“If I’m not, it isn’t your fault, Dick, or the fault of your friends.  Naturally, I expected some sort of a welcome as ex-Senator David Blount’s son; but that doesn’t seem to cut any figure at all.”

Gantry’s smile was inscrutable.

“The people with whom it cuts the largest figure will never let you know anything about it.  Just the same, your sonship is cutting a good bit of ice, if you care to know it.  I’ve met a number of men in the past few days who have discovered that you are just about the brainiest thing that ever escaped from the effete East and the law schools.”

“Tommy-rot!” derided the brainy one.

“It’s a fact.  And they are prophesying all sorts of a roseate and iridescent future for you.  One might almost imagine that the prophets are inspired by that kind of gratitude which is a lively sense of favors to come.”

“Oh, piffle!  You know that is all nonsense!”

“Is it?” queried the railroad man, stressing the first word meaningly.  Then, shifting the point of attack:  “You’re mighty innocent, aren’t you, old man?  But I think you might have told me.  Goodness knows, I’m as safe as a brick wall.”

“Might have told you what?”

“That you are going to run for attorney-general against Dortscher.”

“I couldn’t very well tell you what I didn’t know myself, Dick,” was the sober reply.  “Who has been romancing to you?”

“It’s all over town.  Everybody’s talking about it—­talking a lot and guessing a good deal more.  You’ve got ’em running around in circles and uttering loud and plaintive cries, especially Jim Rankin, who had—­or thought he had—­a lead-pipe cinch on the job.  Dortscher is tickled half to death.  He knew he wasn’t going to be allowed to succeed himself, and he hates Rankin worse than poison.”

Blount was balancing the spoon on the edge of his coffee-cup and scowling abstractedly.  It was the first little discord in the filial harmony—­this evidence that the powers were at work; almost a breach of confidence.  There was no avoiding the distasteful conclusion.  Without consulting his wishes, without waiting for his decision, his father had publicly committed him—­taken “snap judgment” upon him was the way he phrased it.

“Dick, will you believe me if I say that I haven’t authorized any such talk as this you’ve been hearing?” he asked, looking up quickly.

This time Gantry’s smile was a grin of complete intelligence.

“Oh, that’s the way of it, eh?  The Honorable Senator took it out of your hands, did he?  You’ll understand that I’m not casting any aspersions when I say that it’s exactly like him.  If he has slated you, you are booked to run; and if he runs you, you’ll be elected.  Those are two of the things that practically speak right out and say themselves here in the old Sage-brush State.”

Blount was indignant—­justly indignant, he persuaded himself.