Mr. Spragg restored his watch to his pocket and shifted his drowsy gaze from the window to his visitor’s face.

“Yes,” said Moffatt, as if in reply to the movement, “the Driscolls are getting busy out in Apex.  Now they’ve got all the street railroads in their pocket they want the water-supply too—­but you know that as well as I do.  Fact is, they’ve got to have it; and there’s where you and I come in.”

Mr. Spragg thrust his hands in his waistcoat arm-holes and turned his eyes back to the window.

“I’m out of that long ago,” he said indifferently.

“Sure,” Moffatt acquiesced; “but you know what went on when you were in it.”

“Well?” said Mr. Spragg, shifting one hand to the Masonic emblem on his watch-chain.

“Well, Representative James J. Rolliver, who was in it with you, ain’t out of it yet.  He’s the man the Driscolls are up against.  What d’you know about him?”

Mr. Spragg twirled the emblem thoughtfully.  “Driscoll tell you to come here?”

Moffatt laughed.  “No, sir—­not by a good many miles.”

Mr. Spragg removed his feet from the scrap basket and straightened himself in his chair.

“Well—­I didn’t either; good morning, Mr. Moffatt.”

The young man stared a moment, a humorous glint in his small black eyes; but he made no motion to leave his seat.  “Undine’s to be married next week, isn’t she?” he asked in a conversational tone.

Mr. Spragg’s face blackened and he swung about in his revolving chair.

“You go to—­”

Moffatt raised a deprecating hand.  “Oh, you needn’t warn me off.  I don’t want to be invited to the wedding.  And I don’t want to forbid the banns.”

There was a derisive sound in Mr. Spragg’s throat.

“But I do want to get out of Driscoll’s office,” Moffatt imperturbably continued.  “There’s no future there for a fellow like me.  I see things big.  That’s the reason Apex was too tight a fit for me.  It’s only the little fellows that succeed in little places.  New York’s my size—­without a single alteration.  I could prove it to you to-morrow if I could put my hand on fifty thousand dollars.”

Mr. Spragg did not repeat his gesture of dismissal:  he was once more listening guardedly but intently.  Moffatt saw it and continued.

“And I could put my hand on double that sum—­yes, sir, double—­if you’d just step round with me to old Driscoll’s office before five P. M. See the connection, Mr. Spragg?”

The older man remained silent while his visitor hummed a bar or two of “In the Gloaming”; then he said:  “You want me to tell Driscoll what I know about James J. Rolliver?”

“I want you to tell the truth—­I want you to stand for political purity in your native state.  A man of your prominence owes it to the community, sir,” cried Moffatt.  Mr. Spragg was still tormenting his Masonic emblem.