“Hain’t you any friends up there, any bankers that’ll take care o’ this thing fer you?”
Grigsby laughed ironically.
“Cain’t you lay down on somebody fer it?”
Grigsby shook his head.
“How’s your quo ’arranto proceedin’s ’gainst the Chicago Consolidated?”
“It isn’t ripe yet,” said Grigsby, “and, anyhow, there isn’t time. Damn it, man,” he said, raising his voice, and striking his knee with his fist, “it’s got to be done now, to-night, or I’m lost. The governor, under the law, must seal the treasury at once, and you know just how long John Chatham’ll wait. We’ve got to take care of this thing to-night, to-night, I tell you. That’s why I sent for you.” The attorney-general spoke angrily, and with a puffed face that flushed an unhealthy red, and then added, stretching forth his hand and laying it on Jennings’ knee, “You’re my friend, ain’t you?”
“Sure,” said the secretary of state carelessly, and then knitted his brows again. After a few minutes he said:
“Say, Bill, you and the governor used to be friends, and he hain’t a bad feller, no-way. He got you your nomination, you know—why don’t you go to him—”
“Go to the governor?” cried Grigsby; “and tell him—tell him!”
“Bill,” said the secretary of state, “you don’t know the governor. He hain’t my kind, ner I his’n, but I’ll tell you one thing—he hain’t the man to take advantage of a feller. You’d be as safe in his hands as you would in mine—safer, maybe,” Jennings concluded, with a good-humored chuckle.