"Then I'm through. Give me your key and write me an order on the Security Bank for those papers you are holding."
"No," said Kent, again.
"I say yes!" came the explosive reassertion; and Kent found himself looking down the bright barrel of a pistol thrust into his face across the table.
For a man who had been oftenest an onlooker on the football half of life, Kent was measurably quick and resourceful. In one motion he clamped the weapon and turned it aside; in another he jammed the fire end of his cigar among the fingers of the grasping hand. The governor jerked free with an oath, pain-extorted; and Kent dropped the captured weapon into the table drawer. It was all done in two breaths, and when it was over, Kent flung away the broken cigar and lighted a fresh one.
"That was a very primitive expedient, your Excellency, to say the best of it," he remarked. "Have you nothing better to offer?"
The reply was a wild-beast growl, and taking it for a negative, Kent went on.
"Then perhaps you will listen to my proposal. The papers you are so anxious about are here,"—tapping the envelope on the table. "No, don't try to snatch them; you wouldn't get out of here alive with them, lacking my leave. Such of them as relate to your complicity in the Universal Oil deal are yours—on one condition; that your health fails and you get yourself ordered out of the State for the remainder of your term."
"No!" thundered the governor.
"Very well; you may stay and take a course of home treatment, if you prefer. It's optional."
"By God! I don't know what keeps me from throttling you with my hands!" Bucks got upon his feet, and Kent rose, also, slipping the box envelope into his pocket and laying a precautionary hand on the drawer-pull.