"Did Blount lose anything?"
"That's the queer part of it. Blount won't say much about it; and this morning he went around to police headquarters and told the chief to drop the matter, giving as his reason that he was too busy to prosecute the fellow even if he was caught."
To a disinterested observer it might have seemed a little singular that the vice-president made no further comment upon the burglary. As a matter of fact, his next question completely ignored it.
"What has Blount been doing this week?" he asked.
"He has spoken twice; once at Arequipa and once at Hellersville. I understand he has engagements enough to keep him out of town right up to election day."
"That is good," was the nodded approval. "He would only be in the way here at the capital." And then pointedly to Gantry: "Any more of that nonsense about putting a barrel of powder under us and blowing us all up if we don't build the freight tariffs over to suit his notion?"
"A good bit more of it," Gantry admitted reluctantly. "The other day he went so far as to set a time limit; gave me three days of grace in which to file the public notice of the change in rates."
"What did you do?"
"I filed the notice—taking care that the only copy should be the one I sent to Blount's office."
The vice-president looked coldly at his division traffic manager.