"When is this thing to be done?" he demanded, when the temperamental gods were appeased a little.
Hildreth shrugged.
"I have told you all I could, and rather more than I had any right to. Open the door behind you, won't you? The air is positively sulphurous."
Kent opened the door, entirely missing the point of the sarcasm in his heat.
"But you must have some idea," he insisted.
"I haven't; any more than the general one that they won't let the grass grow under their feet."
"No. God blast the whole—I wish I could swear in Sanscrit. The mother-tongue doesn't begin to do justice to it. Now I know what Bucks meant when he told me to take my railroad, if I could get it. He had the whole thing coopered up in a barrel at that minute."
"I take it you have no alternative to this," said the editor, tapping the pile of affidavits.
"Not a cursed shred of an idea! And, Hildreth—" he broke off short because once again the subject suddenly grew too large for coherent speech.
Hildreth disentangled himself from the legs of his chair and stood up to put his hands on Kent's shoulders.