But what exactly had Bunny Fitch said?  Was he actually quoting Laird?  If so, direct or from hearsay?  Or was he merely paraphrasing or perhaps only characterizing?  There was a dim ring in Banneker’s cerebral ear of previous words, half taken in, which would indicate the latter—­and ruin the deadly plan, strike the poison-dose from his hand.  Should he ask Fitch?  Pin him down to the details?

The character-sketcher was now upon the subject of Judge Enderby.  “Sly old wolf!  Wants to be senator one of these days.  Or maybe governor.  A ‘receptive’ candidate!  Wah!  Pulls every wire he can lay hand on, and then waits for the honor to be forced upon him....  Good Lord!  It’s eight o’clock.  I’m late.”

Dropping a bill on the table he hurried out.  Half-minded to stop him, Banneker took a second thought.  Why should he?  His statement had been definite.  Anyway, he could be called up on the morrow.  Dining hastily and in deep, period-building thought, Banneker returned to the office, locked himself in, and with his own hand drafted the editorial built on that phrase of petty and terrific import:  “Junior Masters called me ‘Bob’ to-day.”

After it was written he would not for the world have called up Fitch to verify the central fact.  He couldn’t risk it.  He scheduled the broadside for the second morning following....  But there was Io!  He had promised.  Well, he was to meet her at a dinner party at the Forbes’s.  She could see it then, if she hadn’t forgotten....  No; that, too, was a subterfuge hope.  Io never forgot.

As if to assure the resumption of their debate, the talk of the Forbes dinner table turned to the mayoralty fight.  Shrewd judges of events and tendencies were there; Thatcher Forbes, himself, not the least of them; it was the express opinion that Laird stood a very good chance of victory.

“Unless they can definitely pin the Wall Street label on him,” suggested some one.

“That might beat him; it’s the only thing that could,” another opined.

Hugging his withering phrase to his heart, Banneker felt a growing exultation.

“Nobody but The Patriot—­” began Mrs. Forbes contemptuously, when she abruptly recalled who was at her table.  “The newspapers are doing their worst, but I think they won’t make people believe much of it,” she amended.

“Is Laird really the Wall Street candidate?” inquired Esther Forbes.

Parley Welland, Io’s cousin, himself an amateur politician, answered her:  “He is or he isn’t, according as you look at it.  Masters and his crowd are mildly for him, because they haven’t any objection to a decent, straight city government, at present.  Sometimes they have.”

“On that principle, Horace Vanney must have,” remarked Jim Maitland.  “He’s fighting Laird, tooth and nail, and certainly he represents one phase of Wall Street activity.”

“My revered uncle,” drawled Herbert Cressey, “considers that the present administration is too tender of the working-man—­or, rather, working-woman—­when she strikes.  Don’t let ’em strike; or, if they do strike, have the police bat ’em on the head.”