Carton did not hesitate a moment.  I thought I saw in his face the same hardening of the lines of his features in grim determination that I had seen when he had been talking to Miss Ashton.  I knew that, among other things, he was thinking how impossible it would be for him ever to face her again in the old way, if he sold out, even in a negative way, to the System.

Murtha had shot his huge face forward and was peering keenly at the man before him.

“You’ll—­think it over?” he asked.

“I will not—­I most certainly will not,” returned Carton, for the first time showing exasperation, at the very assumption of Murtha.  “Mr. Murtha,” he went on, rising and leaning forward over the desk, “we are going to have a fair election, if I can make it.  I may be beaten—­I may win.  But I will be beaten, if at all, by the old methods.  If I win—­it will be that I win—­honestly.”

A half sneer crossed Murtha’s face.  He neither understood nor cared to understand the kind of game Carton played.

“You’ll never get anything on that boy,” blustered Murtha.  “Do you suppose I’m fool enough to come here and make a dishonest proposition—­here—­right in front of your own friends?” he added, turning to us. “—­I ain’t asking any favours, or anything dishonest.  His lawyers know what they can do and what you can do.  It ain’t because I care a hang about you, Carton, that I’m here.  If you want to know the truth, it’s because you can make trouble, Carton,—­that’s all.  You can’t convict him, in the end, because—­ you can’t.  There’s nothing ‘on’ him.  But you can make trouble.  We’ll win out in the end, of course.”

“In other words, you think the Reform League has you beaten?” suggested Carton quietly.

“No,” ejaculated Murtha with an oath.  “We don’t know—­but maybe you have us beaten.  But not the League.  We don’t want you for District Attorney, Carton.  You know it.  But here’s a practical proposition.  All you have to do is just to let this Rubano case take its natural course.  That’s all I ask.”

He dwelt on the word “natural” as if it were in itself convincing.  “Why,” he resumed, “what foolishness it is for you to throw away all your chances just for the sake of hounding one poor fellow from the East Side.  It ain’t right, Carton,—­you, powerful, holding an important office, and he a poor boy that never had a chance and has made the most of what little nature gave him.  Why, I’ve known that boy ever since he hardly came up to my waist.  I tell you, there ain’t a judge on the bench that wouldn’t listen to what we can show about him—­hounded by police, hounded by the District Attorney, driven from pillar to post, and—–­”

“You will have a chance to tell the story in court,” cut in Carton.  “Pomeroy will try the case.”

“Pomeroy?” repeated Murtha in a tone that quite disguised the anger he felt that it should come up before the one judge the System feared and could not control.  “Now, look here, Carton.  We’re all practical men.  Your friend—­er—­Kennedy, here, he’s practical.”