“I think I can guess. It was five thousand dollars. I’ll make it ten. Get to work.”
The man, in whom excitement had destroyed his appetite for breakfast, and who had started out in life with the usual negative ideals of honesty, burst into tears. “My God!” he sobbed. “I’ve heard of the third degree. Your eyes bore a hole through one. They hurt, I say. To think that you should come in here and accuse me of taking bribes.”
“Oh, hell, cut it out. Montana may be a great state, but she has her rotten spot like any other. She’s been so debauched the last twenty years by open bribery that I doubt if you could lay your hand on a hundred men in her that haven’t had a roll anywhere from five hundred to twenty thousand dollars passed to them, and pocketed it. Estimable citizens, too, but a man never knows his weak spot until he has a wad of easy money thrust under his nose—or flung over his transom. You are no worse than the rest. Do you take my offer?”
The County Treasurer recovered himself with amazing alacrity. Ten thousand dollars in a lump never had haunted his wildest dreams.
“All right, sir. It’s a bargain. But I want bills. No checks for me.”
“I congratulate you on your foresight! But there have been times in this state when checque books were not opened for months. You shall have it in bills. Where are the records?”
“In the vault there.”
“I’ll sit here. If you attempt to leave the room to go to a telephone I’ll drag you out on the Court House steps and tell the story to the town. Now get to work.”
“I’ll keep my word, sir, and I know you’ll keep yours.” He went into the vault and appeared later trundling out a pile of records, then sat down at a table and concentrated his mind as earnestly as if corruption had never blighted it. Gregory watched him until Mark entered. Then the two men went out into the corridor, standing where they could see the table. Gregory recounted his interview with Mr. John Robinson, and the present sequel.
Mark listened with his mouth open, an expression of profound chagrin loosening the muscles of his cheerful healthy shrewd face.