Part 28 (2/2)
”I'll do my best,” James promised.
”All I demand is that you win. I'm not interested in the method you use.
But put that cousin of yours out of the demagogue business if you have to shanghai him.”
James laughed. ”That might not be a bad way to get rid of him till after the election. The word would leak out that he had been bought off.”
The old buccaneer's eyes gleamed. He was as daring a lawbreaker as ever built or wrecked a railroad. ”Have you the nerve, young man?”
”When I'm working for you, sir,” retorted James coolly.
”What do you mean by that?”
”If I've studied your career to any purpose, sir, one thing stands out pretty clear. You haven't the slightest respect for law merely as law.
When it's on your side you're a stickler for it; when it isn't you say nothing, but brush it aside as if it did not exist. In either case you get what you want.”
”I'm glad you've noticed that last point. Now we'll have luncheon.” He smiled grimly. ”I daresay you'll enjoy it no less because I stole it from the h.o.r.n.y hand of labor, by your mad cousin's way of it.”
”Not a bit,” answered James cheerfully.
CHAPTER 13
”Must it be? Must we then Render back to G.o.d again This, His broken work, this thing For His man that once did sing?”
--Josephine Prestor Peabody.
”And listen! I declare to you that if all is as you say--and I do not doubt it--you have never ceased to be virtuous in the sight of G.o.d!”--Victor Hugo.
THE REBEL PROVES THAT HE IS LOST TO GOOD FORM AND RESPECTABILITY BY STEPPING BETWEEN A SINNER AND THE WAGES OF SIN, THUS EVIDENCING TO THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY HIS COMPLETE DEGENERATION
Part 1
Sam Miller came into Jeff's office one night as he was looking over the editorials. Farnum nodded abstractedly to him.
”Take a chair, Sam. Be through in a minute.”
Presently Jeff pushed the galley proof to one side and looked at his friend. ”Well, Sam?” Almost at once he added: ”What's the matter?”
There were queer white patches on Miller's fat face. He looked like a man in h.e.l.l. A lump rose in his throat. Two or three times he swallowed hard.
”It's--it's Nellie.”
”Nellie Anderson?”
He nodded.
Jeff felt as if his heart had been drenched in icy water. ”What about her?”
<script>