“Yes,” replied Mr. Crewe, who was beginning to resent the manner in which he deemed he was being played with, “I told you I was.”

“M—­made all them bills out before you was chose?” said Mr. Braden.

Mr. Crewe grew red in the face.

“I am interested in these questions,” he said stiffly.

“Little mite hasty, wahn’t it?” Mr. Braden remarked equably, “but you’ve got plenty of time and money to fool with such things, if you’ve a mind to.  Them don’t amount to a hill of beans in politics.  Nobody pays any attention to that sort of fireworks down to the capital, and if they was to get into committee them Northeastern Railroads fellers’d bury ’em deeper than the bottom of Salem pond.  They don’t want no such things as them to pass.”

“Pardon me,” said Mr. Crewe, “but you haven’t read ’em.”

“I know what they be,” said Mr. Braden, “I’ve be’n in politics more years than you’ve be’n livin’, I guess.  I don’t want to read ’em,” he announced, his benign manner unchanged.

“I think you have made a mistake so far as the railroad is concerned, Mr. Braden,” said Mr. Crewe, “I’m a practical man myself, and I don’t indulge in moonshine.  I am a director in one or two railroads.  I have talked this matter over with Mr. Flint, and incidentally with Senator Whitredge.”

“Knowed Whitredge afore you had any teeth,” said Mr. Braden, who did not seem to be greatly impressed, “know him intimate.  What’d you go to Flint for?”

“We have interests in common,” said Mr. Crewe, “and I am rather a close friend of his.  My going to the Legislature will be, I think, to our mutual advantage.”

“O—­ought to have come right to me,” said Mr. Braden, leaning over until his face was in close proximity to Mr. Crewe’s.  “Whitredge told you to come to me, didn’t he?”

Mr. Crewe was a little taken aback.

“The senator mentioned your name,” he admitted.

“He knows.  Said I was the man to see if you was a candidate, didn’t he?  Told you to talk to Job Braden, didn’t he?”

Now Mr. Crewe had no means of knowing whether Senator Whitredge had been in conference with Mr. Braden or not.

“The senator mentioned your name casually, in some connection,” said Mr. Crewe.

“He knows,” Mr. Braden repeated, with a finality that spoke volumes for the senator’s judgment; and he bent over into Mr. Crewe’s ear, with the air of conveying a mild but well-merited reproof, “You’d ought to come right to me in the first place.  I could have saved you all that unnecessary trouble of seein’ folks.  There hasn’t be’n a representative left the town of Leith for thirty years that I hain’t agreed to.  Whitredge knows that.  If I say you kin go, you kin go.  You understand,” said Mr. Braden, with his fingers on Mr. Crewe’s knee once more.

Five minutes later Mr. Crewe emerged into the dazzling sun of the Ripton square, climbed into his automobile, and turned its head towards Leith, strangely forgetting the main engagement which he said had brought him to town.