The governor turned away and walked to the window, nursing his burned fingers. When he faced about it was to return to the charge.
"Kent, what is it you want? Say it in two words."
"Candidly, I didn't know, until a few minutes ago, Governor. It began with a determination to break your grip on my railroad, I believe."
"You can have your railroad, if you can get it—and be damned to it, and to you, too!"
"I said it began that way. My sole idea in gathering up this evidence against you and your accomplices was to whittle out a club that would make you let go of the Trans-Western. For two weeks I have been debating with myself as to whether I should buy you or break you; and half an hour before you came, I went to the bank and took these papers out, meaning to go and hunt you up."
"Well?" said the governor, and the word bared his teeth because his lips were dry.
"I thought I knew, in the old Gaston days, how many different kinds of a scoundrel you could be, but you've succeeded in showing me some new variations in the last few minutes. It's a thousand pities that the people of a great State should be at the mercy of such a gang of pirates as you and Hendricks and Meigs and MacFarlane, and——"
"Break it off!" said Bucks.
"I'm through. I was merely going to add' that I have concluded not to buy you."
"Then it's to be war to the knife, is it?"