"Come on, boys," said Duncan. "Let's go have a drink and feel ourselves for broken bones."
XXXI
"I DON'T TRUST HIM"
Armstrong was now the man of the hour, the one tenant of the public pillories who was sure of a fling from every passer. The press shrieked at him, the pulpit thundered; the policy holders organized into state associations and threatened. Those who had sent him proxies wrote revoking them and denouncing him as having betrayed their confidence. Those who had given the Duncan crowd their proxies wrote excoriating him for taking advantage of a technicality to cheat them out of their rights and to gain one year more of power to plunder.
"It's a blistering shame!" cried Barry, wrought up over some particularly vicious attack. "It's so infernally unjust!"
"I don't agree with you," replied Armstrong, as judicial as his friend was infuriate. "The people are right; they simply are right in the wrong way. They think I'm part of the system of wholesale, respectable pocket-picking that has grown up in this country. You can't blame 'em. And it does look ugly, my using that technical point to save myself."
"I suppose you wish you had stuck to your first scheme," said Barry, sarcastic, "and had let the Duncan broom sweep the safes."
"No, I don't repent," replied Armstrong. "When I decided to save the policy holders in spite of themselves, I knew this was coming. When you try to save a mule from a burning stable, you're a fool to be surprised if you get kicked."
"You're not going to pay any attention to these yells for you to resign?" Barry asked, even more alarmed than he showed.
"No, I'll not resign," said Armstrong.