“But right there we break apart, McVickar,” cut in the other, setting his jaw with a peculiar hardening of the facial muscles that gave him the appearance of a fierce old viking attacking at the head of his squadrons.  “I’m telling you over again that a new day has dawned in American politics; I and my kind recognize it, and you and your kind don’t seem to be big enough to recognize it.  That is the difference between us.  In the present instance it comes down to this:  you are going to fight for a railroad majority in the legislature, and you want Reynolds for the head of the ticket because you know that you can depend upon his veto if you don’t get your majority in the House and Senate.  You are not going to get Reynolds, or the majority either, without the help of the party organization.”

“We can put it much more elementally than that,” supplemented the railroad man.  “We get nothing without your say-so as the head of the party organization.  That is precisely why I have come a couple of thousand miles to ask you to eat dinner with me here to-night.”

“I reckon I ought to feel right much set up and biggitty over that, Hardwick,” smiled the veteran spoilsman, relapsing, as he did now and then, into the speech of his Southern boyhood.  And then half-quizzically:  “Are you tolerably well satisfied that you’ve got around to the place where you are willing to tote fair with me?  You recollect, I gave you a straight pointer two years ago; you wouldn’t take it, and we did you up.  Are you right certain you are ready now to holler ’enough’?”

Once again the vice-president refused to be hurried into making a capitulative admission.  When he spoke, the militant second thought of the fighting corporation commander chose the words.

“There is a limit to all things, Senator, and you are pushing us pretty well up to it.  I suppose you can crack the whip and swing the vote on the legislature, and you can take it and be damned.  But, by God, we’ll have our governor and our attorney-general!”

“You are betting confidently on that, are you?” said the veteran mildly.  “Is that your declaration of war?”

“Call it anything you like.  We are not going to be legislated off the map if we can help it.  Strong as your machine is, you can’t swing Gordon in against Reynolds if we concede your bare majority in the legislature and put up the right kind of a fight.  And when it comes to Rankin, our candidate for attorney-general, you simply haven’t another man in the party to put up against him.  You’d have to run in a dummy, and even you are not big enough to do that, Blount, and put it over.”

“You’ve settled this definitely in your own mind, have you, Hardwick?” was the placable rejoinder.  “I’m sorry—­right sorry.  I’ve been hoping that you had learned your lesson—­you and your tribe.  I came to town this evening prepared to show you a decent way out of your troubles, so far as this State is concerned; but since you have posted your ‘de-fi,’ as we cow-punchers say, I reckon it isn’t worth while to wade any deeper into the creek.”