“But to make sure he wouldn’t, you had one of your hired shadow-men blow up his safe and steal the letters,” put in the senator mildly.  “That was prudent, Hardwick.  I was a little scared up myself for fear Evan might get real good and mad, and let the cat out of the bag; I was, for a fact.”

“Without admitting the safe-blowing, I may say that the letters were destroyed, and our friends were advised to be a little more conservative in their correspondence.  That settles the ‘reform measure’ incident and brings us down to the present argument.  If you are not here to get in line with us, what did you come for?”

“I came to give you one more chance to be decent, Hardwick; just—­one—­more—­last—­chance.”

“David, there are times when you make me tired, and this is one of them.  For years you’ve held us up and dictated to us; but this time we’ve got you by the neck.  Did you ever happen to hear of a fellow named Thomas Gryson?”

“Oh, yes; I’ve heard of him.  I believe he has been on your pay-rolls for a while—­notwithstanding the fact that he is an escaped criminal,” was the shrewd counter-thrust.

“He’s a scoundrel; we’ll admit that.  Just the same, your son hired him to go out and get evidence in a certain matter of alleged crookedness in the registration lists.  He got it, and delivered the papers to your son last night.  Some of those affidavits incriminate you, David.  If we wanted to use them, we could send you to the penitentiary, right here in your own State.”

The senator drew up a mock-Sheraton arm-chair and lowered his huge frame gently into it.

“In order to use those papers against me you’d first have to get hold of them, wouldn’t you, Hardwick?” he asked.

“We have them,” was the terse assertion.

The Honorable David’s chuckle rumbled deep in his capacious chest.

“Barto phoned you an hour or so ago that he had ’em, but, owing to circumstances over which he had no control, he couldn’t deliver ’em to you until to-morrow morning.  Isn’t that about the way it shapes up?”

The vice-president’s frown marked an added degree of irritation.  “So you have a cut-in on my telephone wire, have you?” he rasped.

The senator leaned forward and laid a forefinger on the vice-presidential knee.

“Listen, Hardwick,” he said.  “I dictated that phone message to you, and Barto repeated it word for word because he had to—­I reckon maybe it was because one of my men was holding a gun to his other ear while he talked to you.  The little hold-up that you planned this afternoon didn’t come off.  Barto lost out bad, and when we get around to giving him the third degree, I shouldn’t wonder if he’d tell a whole lot of things that you wouldn’t want to see printed in the newspapers.”

Mr. McVickar sprang out of his chair with an agility surprising in so heavy a man, crossed to the open door of the room where his clerical force was at work, and slammed it shut.  When he returned, he was no longer the confident tyrant of foregone conclusions.