"I know; and
every man who has had his fingers in the pitch-barrel has chuckled to
himself, and when two of them would get together they'd pound each other
on the back and swear that you were the smoothest spellbinder that Mr.
McVickar has ever turned loose on this side of the big mountains. It
grinds, Evan, but it's the fact. Not one of the men you are after has
ever taken your speeches seriously."
Blount's head sank lower.
"I'm smashed, Dick!" he groaned; "utterly and irretrievably disgraced
and discredited in my native State! There isn't a man in the sage-brush
hills who would believe me under oath, after this."
"It's hard, Evan--damned hard!" said the traffic manager, driven to
repetition. "But grilling over it doesn't get us anywhere. What are you
going to do"?
"With the election only five days away, there is nothing that can be
done. I had you down, Dick; I could have forced my point with the weapon
I had. Isn't that so?"
Gantry wagged his head dubiously. "I'm not the big boss, but I can tell
you right now that, if you could have shown me what I was fully
expecting to see, the wires between here and wherever Mr. McVickar's
private car happens to be would have been kept pretty hot for a while."
Then, upon second thought: "Yes; I guess you could have pulled it off.
We couldn't stand for any such bill-boarding as you were threatening to
give us.
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