“Perhaps so. And you’ve come to suggest that I withdraw? Why should I?”
“’Cause you ain’t got the chance a snowball has on the south slopes of Satanville. Come! Drop out an’ let’s have no hard feelin’. Conover’s got ten times your strength everywhere. An’ the strong man’s always the man that’ll win. You can dope that out——”
“Not always. There was David’s fight with Goliath, for one, and——”
“David who?”
“A little chap who won out against a man double his size,” smiled Clive. “Goliath was what you’d call a heavyweight.”
“An’ what was David’s manager doin’, puttin’ a bantam into the ring with a heavyweight? He’d ’a’ had that David person asleep in the first round. Say, Mr. Standish, I seen to-night you’re a first-rate scrapper, an’ you handle your hands fine for an amachoor. But what you don’t know about prizefights an’ racehorses’d fill a City Record. Someone’s sure been guying you good an’ plenty.”
“Well, all that has nothing to do with what you came here about. You’ve got something on your mind. Speak out, can’t you?”
“It’s just this,” replied Shevlin, edging his chair nearer, and lowering his voice, “you’re beat. An’ you’ve been to consid’ble expense in the campaign, an’——”
“Yes?”
“An’ Mr. Conover’s set his heart on bein’ Gov’nor by a good majority. An’ when he sets his heart on a thing he’s willin’ to pay well for it.”