Blount sprang from his chair and forgot to be politic.

“You needn’t come to me the day after to-morrow, or any other time,” he raged.  “I’m through with you and your tribe.  Get out!”

After Gryson, muttering threats, had gone, the young campaign manager had an attack of moral nausea.  It seemed such a prodigious waste of time and energy to traffic and chaffer with these petty scoundrels.  Thus far, every phase of the actual political problem seemed to be meanly degrading, and he was beginning to long keenly for an opportunity to do some really worthy thing.

Notwithstanding, his ideals were still unshaken.  He still clung to the belief that the corporation, which was created by the law and could exist only under the protection of the law, must, of necessity, be a law-abiding entity.  It was manifestly unfair to hold it responsible for the disreputable political methods of those whom it could never completely control—­methods, too, which had been forced upon it by the necessity, or the fancied necessity, of meeting conditions as they were found.

As if in answer to the wish that he might find the worthier task, it was on this day of Gryson’s visit that Blount was given his first opportunity of entering the wider field.  A letter from a local party chairman in a distant mining town brought an invitation of the kind for which he had been waiting and hoping.  He was asked to participate in a joint debate at the campaign opening in the town in question, and he was so glad of the chance that he instantly wired his acceptance.

That evening, at the Inter-Mountain cafe dinner hour, he found his father dining alone and joined him.  In a burst of confidence he told of the invitation.

“That’s good; that’s the real thing this time, isn’t it?” was the senator’s even-toned comment.  “Gives you a right nice little chance to shine the way you can shine best.”  Then:  “That was one of the things McVickar wanted you for, wasn’t it?—­speech-making and the like?”

“Why, yes; he intimated that there might be some public speaking,” admitted the younger man.

“Well, what-all are you going to tell these Ophir fellows when you get over there, son?” asked the veteran quizzically.  “Going to offer ’em all free passes anywhere they want to go if they’ll promise to vote for the railroad candidates?”

“Not this year,” was the laughing reply.  “As I told you a while back, we’ve stopped all that.”

“You have, eh?  I reckon that will be mighty sorry news for a good many people in the old Sage-brush State—­mighty sorry news.  You really reckon you have stopped it, do you, son?”

“I not only believe it; I am in a position to assert it definitely.”

“McVickar has told you it was stopped?”

The newly fledged political manager tried to be strictly truthful.

“I have had but the one interview with Mr. McVickar, but in that talk he gave me to understand that my recommendations would be given due consideration.  And I have said my say pretty emphatically.”