The General bowed low; his best old-world air and his corpulence battling doughtily for supremacy in the salutation. He was about to follow up the bow with some remarks of a fatherly yet admiring nature, when Caine, with malice aforethought, broke in:
“And, General, may I introduce Mr. Caleb Conover?”
The old man’s honeyed words collided with a snort that sprang unbidden from his throat; resulting in a sound that was neither old-world or fatherly.
“Conover, eh?” he rapped out. “Heard of you, sir! Heard of you!— Too often, in fact. You’re the fellow that’s always buying up our legislators, aren’t you? Why do you do it, sir?”
“Because they’re for sale,” said Caleb, unruffled. “I guess that’s ’bout the only reason I’m able to.”
“You mean to accuse the men who represent our interests at the Capital,—to accuse them of being willing, untempted, to sell their vote?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as that,” answered Caleb with a tolerant grin. “They ain’t all waitin’ for chances to sell their vote. Some of ’em prefers to rent it out by the year.”
“Do you want me to believe such a libel on our statesmen?” declaimed Greer. “On the men we—”
“I’m not exactly coaxin’ you to believe anything,” replied Caleb, pleasantly, “An’ I ain’t liable to lay wake nights moanin’ because you doubt it. If the people didn’t want to be run by a lobby, they wouldn’t be. That’s all there is to it.”
“I didn’t come to discuss ethics with a man of your stamp,” sneered the General. “But I can tell you you are wrong—wrong, sir—in thinking the people will always stand such conditions as you and your kind are thrusting upon them. Only yesterday one of my clients was telling me that if he could not curb your legislative influence by fair means he would—”