"
"Yes; and I named the price, if you happen to remember."
"I know; you said you wanted us to turn everything over to the
Paramounters and take our chances on a clean administration. Naturally,
we're not going to do any such Utopian thing as that. What I want to
know now is what it is going to cost us to do the practical and possible
thing."
"Want to buy me outright this time, do you, Hardwick?" said the boss,
still smiling.
"We"--McVickar was going to say--"We have bought you before," but he
changed the retort to a less offensive phrasing--"We have had no
difficulty heretofore in arriving at some practical and sensible _modus
vivendi_, and we shouldn't have now. But as a condition binding upon any
sort of an arrangement, I am here to say that we can't let you nominate
and elect your son as attorney-general; that's out of the question. If
it's going to prove a personal disappointment to you, we'll be
reasonable and try to make it up to you in some other way."
Again the grimly humorous smile was twinkling in the gray eyes of the
old cattleman. "What is the market quotation on disappointments, right
now, Hardwick?" he inquired.
With another man McVickar might have been too diplomatic to show signs
of a shortening temper. But David Blount was an open-eyed enemy of long
standing.
"I don't know anybody west of the Missouri River who has a better idea
of market values than you have," the vice-president countered smartly.
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