“Well, I’m just tellin’ you what they say. They’re sayin’ that right here to home, an’ they’re sayin’ it pretty much all over the district. They think Harkness is made o’ money, an’ that it ’uld be easy fer him to put up some.”
“Have they ever known him to put up any for a campaign?” asked Garwood with a sardonic smile that Rankin could not see in the gloom.
“No, reckon not; but they look to you to loosen him up. But let me tell you,” Rankin hastened on, as if he had pleasanter information, “you know Bromley, when he got good an’ goin’, let loose a lot of his money—just sowed it ’round freely fer two or three weeks, an’ it kind o’ made up fer the mistakes he was makin’ on the stump. But now he’s done just what I knowed he’d do—here with election a week off, he’s got skeered an’ froze up stiff an’ cold, tighter’n a mill race in January—not a red cent ’ill he bleed now, an’ the whole push is sore on ’im. But I knowed he’d do it, I knowed it, from the very first.” Rankin chuckled at his own prophetic instinct. “So you see, we’d ought to take advantage of the situation. If I had a little money to use judiciously, I’d have ’em licked to a stand-still a week from to-night.”
Rankin rubbed his palms in the enthusiasm he would have felt in such a triumphant finish to his campaign, while Garwood’s heart beat a little higher as he thought of the security he would feel in the possession of a campaign fund. The little wave of excitement brought on a return of his cough.
“An’ now, Jerry,” Rankin resumed, “I’ll tell you why I sent fer you.” He drew his chair closer to Garwood, and laid his hand on Garwood’s knee. “My God, man!” he exclaimed, suddenly. “You been sittin’ here in clothes as wet as that?”
“Oh, go on,” said Garwood. “Let’s hear what you have to say. Don’t mind me, I’m all right.”
“Well, I’ll make it short,” said Rankin. “An’ then we’ll go down to Chris’s. What I want to suggest is this—I hate to do it, but it’s a groun’hog case, an’ you an’ me’s ol’ friends”—
“Go on,” urged Garwood.
“Well,” Rankin continued, with a reluctance, “I don’t like to—but here goes. We’ve got to have money—an’ I thought—well, that you might jus’ go to old man Harkness an’ make a little touch—fer a thousand, say—”
Garwood had already begun shaking his head vigorously.