In the Arena | Page 7

to go around and
see Gorgett; so, after waiting long enough for Genz to see him and get
away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; but I own I expected to
find him flustered, and was astonished to see right away that he wasn't.
He was smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, as he always did,
indoors and out, sitting with his feet upon his desk, and a pleasant look
of contemplation on his face.
"Oh," says I, "then Genz hasn't been here?"
"Yes," says he, "he has. I reckon you folks have 'most spoiled Genz's
usefulness for me."
"You're taking it mighty easy," I told him.
"Yep. Isn't it all in the game? What's the use of getting excited because
you've blocked us on one precinct? We'll leave that closet out of our
calculations, that's all."
"Almighty Powers, I don't mean _that!_ Didn't Genz tell you--"
"About Mr. Knowles and the _Herald_? Oh, yes," he answered,
knocking the ashes off his cigar quietly. "And about the thousand votes
he'll gain? Oh, yes. And about incidentally showing you and Crowder
up as bribing Genz and promising to protect him--making your
methods public? Oh, yes. And about the Grand Jury? Yes, Genz told
me. And about me and the penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles
is a rather excitable young man. Don't you think so?"
"Well?"
"Well, what's the trouble?"
"Trouble!" I said. "I'd like to know what you're going to do?"
"What's Knowles going to do?"

"He's sworn to expose the whole deal, as you've just told me you knew;
one of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand Jury
and sending you and Genz over the road, that's all!"
Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with his
hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last summer's
straw hat-brim.
"He can't hardly afford it, can he," he drawled, "he being the
representative of the law and order and purity people? They're mighty
sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns 'em."
"I don't understand," said I.
"Well, I hardly reckoned you would," he returned. "But I expect if Mr.
Knowles wants it warm all round, _I'm_ willing. We may be able to do
some of the heating up, ourselves."
This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. "You mean,
then," I said, "that you think you've got a line on something our boys
have been planning--like the way we got onto the closet trick--and
you're going to show us up because we can't control Knowles; that you
hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I tell you
plainly I know I can't shut him up, and you can go ahead and do us the
worst you can."
"Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered," he answered,
"that isn't what I mean, though I don't know as I'd be above making
such a threat if I thought it was my only way to keep out of the
penitentiary. I know as well as you do that such a threat would only
give Knowles pleasure. He'd take the credit for forcing me to expose
you, and he's convinced that everything of that kind he does makes him
solider with the people and brings him a step nearer this chair I'm
sitting in, which he regards as a step itself to the governorship and
Heaven knows what not. He thinks he's detached himself from you and
your organization till he stands alone. That boy's head was turned even
before you fellows nominated him. He's a wonder. I've been noticing
him long before he turned up as a candidate, and I believe the great

surprise of his life was that John the Baptist didn't precede and herald
him. Oh, no, going for you wouldn't stop him--not by a thousand miles.
It would only do him good."
"Well, what are you going to do? Are you going to see him?"
"No, sir!" Lafe spoke sharply.
"Well, well! What?"
"I'm not bothering to run around asking audiences of Farwell
Knowleses; you ought to know that!"
"Given it up?"
"Not exactly. I've sent a fellow around to talk to him."
"What use will that be?"
Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with a bang.
"Then he can come to see _me_, if he wants to. D'you think I've been
fool enough not to know what sort of man I was going up against?
D'you think that, knowing him as I do, I've not been ready for
something of this kind? And that's all you'll get out of _me_, this
afternoon!"
And it was all I did.
* * * * *
It may have been about one o'clock, that night,