"I'd order the governor to appoint an investigating committee, made up of reliable men. I'd appoint one of my lawyers as attorney to it—some chap who wasn't supposed to be my lawyer. I'd let it investigate me, make it give me a reasonably, plausibly clean bill of health. Then, I'd set it on the other fellows, have it tear 'em to pieces, make 'em too busy with home repairs to have time to stick their noses over my back fence."
Fosdick listened, appreciated, and hated Armstrong for having thought of that which was so obvious once it was stated and yet had never occurred to him.
"Of course," said Armstrong carelessly, "there are risks in that course. But I don't believe you can stop an investigation altogether. It's choice among evils."
"Well, we'll see," said Fosdick. "There's no occasion for hurry. This situation isn't as bad as you seem to think."
It had always been part of his basic policy to minimize the value of his lieutenants—it kept them modest; it moderated their demands for bigger pay and larger participation in profits; it enabled him to feel that he was "the whole show" and to preen himself upon his liberality in giving so much to men actually worth so little. He was finding it difficult to apply this policy to Armstrong. For, the Westerner was of the sort of man who not only makes it a point to be more necessary to those he deals with than they are to him, but also makes it a point to force them to see and to admit it. Armstrong's quiet insistence upon his own value only roused Fosdick to greater efforts to convince him, and himself, that Armstrong was a mere cog in the machine. He sent him away with a touch of superciliousness. But—no sooner was he alone than he rang up Morris.
"Come over at once," he ordered. "I've changed my mind. I've got another message for you to take up there with you."
It would have exasperated him to see Armstrong as he returned to his own offices. The Westerner had lost all in a moment that air of stolidity under which he had been for several months masking his anxiety. He moved along whistling softly; he joked with the elevator boy; he shut himself in his private office, lit a cigar and lay back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, his expression that of a man whose thoughts are delightful company.
X
AMY SWEET AND AMY SOUR
Now that Fosdick saw how he could clear himself, and more, of those he had been variously describing as pryers, peepers, ingrates, traitors and blackmailers, he was chagrined that he had been so near to panic. He couldn't understand it, so he assured himself; with nothing to conceal, with hands absolutely clean, with not an act on the record that was not legitimate, such as the most respectable men in the most respectable circles not only approved but did—with these the conditions, how had he been so upset?