“So do the people of this State,” asserted the man across the table.  “You bled us, Hardwick—­bled us to the queen’s taste—­while you had the chance; and the chance lasted a blamed long time.  You are equitably, if not legally, in debt to every man in this State who had ever shipped a car-load of freight or paid a passenger fare over your line before the present rate law went into effect.  You can shuffle and side-step all you want to, but that is the plain fact of the matter.”

The vice-president sat up and braced his arms on the edge of the table.

“You are too much for me, Blount—­you hold out too many cards; and I’m no apprentice at the game, either.  In all these years we’ve been dickering together you’ve always been a hard-bitted and consistent fighter for your own hand.  What’s happened to you lately?  Have you acquired a new set of convictions?  Or have you been figuring out a different way of whipping the devil around the stump?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned the guest, with large good-nature.  “We are all growing older—­and wiser, perhaps.  You don’t deny the debt you owe us, do you?”

“Do we owe you anything, Blount?” asked the magnate pointedly, and with a definite emphasis upon the personal pronoun.  “If we do, we are willing to pay it in spot cash, on demand.”

The big man on the other side of the table was leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, and the smile wrinkling at the corners of his eyes was half-genial, half-satirical.

“It’s lucky we’re alone, McVickar,” he remarked.  “A third fellow standing around and hearing you talk might imagine that you are trying to bribe me.”

“That’s all right, Blount; this is between us two, and we understand each other.  Nothing for nothing is the accepted rule the world over, and we both recognize it.  You are figuring on something; I know you are.  Name it.  If it is anything less than a mortgage on the earth and one or two of the planets I’ll get it for you.”

“I’m afraid we are a good deal more than a mile or two apart yet, McVickar,” said the man who was not smoking, after a long minute.  “Let’s ride back to the beginning and get us a fresh start.  I said that Gordon is going to be the next governor of the State.”

“I know you did; and I said—­and I say it again—­he isn’t going to be—­not if we can help it,” declared the railway magnate, with emphatic determination.

“The methods you will take to defeat him will insure his election, McVickar.  You fellows are mighty slow to learn your lesson; mighty slow and obstinate, Hardwick.  You don’t know anything but wire-pulling and crookedness and bribery.  The times have changed, and you haven’t had the common-sense or the courage or the business shrewdness to change with them.  I say Gordon will be the next governor.”

Again there was a strained silence like that which follows the hand-shake in the prize-ring when the two antagonists have drawn apart and are warily watching each for his opening.  After the pause the vice-president said: