"Who were 'the powers that be' in Hathaway's case, Dick?" he inquired.
"I can't tell you that; honestly, I can't, Evan," was the anxious refusal. "Don't ask me."
"All right; then I shall assume that Mr. McVickar was responsible," said Blount calmly, thus proving that he had not taken his degree in the law school for nothing.
"Oh, hold on! You mustn't do that, either!" protested the man who was figuring most unwillingly as the occupant of the witness stand.
"Thank you," returned the postgraduate, with the true Blount smile. "Now I know that it was my father. No; you needn't deny it; I suppose it was for some good reason that this man was sent to teach me how to play the game—as reasons go in practical politics. But we are side-stepping the real issue. I've asked you for a promise: will you give it?"
"I—I can't give it, Evan, and hold my job; that's God's own truth!"
"No; it isn't God's truth—it's the other kind. But that was about what I expected you to say. Now hear my side of it: if you don't clean house—you and the other officials of the company—I shall not only resign; I shall take the field on the other side and tell what I know and why I've thrown up my job. I've been telling everybody that this is to be a campaign of publicity, and by all that is good and great, I shall keep my word, Dick!"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, you wouldn't do that!" ejaculated the traffic man, now thoroughly alarmed. "Land of glory, Evan! you know too much—a great deal too much!"
The young man who knew too much got up and relighted his cigar with a match taken from Gantry's desk box.