“Did Blount lose anything?”

“That’s the queer part of it.  Blount won’t say much about it; and this morning he went around to police headquarters and told the chief to drop the matter, giving as his reason that he was too busy to prosecute the fellow even if he was caught.”

To a disinterested observer it might have seemed a little singular that the vice-president made no further comment upon the burglary.  As a matter of fact, his next question completely ignored it.

“What has Blount been doing this week?” he asked.

“He has spoken twice; once at Arequipa and once at Hellersville.  I understand he has engagements enough to keep him out of town right up to election day.”

“That is good,” was the nodded approval.  “He would only be in the way here at the capital.”  And then pointedly to Gantry:  “Any more of that nonsense about putting a barrel of powder under us and blowing us all up if we don’t build the freight tariffs over to suit his notion?”

“A good bit more of it,” Gantry admitted reluctantly.  “The other day he went so far as to set a time limit; gave me three days of grace in which to file the public notice of the change in rates.”

“What did you do?”

“I filed the notice—­taking care that the only copy should be the one I sent to Blount’s office.”

The vice-president looked coldly at his division traffic manager.

“There are times, Gantry, when you seem to be losing your grip.  Dave Blount’s son isn’t a school-boy, to be fooled by such a transparent trick as that!  Don’t you suppose he knows, as well as you do, that the public notice has to be filed in every station on the road?”

“I had to take a chance—­I’ve had to take a good many chances,” protested the traffic manager in his own defence; and Kittredge, a bearded giant who was fully the vice-president’s match in heroic physique, removed his cigar to say:  “That young fellow has been a frost.  If he isn’t a wild-eyed fanatic, as Gantry insists he is, he is deeper than the deep blue sea!  I’d just about as soon have a box of dynamite kicking around underfoot as to have him messing in this campaign fight.  I’ve been keeping cases on him, as you ordered, and he has worn out three of my best office men on the job.”

“You are prejudiced, Kittredge,” was the vice-president’s comment.  “It was the best move in the entire campaign—­putting him in the field.  Apart from the public sentiment he has been turning our way, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that we got hold of him at a time when the Honorable Senator was getting ready to turn us down.”

“Speaking of the sentiment,” Gantry put in, “I don’t know whether it’s all sentiment or not.  There’s a sort of mystery mixed up in this speech-making business of Blount’s.  At first I thought maybe his sudden popularity was due to some word sent out from your Chicago office; but when you told me it wasn’t, I began to do a little speculating on my own account.  I can’t make up my mind yet whether it is pure popularity, or whether it’s the assisted kind.”