"All right," said the visitor placably. "You asked, and I've answered. Now let's come to something more vital to both of us. There is a pretty persistent rumor on the street that you and your associates succeeded in getting a resolution through both houses of Congress at the last session, appointing a committee to investigate this Coronida claim right here on the ground. Nobody seems to have any definite details, and it possibly hasn't occurred to any one that Congress hasn't been in session since Mirapolis was born. But that doesn't matter. The committee is coming: you have engaged rooms for it here in Bongras's. You are expecting the private-car special next week."
"Well?" said the magnate. "You're a pretty good kindergartner. But what of it?"
"Oh, nothing. Only I think you might have taken me in on the little side play. What if I had gone about town contradicting the rumor?"
"Why should you? It's true. The Congressional party will be here next week, and nobody has made any secret of it."
"Still, I might have been taken in," persisted Brouillard suavely. "You'll surely want to give me my instructions a little beforehand, won't you? Just think how easily things might get tangled. Suppose I should say to somebody—to Garner, for example—that the town was hugely mistaken; that no Congressional committee had ever been appointed; that these gentlemen who are about to visit us are mere complaisant friends of yours, coming as your guests, on a junketing trip at your expense. Wouldn't that be rather awkward?"
The mayor of Mirapolis brought his hands together, fist in palm, and for a flitting instant the young engineer saw in the face of the father the same expression that he had seen in the face of the son when Van Bruce Cortwright was struggling for a second chance to kill a man.
"Damn you!" said the magnate savagely; "you always know too much! You're bargaining with me!"
"Well, you have bargained with me, first, last, and all the time," was the cool retort. "On each occasion I have had my price, and you have paid it. Now you are going to pay it again. Shall I go over to the Spot-Light office and tell Harlan what I know?"
"You can't bluff me that way, Brouillard, and you ought to sense it by this time. Do you suppose I don't know how you are fixed?—that you've got money—money that you used to say you owed somebody else—tied up in Mirapolis investments?"
Brouillard rose and buttoned his coat.