“Goin’ to write Mort up, are you?  Well, by gum!  I’ve been readin’ those pieces in the ‘Courier.’  Your work?  Good writin’; mighty interestin’ readin’, as old Uncle Horace Greeley used to say.  I guess you carry the whitewash brush along with you in your pilgrimages.  You certainly did give Bill Ragsdale a clean bill o’ health.  That must have tickled the folks in Tecumseh County.  Know Ragsdale?  I’ve set with Bill in the lower house three sessions, and I come pretty near knowin’ him.  I don’t say that Bill is crooked; but I suspect that if Bill’s moral nature could be dug out and exposed to view it would be spiral like a bedspring; just about.  It’s an awful load on the Republican Party in this state, having to carry Bill Ragsdale.  O Lord!”

He pursed his fat lips, and his eyes took on a far-away expression, as though some profound utterance had diverted his thoughts to remote realms of reverie.  “So you’re goin’ to write Mort up; well, my God!”

The exact relevance of this was not apparent.  Harwood had assumed on general principles that the Honorable Isaac Pettit, of the “Fraser County Democrat,” was an humble and obedient servant of the Honorable Morton Bassett, and would cringe at the mention of his name.  To be sure, Mr. Pettit had said nothing to disturb this belief; but neither had the editor manifested that meek submission for which the reporter had been prepared.  The editor’s Gargantuan girth trembled again.  The spectacle he presented as he shook thus with inexplicable mirth was so funny that Harwood grinned; whereupon Pettit rubbed one of his great hands across his three-days’ growth of beard, evoking a harsh rasping sound in which he seemed to find relief and satisfaction.

“You don’t know Mort?  Well, he’s all right; he will he mighty nice to you.  Mort’s one of the best fellows on earth; you won’t find anybody out here in Fraser County to say anything against Mort Bassett.  No, sir; by God!”

Again the ponderous frame shook; again the mysterious look came into the man’s curious small eyes, and Harwood witnessed another seismic disturbance in the bulk before him; then the Honorable Isaac Pettit grew serious.

“You want some facts for a starter.  Well, I guess a few facts don’t hurt in this business, providin’ you don’t push in too many of ’em.”

He pondered for a moment, then went on, as though summarizing from a biography:—­

“Only child of the late Jeremiah Bassett, founder of Bassett’s Bank.  Old Jerry was pure boiler plate; he could squeeze ten per cent interest out of a frozen parsnip.  He and Blackford Singleton sort o’ divided things up in this section.  Jerry Bassett corralled the coin; Blackford rolled up a couple of hundred thousand and capped it with a United States senatorship.  Mort’s not forty yet; married only child of Blackford F. Singleton—­Jerry made the match, I guess; it was the only way he could get Blackford’s money.  Mort prepared for college, but didn’t go.  Took his degree in law at Columbia, but never practiced.  Always interested in politics; been in the state senate twelve years; two children, boy and girl.  I guess Mort Bassett can do most anything he wants to—­you can’t tell where he’ll land.”