In fact, Joe Kent was shaking hands with himself. He had known for some time that his feeling for Edith Garwood fell far short of love; but as he looked at it, he could not tell her so. So that his dismissal, instead of plunging him into the depths of gloom, boosted his spirits sky-high.
“Thank the Lord!” he exclaimed fervently as he swung down the street. “Joe, my son, let this be a lesson to you. Cut out the girl proposition and stick to business.” He became thoughtful. “So old Ackerman’s a friend of Garwood’s. And Garwood tells me I’m not in a position to marry. I wonder how he knows so much about it? I wonder——” He did not complete the sentence, but Garwood’s words stuck in his recollection.
X
When Mr. Ackerman, following the hint received from Garwood, called at the office of Clancy Brothers, his reception was nothing short of frosty.
John Clancy was alone, and he regarded his visitor from beneath a lowering brow.
“Now, here’s what I want to know about,” said he. “How does it come that Kent gets them limits at Wind River? We tendered for them ourselves.”
“Likely his tender was higher,” said Mr. Ackerman with assumed carelessness.
“An’ what’s that got to do wid it?” demanded Clancy, who appeared to find this explanation inadequate. “Don’t we give up strong to th’ campaign fund? Neither young Kent nor his father ever gave a cent to it, and their politics is the other way. It’s a raw deal we got, an’ ye can say that we’ll remember it. If them limits had gone to one of our own people we’d have said nawthin’, for we could have fixed it wid him or he’d a had to fix it wid us. But th’ way it is we’re sore, an’ we make no bones about sayin’ so. Where’s his pull, that’s what we want to know? An’ if it’s come to this, that a young felly whose politics is agin ye an’ who don’t give up to th’ fund can buy limits ahead of us, why, then, we’re through an’ be damned to ye! An’ there’s others who thinks the same way.”
This unusually long and evidently heartfelt speech of Clancy’s indicated a dissatisfaction which Mr. Ackerman, who held confidential relations with certain members of a thoroughly rotten and graft-ridden administration, could not afford to ignore.
“Oh, that’s nonsense, Clancy,” said Ackerman. “There was a reason why Kent got the limits and we’ll see that you get something else.”