working would get us further than nightshirts and fiery crosses."
"You don't mean the boys actually took your advice when you--"
"When I was a speculator? A Scalawag? A consorter with Yankees? You forget Mrs.
Butler, that I am now a Democrat in good standing, devoted to my last drop of blood to
recovering our beloved state from the hands of her ravishers! My advice was good advice and they took it. My advice in other political matters is equally good. We have a Democratic majority in the legislature now, haven't we? And soon, my love, we will have some of our good
Republican friends behind the bars. They are a bit too rapacious these days, a bit too open."
"You'd help put them in jail? Why, they were your friends! They let you in on that
railroad-bond business that you made thousands out of!"
Rhett grinned suddenly, his old mocking grin.
"Oh, I bear them no ill will. But I'm on the other side now and if I can assist in any way in putting them where they belong, I'll do it. And how that will redound to my credit! I know just enough about the inside of some of these deals to be very valuable when the legislature starts digging into them--and that won't be far off, from the way things look now. They're going to investigate the governor, too, and they'll put him in jail if they can. Better tell your good friends the Gelerts and the Hundons to be ready to leave town on a minute's notice, because if they can nab the governor, they'll nab them too."
For too many years Scarlett had seen the Republicans, backed up by the force of the
Yankee Army, in power in Georgia to believe Rhett's light words. The governor was too strongly entrenched for any legislature to do anything to him, much less put him in jail.
"How you do run on," she observed.
"If he isn't put in jail, at least he won't be reelected. We're going to have a Democratic governor next time, for a change."
"And I suppose you'll have something to do with it?" she questioned sarcastically.
"My pet, I will. I am having something to do with it now. That's why I stay out so late at nights. I'm working harder than I ever worked with a shovel in the gold rush, trying to help get the election organized. And--I know this will hurt you, Mrs. Butler, but I am contributing plenty of money to the organization, too. Do you remember telling me, years ago, in Frank's store, that it was dishonest for me to keep the Confederate gold? At last I've come to agree with you and the Confederate gold is being spent to get the Confederates back into power."
"You're pouring money down a rat hole!"
"What! You call the Democratic party a rat hole?" His eyes mocked her and then were quiet, expressionless. "It doesn't matter a damn to me who wins this election. What does matter is that everyone knows I've worked for it and that I've spent money on it. And that'll be remembered in Bonnie's favor in years to come."
"I was almost afraid from your pious talk that you'd had a change of heart, but I see you've got no more sincerity about the Democrats than about anything else."
"Not a change of heart at all. Merely a change of hide. You might possibly sponge the spots off a leopard but he'd remain a leopard, just the same."
Bonnie, awakened by the sound of voices in the hall, called sleepily but imperiously:
"Daddy!" and Rhett started past Scarlett.
"Rhett, wait a minute. There's something else I want to tell you. You must stop taking Bonnie around with you in the afternoons to political meetings. It just doesn't look well. The idea of a little girl at such places! And it makes you look so silly. I never dreamed that you took her until Uncle Henry mentioned it, as though he thought I knew and--"
He swung round on her and his face was hard.
"How can you read wrong in a little girl sitting on her father's lap while he talks to friends? You may think it looks silly but it isn't silly. People will remember for years that Bonnie sat on my lap while I helped run the Republicans out of this state. People will remember for years--"The hardness went out of his face and a malicious light danced in his eyes. "Did you know that when people ask her who she loves best, she says 'Daddy and the Demiquats,' and who she hates most, she says: 'The Scallywags.' People, thank God, remember things like that"
Scarlett's voice rose furiously. "And I suppose you tell her I'm a Scalawag!"
"Daddy!" said the small voice, indignant now, and Rhett, still laughing, went down the hall to his daughter.
That October Governor Bullock resigned his office and fled from Georgia. Misuse of