“It was a dirty trick,” Chase insisted. “You played on my good feelings; you pretended to agree to an alliance with me; you got me off my guard—”
Amos held up a heavy hand. “Wait a minute,” he protested. “Wait a minute, Senior. Let me get this here straight. You come to me with a prop’sition. Wanted to get together. Said you had me licked. I told you if you was elected Mayor, we’d hitch up. Ain’t that right now, Senior?”
Chase moved angrily. “Strictly true,” he confessed. “Strictly true. That’s why I call it tricky. You came to my own meeting and said you were going to vote for me.”
“Guess I said I was going to vote for a Chase, didn’t I? Guess I did. And that’s the way I voted.”
“The town thought you meant me.”
“Not long, they didn’t. Word went around what I meant, all in good time.”
Chase got to his feet, his head back, his face flushed. He leaned down to face Amos, and he slapped his right fist into his left palm. “I tell you it was a trick,” he insisted. “You know it. It was unworthy. And I give you due warning, Caretall—I’m out for your scalp now. I propose to get it. Take your measures accordingly.”
Amos puffed hard at his pipe. He, too, rose; he tilted his head thoughtfully on one side and squinted at Chase. “I don’t like t’ hear you talk that way, Senior,” he said slowly. “You come to me and talked to me till you rightly showed me we ought to get together. I’m ready—even if you did get—”
Chase flung up his hand. “Stop!” he cried. The self-control which he had imposed upon himself was gone. “Stop! Man, man! D’you think I’m one to lick the hand that stabs me? You lie to me, trick me, make a fool of me and a joke of me before the state; and to cap it all you steal my own son out of my house—”
“Heard you was the one to throw him out,” Amos interjected, but Chase went hotly on: