Sam was frankly grinning at him; and so Jim asked at length, in some desperation: “What’s the joke, Sam?”
Sam shook his head. “How’s the election going, Jim?”
“All Chase.”
Sam threw back his head. He was a fat man, and the mirth billowed out of him. He rocked, he slapped his knee. “All Chase!” he gasped. “All Chase! Oh, Jim! Oh, Jimmy man! All Chase!” He wiped tears from his eyes. “Jim, you’ll kill me!”
Jim snorted. He was thoroughly disturbed. Sam was a man whose finger touched the public pulse. Obviously, he knew something. Jim leaned across the counter. “What’s the joke, Sam? Come on—let me laugh, too.”
Sam waved his fat hands at his customer. “You go away, Jim. You go ’way. You’ll kill me.”
His chortles pursued Jim to the street. There Thomas paused, irresolute. What was he going to do? Warn Chase? Warn Chase’s cohorts? But what should he warn them about? He remembered suddenly that his place was beside the ballot box, and he turned and fairly ran down the street to the voting rooms. And it seemed to him that, as he sped, mirth pursued him.
But he found everything as he left it. Ed Howe still sat by the stove, still smoked. He looked up as Jim entered, and shifted his pipe in his mouth.
“Why, Jim!” he exclaimed in pretended dismay. “You’re all het up! You’re all of a stew! Jim—have you gone and seen a ghost?”
Jim Thomas glared at him. He had gone away from this place confident and calm; he returned in a turmoil of fear; and the worst of this fear was that he did not know what it was he feared. He glared at Howe.