Then: "I'm pretty well used to it by
this time. You and your folks can't paint me much blacker than you have
always painted me, Hardwick."
"Maybe not. But this time we're going to give you a chance to start a
few libel suits--if you think you can afford to appear in the courts.
We've got plenty of evidence, and by heavens we'll produce it! You put
your son in as public prosecutor and we might be tempted to make your
own State too hot to hold you. Had you thought of that?"
"Go ahead and try it," was the laconic response.
"But that isn't all," the railroad dictator went on remorselessly. "Your
fellow citizens here know you for exactly what you are, Blount. You rule
them with a rod of iron, but that rule can be broken. When it is broken,
you'll be hounded as a criminal. In our last talk together you had
something to say to me about our not keeping up with the change in
public sentiment; public sentiment _has_ changed; changed so far that it
is coming to demand the punishment of the great offenders as well as the
jailing of the little ones. If we want to push this fight hard enough,
it is not impossible that you might find yourself in a hard row of
stumps at the end of it, David."
"I'm taking all those chances," was the even-toned rejoinder of the man
who was to be shown up.
"But there is one chance I'm sure you haven't considered," McVickar went
on aggressively.
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