Going to the hotel, Blount shut himself into a telephone booth and tried, ineffectually, to get a long-distance connection with Wartrace Hall. When he finally grew exasperated at the central operator's oft-repeated "line's busy," he called up Gantry to ask if the traffic manager knew anything about the purposes and movements of his father. Gantry did not know, but he knew something else—a thing which proved the leakiness of the railroad telegraph department.
"Come down here and tell me what you mean by sending incendiary telegrams to the vice-president," he commanded, with jesting severity. And with a hard word for the department which had gossiped, Blount went down to the general offices in the station building.
Gantry was busy with the stenographer, but the business was immediately postponed and the clerk dismissed when Blount entered.
"'Tell it out among the heathen,'" the traffic manager quoted jocosely, when the door closed behind the shorthand man.
"There is nothing to tell—more than you seem to know already," snapped Blount morosely. "I have wired my resignation, that's all."
"But why?" persisted Gantry.
"Because I'm not going to be an accessory, either before or after the fact—not if I know it," was the curt rejoinder.
"To the criminal disregard for the laws of this State and the nation which seems to be the underlying motive actuating every move in this corrupt game of politics. Gantry, if you and some others had your just deserts, you would be breaking stone in the penitentiary this blessed minute!"
"Suffering Moses!" gasped the traffic manager. "Somebody must have been hitting you pretty hard. Who was it; some more of the 'little brothers'?"