Again the railroad magnate rested his arms on the table-edge.  “What was your ‘decent way,’ Senator?” he asked, fixing his gaze upon the shrewd old eyes of the other, which, for the first time in the conference, seemed to be losing a little of their grimly good-natured aggressiveness.

“I don’t mind telling you, though you will likely call it an old man’s foolishness.  I have a grown son, McVickar.  Did you know that?”

The vice-president nodded, and the big man opposite went on half-reminiscently: 

“He is a lawyer, and a mighty bright one, so they tell me.  As I happen to know, he is pretty well up on the corporation side of the argument, and the one thing I’ve been afraid of is that he would marry and settle down somewhere in the East, where the big corporations have their home ranches.  I’m getting old, Hardwick, and I’d like mighty well to have the boy with me.  Out of that notion grew another.  I said to myself this:  Now, here’s McVickar; if he could have a good, clean-cut young man in this State representing his railroad—­a man who not only knew his way around in a court-room, but who might also know how to plead his client’s case before the public—­if McVickar could have such a young fellow as that for his corporation counsel, and would agree to make his railroad company live somewhere within shouting distance of such a young fellow’s ideals, we might all be persuaded to bury the hatchet and live together in peace and amity.”

A slow smile was spreading itself over the strong face of the railway magnate as he listened.

“Say, David,” he retorted mildly, “it isn’t much like you to go forty miles around when there is a short way across.  Why didn’t you tell me plainly in the beginning that you wanted a place for your boy?”

“Hold on; don’t let’s get too far along before we get started; I’m not saying it now,” was the sober protest.  “You forget that you’ve just been telling me that you don’t intend to comply with the one hard-and-fast condition to such an arrangement as the one I’ve been pipe-dreaming about.”

“What condition?”

“That you turn over a brand-new leaf and meet the people of this State half-way on a proposition of fair play for everybody.”

“There isn’t any half-way point in a fight for life, David.  You know that as well, or better, than I do.  But let that go.  We’ll give your son the place you want him to have, and do it gladly.”

The man who had once been his own foreman of round-ups straightened himself in his chair and smote the table with his fist.

“No, by God, you won’t—­not in a thousand years, McVickar!  Maybe you could buy me—­maybe you have bought me in times past—­but you can’t buy that boy!  Listen, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.  I telegraphed the boy this afternoon, telling him to throw up his job in Boston and come out here.  If he comes within a reasonable time he will be legally a citizen of the State before election.  You said we didn’t have anybody but Rankin to run for attorney-general.  By Heavens, Hardwick, I’ll show you if we haven’t!”