"Exactly, the same man."
"I recollect the story perfectly," I replied. "But what makes you speak of that man?"
"Well, what I am going to say to you concerns that man. He has a very strong notion that if he could only get his rival out of the country in question, he might manage to win his way back to his old position."
"But will the other allow himself to be enticed out of the country? That seems to me to be the question. Besides, it's one of the rules of the game, is it not, that the President shall never cross the Border?"
"That is certainly so, but circumstances alter cases. In this affair, if the man cannot be induced to go out of his own free-will, others must make him do so."
"Rather a risky concern, I should fancy."
"Everything in this world possesses some element of risk," he replied, "whether it is a question of buying Mexican Rails or English Consols, backing a racehorse, or going a long railway journey. In this affair there is a little more than usual, perhaps; at the same time the reward is great."
"On the other hand, supposing you fail," I returned, "what then? You would probably find yourself, in a remarkably short space of time, standing against a wall, with your eyes bandaged, and half-a-dozen rifles preparing to pump lead into you. Have you taken that fact into your calculations?"
"I have not omitted to think of it," he replied gravely, as if it were a point worthy of consideration. "Still, that is not what I am concerned about just at present."
"But what have I to do with this?" I inquired, for, though it seems wonderful now that I should not have thought of it, I had not the very faintest notion of what he was driving at then.