Elizabeth Hardwick
THE FRIENDLY WITNESS
"I am totally innocent," Mayor Johnson said to reporters
on the morning the accusation of fraud appeared in the news–
papers. "And," he added solemnly, "I hope my friends will stand by
me." Johnson-now, even more than when he had campaigned for
Mayor, the use of the lone surname seemed appropriate as a measure
of his sudden, unwanted celebrity-had not meant to say that at all.
When the reporters appeared his protestation came partly as a
matter of course and because he, a man of dangerous imagination,
was thinking how ridiculous his situation must appear to other
people and fearful lest he smile wearily and be accused of moral
frivolity he found himself assuming a grave, positive accent. It did
not occur to him as he lingered over "innocent" that he was utter–
ing a magic word, although he recognized some ambiguity in his
present use of it. He was an honest man and, consequently, it was
just this ambiguity that kept him from disowning the magic word
immediately: if he withdrew it he would, perhaps, be saying, "I am
guilty," and that was, he felt, not quite the truth either. In a fever
of semantic difficulty, he sighed impressively as his picture was taken.
Naive and well-meaning, the Mayor's muscles and nerves were not
conditioned to moral or physical danger and only one action ap–
peared suitable to him-going back to bed. Nevertheless he re–
mained on his feet, wishing as much as anything else to
examine-a
word the Mayor liked-the strange disjunction of
his
character and
situation. Johnson was a thoughtful man and, in the blank after
luncheon or while trying to get to sleep at night, worried considerably
about justice. Light, lively-eyed, with a vague, warm manner, he
had been born late to a nice old couple and had had a decent,
rather solitary childhood. In the evening if you passed his window
you could see him eating an apple and reading with the same calm he
