“I’m taking all those chances,” was the even-toned rejoinder of the man who was to be shown up.

“But there is one chance I’m sure you haven’t considered,” McVickar went on aggressively.  “This son of yours; I know as much about him as you do—­more, perhaps, for I have taken more pains to keep tab on him for the past few years than you have.  He is clean and straight, Blount; a son for any father to be proud of.  If that is the real reason why we don’t want to have him instructing the grand juries of this State, it is also your best reason for wanting to keep the past decently under cover.  What will you say to him when the newspapers open up on you?  And what will he say to you?  And suppose you get him in, and we should show you up so that you’d be dragged into court with your own son for the prosecutor?  How does that strike you?”

For the first time since the opening of the one-sided conference the senator laid his cigar aside and sat thoughtfully tugging at the drooping mustaches.

“You’d set the house afire over my head, would you, Hardwick?” he queried, with the gray eyes lighting up as with a glow of smouldering embers.  “The last time we talked you’ll remember that you posted your ‘de-fi’; now I’ll post mine.  You go ahead and do your damnedest!  The boy and I will try to see to it that you don’t have all the fun.  I won’t say that you mightn’t turn him if you went at it right; but you won’t go at it right, and as matters stand now—­well, blood is thicker than water, Hardwick, and if you hit me you hit him.  I reckon, between us, we’ll make out to give you as good as you send.  That’s all”—­he rose to lean heavily upon the table—­“all but one thing:  you fight fair, Hardwick; say anything you like about me and I’ll stand for it; but if that boy has anything in his past that I don’t know about—­any little fool trick that he wouldn’t want to see published—­you let it alone and keep your damned newspaper hounds off of it!”

The vice-president, being of those who regain equanimity in exact proportion as an opponent loses it, chuckled grimly; was still chuckling when an interrupting tap came at the locked door.  Blount got up and turned the latch to admit an office-boy wearing the uniform of the railroad headquarters.  “Note for Mr. McVickar,” said the messenger; and at a gesture from the senator he crossed the room to deliver it.

For a full half-minute after the boy had gone, the vice-president sat poring over the pencilled scrawl, which was all that the sealed envelope yielded.  The note was lacking both date-line and signature, though the clerks in Richard Gantry’s office were familiar enough with the hieroglyph that appeared at the bottom of the sheet.  In his own good time the vice-president folded the bit of paper and thrust it into his pocket.  Then he resumed the talk at the precise point at which it had been broken off.

“You needn’t let the boy’s record trouble you,” he averred.  “As I said a few minutes ago, it’s as clean as a hound’s tooth.  That is one of the things I’m banking on, David.  If you don’t look out, I’m going to have that young fellow fighting on our side before we’re through.”