“I can't do that.”
“Jest hear me out. The city has advertised for tenders for a new Court House and a new Town Hall. The one building should cover both, and be near the middle of the business part. That's so—ain't it? Well, land's hard to get anywhere there, and I've the best lots in the town. I guess” (carelessly) “the contract will run to a million dollars; that should mean two hundred thousand dollars to some one. It's like this, Hutchin's: Would you rather come in with me and make a joint tender, or run for Mayor and be beaten?”
Mr. Hutchings started. Ten years before the proposal would have won him. But now his children were provided for—all except Joe, and his position as Counsel to the Union Pacific Railroad lifted him above pecuniary anxieties. Then the thought of the Professor and May came to him—No! he wouldn't sell himself. But in some strange way the proposition excited him; he felt elated. His quickened pulse-beats prevented him from realizing the enormity of the proposed transaction, but he knew that he ought to be indignant. What a pity it was that Gulmore had made no proposal which he might have accepted—and then disclosed!
“If I understand you, you propose that I should take up this contract, and make money out of it. If that was your business with me, you've made a mistake, and Professor Roberts is right.”
“Hev I?” asked Mr. Gulmore slowly, coldly, in sharp contrast to the lawyer's apparent excitement and quick speech. Contemptuously he thought that Hutchings was “foolisher” than he had imagined—or was he sincere? He would have weighed this last possibility before speaking, if the mention of Roberts had not angered him. His combativeness made him persist:
“If you don't want to come in with me, all you've got to do is to say so. You've no call to get up on your hind legs about it; it's easy to do settin'. But don't talk poppycock like that Professor; he's silly. He talks about the contract for street pavin', and it ken be proved—'twas proved in the 'Herald'—that our streets cost less per foot than the streets of any town in this State. He knows nothin'. He don't even know that an able man can make half a million out of a big contract, an' do the work better than an ordinary man could do it who'd lose money by it At a million our Court House'll be cheap; and if the Professor had the contract with the plans accordin' to requirement to-morrow, he'd make nothin' out of it—not a red cent. No, sir. If I ken, that's my business—and yours, ain't it? Or, are we to work for nothin' because he's a fool?”
While Mr. Gulmore was speaking, Mr. Hutchings gave himself to thought. After all, why was he running for Mayor? The place, as Gulmore said, would be of no use to him. He was weary of fighting which only ended in defeat, and could only end in a victory that would be worthless. Mayor, indeed! If he had a chance of becoming a Member of Congress, that would be different. And across his brain flitted the picture so often evoked by imagination in earlier years. Why not? Gulmore could make it certain. Would he?
“What you say seems plausible enough, but I don't see my way. I don't feel inclined to go into business at my time of life.”
“You don't need to go into the business. I'll see to that.”
“No. I don't need money now particularly.”