Again the vice-president sprang from his chair, but this time it was to walk the floor with his head bowed and his hands in his pockets. The listener in the musicians' gallery found a seat and sat down to let the intoxicating, overwhelming joy of it all have its will of him. In the fulness of time the tramping magnate who had been so crushingly out-generalled in his own chosen field came to stand before the big man, who was still quietly smoking in the sham-Sheraton arm-chair.
"You spoke of the appointment of a special prosecuting attorney, David," he said in a harsh monotone. "Who will it be?"
"You've guessed it already, I reckon. It'll be the boy, Hardwick. Hemingway will appoint him if he is willing to serve."
"He's taken our retainer!" snapped the vice-president.
"Not much, he hasn't! you hired him for wages, and if he wants to resign—he has resigned, by the way—and take another job, I reckon he can do it without breaking any of the Ten Commandments."
"We can't stand for that—you know we can't."
"No; I don't think you can—not as a corporation. Besides the flock of witnesses that we can drum up, he'll have those letters that we were talking about a while back. You missed fire on that, too, Hardwick. What your man dynamited out of Evan's office safe, and what you destroyed, were only clever copies. The real letters were stolen by the boy's friends, and little as you may believe it, the object of that theft was to give you this last chance. The boy was mighty hot under the collar, and we couldn't be sure that he wouldn't start the fireworks before the band was ready to play. He would have started them, too, if his match hadn't been taken away from him."
Mr. McVickar walked around the other end of the table-desk and sat down heavily.
"You've spoken twice of a 'last chance' David," he said grittingly. "What is it?"
"It's the chance I gave you in the beginning. First, let me tell you what I reckon you're already admitting. You're whipped, Hardwick; your slate's broken, and your man Reynolds hasn't a ghost of a show—he nor any of the others on your string. You haven't made a move that we haven't caught onto just about as soon as you put your fingers on the piece you meant to move. For instance, that little box up there in the beaming just over your head—the one that looks as if it were a part of the house electric installation—is a microphone, and one of your own men helped to put it up. We've got copies of every letter and telegram you've dictated since you had this desk dragged out here a week ago Saturday."