not what you asked. The United States are very large. They are very rich. They are the ones who made us a country they say is free. But if we truly are free, we can tell them no if we like.'
'And suppose they don't like it after that?'
'Will they go to war with us because they don't like it? I have my doubts. Whether our politicians in Quebec City have the wit to see this… Malheureusement, that is another question. We will probably end up doing what the Americans want without even thinking about whether we should. What do you think?'
'I think you're right. I think it's too bad. And I think nobody cares what either one of us thinks,' Georges answered.
Lucien reached for the jug of applejack. 'I think that calls for another drink,' he said.
C larence Potter smelled trouble as soon as he walked into Whig headquarters in Charleston. The first thing he did was go over to a neat rank of bottles set against one wall and pour himself a whiskey. Thus armed, he buttonholed Braxton Donovan, who, by his red face, had started drinking quite a while before. Donovan was typical of the men in the hall: more than whiskey, which he held well, made him look as if he'd been hit in the head with a club. A speechless lawyer was a novelty Potter had thought he would relish, but he turned out to be wrong.
'God damn it, snap out of this funk,' Potter said crisply.
'Why?' Donovan answered, breathing whiskey fumes into his face. 'I don't even know why I'm going through the motions. It's only March, but you can already see how the Freedom Party is going to kick our ass come November. What's the use of pretending anything different?'
'Of course those know-nothing bastards will win-if nobody stands up and tries to stop 'em,' Potter said. 'That's what we're here for, isn't it?'
'What can we do? What can anybody do?' Donovan said. 'Who's going to vote for us, with one white man in four out of work? Christ, if I'd lost my job I wouldn't vote Whig, either.'
'Yes, I believe that.' Withering scorn filled Potter's voice. 'You'd be out there yelling, 'Freedom!' and wondering how to spell it.'
The lawyer glared. 'Fuck you, Clarence.'
Potter beamed. 'Now you're talking!' Donovan stared at him. He nodded emphatically and repeated himself: 'Now you're talking, I say. If you can get pissed off about me, you can get pissed off about the Freedom Party, too. And you'd better-if you don't, the Confederate States are going right down the drain.'
But Braxton Donovan, no matter how angry at Potter he might be, couldn't or wouldn't turn that anger where it might do some good. He said, 'I can deal with you. How are we supposed to deal with Featherston? Grady Calkins' way?'
'If you want to know the truth, I've heard ideas I liked less,' Potter answered. 'The Freedom Party without Jake Featherston is like a locomotive without a boiler. Odds are it wouldn't go anywhere, and it wouldn't take the country with it.'
'Fine sort of republic you want,' Donovan said. 'Anybody disagrees with you, off with his head.'
'Oh, rubbish,' Potter said. 'I've got no quarrel with the Radical Liberals. I think they're wrong, but the world wouldn't end if they got elected. And you know why, too: they play by the same rules we do. But the only thing the Freedom Party cares about when it comes to the republic is using the rules to take it over. If Featherston wins the election, look out.'
'What can he do?' Donovan asked. 'We've got the Constitution. If he does get in, he has to play by the rules, too.'
He had a point-of sorts. It was enough of a point to make Potter draw back from more direct argument. He said, 'I hope you're right,' and let it go at that.
'Of course I am,' Donovan said, which made Potter regret being conciliatory. The lawyer fixed himself another drink, then added, 'The regular meeting's going to start in a few minutes. If you intend to fortify yourself before it does, you'd better do it now.'
'God forbid I should face it sober.' Potter built himself a tall one.
After the minutes and other routine business, the meeting might have been a reaction against the Freedom Party. People talked about more effective campaigning on the wireless. They talked about recruiting tough young men to protect Whig street rallies and even to try to break up the Freedom Party's. They talked about getting the Whig message out to disaffected voters.
That made Potter raise a hand. With the look of a man doing something against his better judgment, Robert E. Washburn recognized him. 'Mr. Chairman, what is our message?' Potter asked. ' 'Sorry you're out of work, and we'll see if we can do better next time'? That didn't do the Socialists up in the USA much good.'
Bang! went the gavel. 'Mr. Potter, you are out of order-again,' Washburn said.
'Not me-I'm fine,' Potter insisted. 'The country's out of order. We're supposed to be trying to make it better.'
'I was under the impression that was what we were doing,' the chairman said. 'Forgive me if I'm wrong.'
'What's our message?' Potter asked for the second time. 'Why should anybody vote for us? If you ask me, the only chance we've got is to make Jake Featherston look like a dangerous lunatic. That shouldn't be too hard, because the son of a bitch really is a dangerous lunatic. But we aren't working hard enough to make him out to be one.'
Bang! went the gavel again. 'I repeat, you're out of order, Mr. Potter.'
'Hang on.' That was Braxton Donovan. 'Clarence has a point, by God. We can't campaign on what we did this past presidential term, that's for damn sure. And if we can't make ourselves look good, we'd better try to make the Freedom Party look bad. Otherwise, we are stone, cold dead.'
'I'll be damned,' Clarence Potter muttered. Somebody had listened to him. He wasn't used to that. Even the clients who paid him pretty decent money to find out this, that, or the other thing often ignored what he learned when it didn't gibe with what they thought they already knew.
Donovan went on, 'We ought to pass that notion on to the national party in Richmond. They may not have thought of it for themselves.' He made a sour face. 'Who knows how well they're thinking up there these days?'
Reluctantly, Washburn nodded. 'Let it be noted in the minutes,' he said. He was a good man. He'd been a good man for a long time-he had to be seventy, near enough. Potter wondered if the Freedom Party had any city chairmen that old. He would have bet money against it.
As far as he was concerned, nothing else of any importance happened during the meeting. Since he hadn't expected anything at all important to happen, he left feeling ahead of the game: not easy, not for anyone who cared about the Whig Party in 1933. Maybe, just maybe, the Whigs could keep Jake Featherston out of power one more time by making him look like a raving maniac. Potter felt like Horatius at the bridge, doing everything he could to keep the enemy from breaking into the city.
He started back toward his neat little flat. Behind him, Donovan called, 'Wait a second, Potter. I had an idea.'
Clarence stopped. 'Congratulations.'
'Smarty-britches. Your pa should have walloped you more when you were little.' But the lawyer spoke without heat. He went on, 'You ever see Anne Colleton these days?'
'No,' Potter said shortly. That he didn't still pained him. They'd got on very well; in a lot of ways, they were two of a kind. But they hadn't come close to seeing eye to eye about politics, and they both took politics too seriously to let them stay together. So much for bedfellows, strange or otherwise, he thought.
'Maybe you ought to try again,' Donovan said. 'If you can convince her that Featherston needs a straitjacket and a rubber room, you'll hurt the Freedom Party.'
'I would,' Potter said, 'but I don't think she's likely to pay any attention to me.'
'What have you got to lose?' Donovan asked. 'If you haven't got the price of a long-distance telephone call, I can pay for it.' He reached for his hip pocket.
'I've got it, I've got it.' Potter waved for him to stop, and he did. What have you got to lose? It was a good question. How would he be worse off if Anne hung up on him or told him to go peddle his papers? Oh, his self- respect would take a beating, but that didn't have anything to do with the Whigs and their hopes, such as those were. He nodded to Braxton Donovan. 'All right, I'll take a shot at it. Don't say I never did the Party a good turn.'
