Part 18 (2/2)

”Certain brilliant objects” could mean nothing but the lung-testers.

Eliph' Hewlitt had that secret, and Eliph' Hewlitt boarded with Doc Weaver. The attorney felt a sudden rush of anger. It was to this intermeddling book agent, then, that he owed the premature explosion of the mine that was to have blown the Citizens' Party to fragments, and to have landed the fragments in the basket held ready by Attorney Toole?

The distribution of that week's TIMES acted like a tonic on the town streets. New life followed in the wake of the boy as he carried the paper from door to door. It began at the corner of Main and Cross Streets, and as the boy proceeded, the merchants, the loafers, and the customers came from the stores and gathered in knots that formed quickly and dissolved again as the parts pa.s.sed from one group to another, questioning, arguing, and guessing. The attorney looked out of his window. Across the street he could see the office of the TIMES, and T.

J. already besieged by questioners, to whom he was evidently giving a kind but decided refusal of further information. The editor was waving them away with his hands. Some of the editor's visitors handed T. J.

money, and carried away copies of the TIMES, but all went, gently urged by the editor, and joined one or another of the groups below. The attorney drew on his coat. He would postpone his interview with Eliph'

Hewlitt; Thomas Jefferson Jones was the man he wanted to see at that moment.

It was difficult for the attorney to retain his enigmatical smiles as he climbed the stairs to the TIMES office. He was angry, but he knew the value of that irritating smile that hinted superiority and a knowledge of hidden details. He needed it in his talk with the editor.

It is odd how common interests will bring men together. And sometimes how common interests will not. The attorney and the editor had been as one man in polite attentions to Susan Bell, Mrs. Smith's protegee, at first, but as their acquaintance with her grew they seemed to like each other less. They no longer consulted each other on the best methods of bringing Republican rule back to Kilo. They did not consult together at all. The attorney coldly ignored the editor, and his irritation, beginning in this rivalry, was increased by the growing suspicion that the editor dared look toward the leaders.h.i.+p of the Republican party in Kilo.

It all angered the attorney. What right had a country editor to compete with a man of talent, with a member of the bar, with Attorney Toole? Was this the thanks a rising lawyer should receive for leaving the superior culture of Franklin and bringing his talents to add l.u.s.ter to the bleak unimportance of Kilo? The very impertinence of it angered him. Toole, a man whose name would one day ring in the hall of Congress and perhaps stand at the head of the nation's officers as chief executive, to be bothered by the interference of a Jones! By the interference of a man who spent his time collecting news of measles and hog cholera! It was about time T. J. Jones was told a few things.

As Toole entered the printing office T. J. was handing a copy of the TIMES to a customer, and the editor turned, and, seeing who his visitor was, held up his hand playfully.

”No use!” he exclaimed. ”I can't say anything about it, except what's in the paper. Contributed article, and the editor sworn to silence, you know.”

The attorney seated himself on the editor's desk, pus.h.i.+ng a pile of papers out of his way.

”That's all right, Jones,” he said. ”That's for the”--he waved his hand toward the window--”for the fellow citizens; for the populace. This is between ourselves.”

”I'd like to,” said Jones, ”but really, I can't say anything about it. I promised faithfully I would not betray my contributor's confidence.”

”Now, do I look so green as that?” asked Toole. ”Nonsense! Doc Weaver wrote that rot.” He smiled. ”He spread himself, didn't he?”

The editor remained motionless.

”I have nothing whatever to say,” he remarked, noncommittally.

”Well, I have!” cried the attorney. ”I'll tell you that it is poor work for you to steal my thunder and attempt to use it without consulting me! It is poor work, and mean work. You want to be boss of this party in Kilo county, that's what you want. And you haven't the capacity. You have proved it right here, right here in this silly sheet of yours.

You hit on a big thing, and you spoil it. You are so anxious that Toole shall get no credit that you rush it into print and make a fizzle of it.

I know who the traitors to the party are--you are one. Doc Weaver with his elegant style and his Shakespeare is another. And that miserable intermeddling little book agent is another. You make me sick.”

The editor stood like a statue, and his face was as white. The attorney dropped his words slowly from lips that still wore the tantalizing smile.

”The childishness amuses me,” said the attorney. ”It makes me smile. Why didn't you give names, since you had them? Why didn't you tell it all, and do the party some good, as well as doing me some harm, if that was what you were after--and I don't know what you were after if it wasn't that? Why don't you get a schoolboy to edit your paper for you?”

T. J. ground his nails into the palms of his hands. He meant to retain possession of his temper, but it was boiling within. He said nothing as the attorney indolently arose from his seat on the desk; he was resolved to do nothing, but when the attorney brushed against him in pa.s.sing, turning his superior smile full in his face, he raised his arm. The next moment the two men were lying beside the press, struggling and gasping, locked fast and fighting for advantage, legs intertwined and each grasping the other by a wrist. The editor was on top, but the heavier attorney was working with the energy of hate, and as they panted and struggled the door opened and Eliph' Hewlitt entered.

There was strength in his wiry arms, and he threw himself upon the upper man and dragged him backward. The attorney loosened his hold and the two men stood up, panting and gulping, and soon began to brush their clothes and look at the floor for dropped articles, as men do who have fought inconclusively and are not sorry to have been parted. The only real damage seemed to have been done to Eliph's spectacles, which he had shaken off in his efforts, and which had been crushed beneath a heel.

The attorney presently smiled, but it was a silly smile, and then he went out of the door and down the street.

Eliph' coughed gently behind his hand, as if to excuse his intrusion.

”Quarreling?” he suggested. ”I used to wrestle some when I was a boy.

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