"
The senator pulled his horse down to a still slower walk. "Where did you
see Dick Gantry?" he demanded.
Evan told of the meeting on the veranda of the Winnebasset Club, adding
the further fact of the college friendship.
"Just happened so, did it?" queried the older man, "that getting
together last Saturday night?"
"Why--yes, I suppose so. Dick knew I was in Boston, and he said he had
meant to look me up."
"I reckon he did," was the quiet comment; "yes, I reckon he did. And he
filled you up plumb full of Hardwick McVickar's notions, _of_ course. I
reckon that's about what he was told to do. But we won't fall apart on
that, son. To-morrow we'll run down to the city, and you can look the
ground over for yourself. I want you to draw your own conclusions, and
then come and tell me what you'd like to do. Shall we leave it that
way?"
Evan Blount acquiesced, quite without prejudice, to a firm conviction
that his opinion, when formed, was going to be based on the larger
merits of the case, upon a fair and judicial summing-up of the pros and
cons--all of them. He felt that it would be a blow struck at the very
root of the tree of good government if he should consent to be the
candidate of the machine. But, on the other hand, he saw instantly what
a power a fearless public prosecutor could be in a misguided
commonwealth where the lack was not of good laws, but of men strong
enough and courageous enough to administer them.
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