During the better part of the long tramp in the outskirts of the city he
had been halting between two opinions. The fighting blood of the
Tennessee pioneer strain had clamored for its hearing, prompting him to
enter the lists, to set up the standard of honesty and fair-dealing in
the Blount name, to plunge into the approaching political campaign with
a single purpose--the purpose of overthrowing the power of the machine
in his native State. On the other hand, filial affection had pleaded
eloquently. The battle for political honesty would inevitably involve
his father; would, if successful, defeat and disgrace him. As often as
he thought he had closed decisively with the idealistic determination,
the other side of the argument sprang up again, keen-edged and biting.
Up to the present moment he had owed his father everything--was still
owing him day by day. Would it not be the part of a son to drop out
quietly, leaving the political house-cleaning for some one who would not
be obliged to pay such a costly price?
It was the idealistic decision which had been in the saddle when he
dropped from the trolley car at the western portal of the railway
station, and which was sending him to seek the scale-turning interview
with Gantry. But, after all, it was chance and the swift current of
events which seized upon him and swept him along, smashing all the
arguments and fine-spun theories.
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