“But the next steps are obvious,” suggested Harwood, encouragingly—­“the governorship, the United States Senate—­ever onward and upward.”

“Well, yes; but you never know anything from him. We don’t know, and you might think we’d understand him pretty well up here.  He declined to go to Congress from this district—­could have had it without turning a hand; but he put in his man and stayed in the state senate.  I reckon he cuts some ice there, but he’s mighty quiet.  Bassett doesn’t beat the tom-tom to call attention to himself.  I guess no man swings more influence in a state convention—­but he’s peculiar.  You’ll find him different from these yahoos you’ve been writin’ up.  I know ’em all.”

“A man of influence and power—­leading citizen in every sense—­” Dan murmured as he scribbled a few notes.

“Yep.  Mort’s considered rich.  You may have noticed his name printed on most everything but the undertaker’s and the jail as you came up from the station.  The elevator and the bank he inherited from his pap.  Mort’s got a finger in most everything ’round here.”

“Owns everything,” said Harwood, with an attempt at facetiousness, “except the brewery.”

Mr. Pettit’s eyes opened wide, and then closed; again he was mirth-shaken; it seemed that the idea of linking Morton Bassett’s name with the manufacture of malt liquor was the most stupendous joke possible.  The editor’s face did not change expression; the internal disturbances were not more violent this time, but they continued longer; when the strange spasm had passed he dug a fat fist into a tearful right eye and was calm.

“Oh, my God,” he blurted huskily.  “Breweries?  Let us say that he neither makes nor consumes malt, vinous nor spirituous liquor, within the meaning of the statutes in such cases made and provided.  He and Ed Thatcher make a strong team.  Ed started out as a brewer, but there’s nothing wrong about that, I reckon.  Over in England they make lords and dukes of brewers.”

“A man of rectitude—­enshrined in the hearts of his fellow-citizens, popular and all that?” suggested Harwood.

Yes.  Mort rather retains his heat, I guess.  Some say he’s cold as ice.  His ice is the kind that freezes to what he likes.  Mort’s a gentleman if we have one in Fraser County.  If you think you’re chasin’ one of these blue jeans politicians you read about in comic papers you’re hitting the wrong trail, son.  Mort can eat with a fork without appearin’ self-conscious.  Good Lord, boy, if you can say these other fellows in Indiana politics have brains, you got to say that Mort Bassett has intellect.  Which is different, son; a dern sight different.”

“I shall be glad to use the word in my sketch of Mr. Bassett,” remarked Dan dryly.  “It will lend variety to the series.”

Harwood thanked the editor for his courtesy and walked to the door.  Strange creakings from the editorial chair caused him to turn.  The Honorable Isaac Pettit was in the throes of another convulsion.  The attack seemed more severe than its predecessors.  Dan waited for him to invoke deity with the asthmatic wheeziness to which mirth reduced his vocal apparatus.