"Can you give me a few minutes of your time, Blenkinsop?" the caller
asked shortly.
"I can sell 'em to you, maybe," said the editor, and the lift of the
gloomy eyes merely served to turn the jest into a bit of morbid sarcasm.
Then he gave the sarcasm a half-bitter twist: "You railroad gentlemen
are always willing to buy what you can't reach out and take."
"I know that is what you believe," said Blount, drawing up a broken
chair and planting himself carefully in it; "we are on opposite sides of
the fence in this fight, if you are fighting the railroad merely because
it is a railroad; otherwise, perhaps, we are not so far apart as we
might be. I don't know whether or not you have listened to any of my
speeches, but you've printed a good many of them."
The editor nodded. "I've read 'em, and I'm willing to be the hundredth
man and say that I believe you are individually honest. I hope you're
not going to ask me to go any further than that."
"I'm not; I came for quite another purpose. First, let me ask a frank
question: Is _The Plainsman_ out for a square deal all around,
regardless of who may be hit?"
Blenkinsop took time to consider the question and his answer, chewing
thoughtfully upon his extinct cigar while he reflected.
"This is straight goods?" he asked finally. "You're not trying to pull
me into an admission that can be used against us a little later on?"
"At the present moment you are talking to Evan Blount, the man, and not
to the Transcontinental company's lawyer, Blenkinsop.
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