“I guess I'm on to you, sonny,” he said at last. “I'll tell you my mind about it. I think you handled Macclesfield all right, and that's a very good job, and you may be solid now with the gang, for aught I know, but my idea is, it'll be only a question of time before you get bucked off. I'd give you a year, maybe two.”
“I think so.”
“You figure on two years?”
“Next election. Tait's out with me now, and he'll get a knife in when he can. Beckett, Freiburger, and Tuttle will probably be on edge before next spring. That's too soon. Now—if I can get the parks and Boulevard done, I'm willing to call off without a row. I want the Manual Training School too. But Tuttle's going to get some rake off out of that. Can't help it. Anyway Tuttle will see it's a good enough job. I don't mind Cam, and John Murphy's indecent, but reasonable. But Freiburger's going to be a holy terror. I don't see that I can run with that crowd, and I don't see how it can be altered much at present. If I split it they'll lose the election. Now—I think it'll split of itself, and I'd be of more use without the responsibility of having split it. I think so. Anyhow, I'm going to have something to show people for my innings.”
“Just so.”
After another silence Secor said: “What was Wood's idea? D'you know?”
“He thought it would split of itself.”
“Think so? Well, I've a notion he had a soft side to him, and you'd got on it. Well—I don' know. Seemed to me that way. What then?”
“Oh, I'll go out. I don't want it anyway. I want my father's job. Maybe I'm a bit of a Puritan, Secor, and maybe not, but when the heelers get restless to explosion, and the Reformers grimmer around the mouth because the city isn't rosy and polite, and my general utility's gone, I expect to thank God, and go back to pile-driving exclusive. But I want time.”
“Just so. I can keep Beckett and Tuttle from being too soon, maybe. That what you want of me?”