Keighley said, “Say, young fellah, why don’t yuh read the papers?”
“Oh, I know all about that,” the newspaper man replied. “That’s the way the papers had it. But I saw what happened.”
Keighley rose. “Yuh did, eh? Then what the hell’re yuh botherin’ me about it fer? I got enough to do t’ atten’ to my own bus’ness without pokin’ any nose into newspaper muddles. You atten’ to yer toutin’ an’ I’ll atten’ to my fires.”
“All right, captain,” the reporter called after him as he went out. “I’ll get that story yet.”
(And he got it, too. This is it!)
XIV
DURING that same day, Keighley received various hints, from various go-betweens, that the men in power were prepared to forgive and forget if he would take the first opportunity to “make himself solid” and come into the fold. He “jollied them along,” gave them evasive answers, or turned stupid and failed to understand what they were proposing. (The weather aided him, by making activity uncomfortable even for politicians.) He had the sure hope that the courts would dismiss the charges against Chief Borden and compel his reinstatement under the Civil Service laws. He heard rumors that the Fire Commissioner had had a falling out with “the Boss;” and he expected that with the autumn there might be changes in the department that would settle the whole quarrel. Meanwhile, it was his best policy—and his natural inclination—to stand firm. “I got nuthin’ against the ‘Jiggers,’” he replied to their emissaries. “I never did anythin’ to ’em. There’s no trouble here at all.” And if they pressed upon him the advantages of “getting square up above,” he said, “Well, I’ll think it over. I’ll think it over.”
He even received with such evasions “Tim” Noonan, the leader of the “Sixt’”—Noonan of the suave Irish diplomacy—Noonan who had served with him as a fire laddie in the red-shirt days of the volunteer fire brigade. Wherever Noonan went, he closed the doors behind him; Keighley heard him in a silence that was irritating; and Noonan, in the breathless office, soon arrived at a blood-hot exasperation that kept boiling up red in his face.