride of the Rapaho.
“I am very glad to have you meet me,” says Cleek, and clears his throat, preparing for further speech.
We mustn't let him get started. It would be all up if we did. He invented talk, and ever since, he has been laboring day and night to perfect his invention. When he opens his tireless mouth, young ladies who have won the high hurdles in stenography scream and faint. If he had the prestige his tiny soul craves, he would make our nation the greatest word-power history has known.
He hasn't that prestige yet; he is only a Congressman from the banks of the Rapaho. Let us not attempt to place the Rapaho. In these troubled times, people are rather touchy. Suffice it to say that it flows lazily through a congressional district somewhere between Fifth Avenue and the trained seals that disport on the rocks around the Golden Gate. Cyrus P. Cleek is a misfortune that might befall as patriotic a section of the country as ever thrilled to “The Star Spangled Banner.” As a matter of fact in this he has.
How to describe him? Perhaps he can best be characterized by repeating a small incident that occurred early in his career. In an obscure county convention in his district, he had risen to make a speech. Even in those he wore his flaming red hair long, so that it caressed his shoulders, and he made a striking picture as he bellowed forth his airy nothings. But his speech was constantly interrupted. A large, stupid countryman redolent of the farmyard insisted on rising to his feet and shouting, “Cleek! Where's Cleek! We want to hear from Cleek!” No amount of hushing would silence the fellow, and finally a neighbor got up, laid hands on the man's shoulders and cried:
“Shut up, you fool! That's Cleek speaking now.”
The honest countryman turned dazed eyes toward the speaker's rostrum.
“The dickens it is!” he said. “That's the fellow who gave me ten dollars to holler: ‘We want Cleek.'”
The wave of laughter this incident aroused did not subside for several years. It annoyed Cyrus P. Cleek considerably. It annoyed—more than that, it deeply hurt—the little woman who was his wife. She was quite different from Cleek, was his wife; she had come from a home of refinement and charm. In a blind moment of infatuation in which she had foolishly taken Cleek at his own valuation, she had married him. But five years of living with him had opened her eyes, and she was far from happy. Cleek assured her that he would live down this laughter; that in time he would go to Congress, and that from then on, his progress to the highest post in the nation would be easy.
His faith in the ultimate triumph of mouth over matter in this queer democracy was justified, and he kept his word regarding Congress. But his wife did not live to know of this. When, on a sharp winter afternoon, Cyrus P. Cleek stood in front of the wonderful white station at Washington for the first time, he was alone. His exulting eyes saw the great dome on the hill, saw the sunlight flashing on the Monument. A bigger man than Cleek would have been awed; though far from religious, he might have said a prayer. But Cleek was not awed; he was not prayerful. Here was his meat. Here was a city that had been waiting through the years for Cleek. Cleek should dominate, Cleek should triumph; the nation, the world, should echo with the name of Cleek. He threw back his head, filled his lungs with the exalted air of the capital and called loudly for a taxicab.