"
The senator had laid his pipe aside and was staring soberly into the
fire. "Go on, son," he said quietly; "let's have the rest of it."
"You know what has led up to the present wretched involvement--my
involvement," Blount went on. "When I took the railroad job, I did it in
good faith and went about preaching the gospel of the square deal for
everybody, including the corporations. But in a very short time I
discovered that my own people were not keeping faith with me; had no
intention of keeping it. Later on, a number of corporation officials and
managers, men who had formerly made corrupt deals with the railroad
company, and are to this day profiting by them, became frightened.
Assuming that I was the chief broker for the railroad company in the
present campaign, these men wrote me letters which were in the highest
degree incriminating."
The big man who was staring into the heart of the fire nodded
thoughtfully.
"I remember; you told me something about that before, didn't you?"
"Yes, and we needn't go into the details again. I meant to use those
letters as a club to hammer a little honesty into my own employers. Up
to that time I had been trying to believe that the machine--your
machine--and the railroad lawbreakers were not one and the same thing."
"But you changed your mind about that?"
"I had to, after I found out that you had corrupted one of my clerks and
had sent one of your thugs to dynamite my safe.
Pages:
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355