Someday the Rabbi Will Leave by Harry Kemelman Read Free Book Online

Beside them sat campaign workers offering plastic buttons, auto bumper stickers, and the like to those interested. On the platform a row of fifteen chairs had been set up for the candidates. The chairman of the evening was one of the selectmen of the town, Herbert Bottomley, a tall, gaunt, stoop-shouldered man with unruly, grizzled hair and bushy eyebrows. In his loose-hanging suit and steel-rimmed spectacles, he looked like a retired schoolteacher presiding at a Golden Age Club meeting, but he was actually a successful contractor in his fifties and was very popular in the town.
    Bottomley banged on the lectern with his gavel and called out, “All right, let’s settle down and come to order. I’m going to have the candidates come in now and have them sit in these chairs behind me so’s you can get a good look at them.” He walked over and opened the door and announced ceremoniously, “Ladies and gentlemen, the candidates.” They trooped in, some diffident, some strutting to reflect confidence, some smiling, some thoughtful, each concerned with showing the attitude that would be most likely to create a good impression and thereby garner votes. They had evidently been lined up in the adjacent room, so they walked onstage in single file, the first taking the chair on the extreme right, the rest taking the successive seats to the left.
    When they were all seated, Chairman Bottomley said, “I’m sorry that we don’t have any of the candidates for statewide office—governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general—but we have their representatives who will speak for them. Now, we want to keep this part of the meeting short, so that we can spend the greater part of the evening in getting to know the candidates informally. So I’m going to ask the speakers to limit their talks to about four minutes. Let’s see, fifteen times four is sixty minutes, just an hour. That seems to me about right.” He turned to face the speakers. “Now, I’m not going to hold a stopwatch on you and cut you off in the middle of a sentence. But I’ll just get up and stand beside you, and you’ll take that as a signal to finish up. Okay? Okay, then we’ll start off with the statewide offices first. Ladies and gentlemen, the first speaker is—” he consulted a paper—“Charles Kimborough. Mr. Kimborough.”
    Kimborough was a middle-aged man, smiling and self-assured, perhaps because he was truly at ease. The governor, a Democrat, whom he was representing had little to gain or lose with this audience, which was overwhelmingly Republican. “I am here to convey to you the greetings of His Excellency and to convey his regrets that he was unable to be with you tonight because of a previous engagement. I am here tonight to urge you to support him in his candidacy for the high office which he now holds and in which he has demonstrated his ability and his concern …” and so on for his full four minutes of speaking time. When Bottomley appeared at his side, he seemed startled but with good grace said, “I could go on for the rest of the evening listing His Excellency’s accomplishments during his four years of office, but with Herb at my elbow I had better close by expressing my thanks for your kind attention and courtesy and hospitality. Thank you.”
    The next half dozen were like the first, stand-ins for candidates for Republican and Democratic statewide offices, but all took their full time, expatiating on their principals’ achievements. It was dull to the point of tedium, and several in the audience left. Laura Magnuson was tempted to follow them, but John Scofield, sitting there on the platform, had piqued her curiosity and interest. He was young and good-looking, to be sure, but even more, he had had the courage—or the foolhardiness—to challenge the incumbent, Josiah Bradley. The others had entered the race only after