"Oh," said McDevitt, with a loyal shake of negation and a smile of assent. "No, I couldn't."
"I'm sure—"
"And then I'm going to Philadelphia on Saturday morning to stay over Sunday. I wish you'd asked me earlier."
"So do I," murmured H. Rutgers, with conviction and despair judiciously admixed.
The secretary had meant to quiz H. Rutgers about the association, but H. Rutgers's manner and words disarmed suspicion. It was not that H. Rutgers always bluffed, but that he always bluffed as he did, that makes his subsequent career one of the most interesting chapters of our political history.
"And here's the permit," said the secretary.
H. Rutgers, without looking at it, put it in his pocket as if it were all a matter of course. It strengthened the secretary's belief that non-suspiciousness was justified.
"Thanks, very much," said H. Rutgers. "I am, I still repeat, very sorry that neither you nor the Mayor can come." He paid to the Mayor's eloquent secretary the tribute of a military salute and left the room.