"Well, I tell you now," said Wherry, growing confidential as he approached, "my object isn't blackmail, it's human intercourse. I want a decent word or two, that's all, on my honour."
"But I won't talk to you. I've nothing further to say, that's to be understood."
"You're a confounded bully, that's what you are," observed Wherry, in the playful tones which he might have used to a child or an animal. "Now, I don't want a blooming cent out of you, that's flat—all I ask for is a pleasant word or two just as from man to man."
"Then why did you follow me? And what are you after in Tappahannock?"
Wherry laughed hilariously, while his remarkably fine teeth became the most prominent feature in his face.
"The reply to your question, Smith," he answered pleasantly, "is that I followed you to say that you're an all-fired, first rate sort of a preacher—there's not harm in that much, is there? If you don't want me to chaff you about it, I'll swear to be as dead serious on the subject as if it were my wife's funeral. What I want is your hand down, I say—no matter what is trumps!"
"My hand down for what?" demanded Ordway.
"Just for plain decency, nothing more, I swear. You've started on your road, and I've started on mine, and the square thing is to live and let live, that's as I see it. Leave room for honest repentance to go to work, but don't begin to pull back before it's had a chance to begin. Ain't we all prodigals, when it comes to that, and the only difference is that some of us don't get a bite at the fatted calf."
For a moment Ordway stared in silence to where the other stood with his face turned toward the red light of the sunset.
"We're all prodigals," repeated Wherry, as if impressed by the ethical problem he had uttered unawares, "you and me and the President and every man. We've all fallen from grace, ain't we?—and it's neither here nor there that you and I have got the swine husks while the President has stuffed and eaten the fatted calf."