"What?" said Sam, rather disliking these constant references to the ancient days.
"I say they listened to John the Baptist!" cried tall Dr. Vivian, slapping one impetuous hand into the other. "Yes, and came running and sweating to the desert, just to get a tongue-lashing from him--the very same old scribes and Pharisees that drive motor-cars down Washington Street to-day! And they'd run to him to-day, never fear! I tell you, there's a voice the heart is never deaf to! And that's what this age needs, Sam,--since you ask me,--a big, fierce prophet on the outskirts of the city; a great, grim, uncompromising hater, with a tongue that bites like a blacksnake whip. By George, they'd listen to him! He couldn't hide where your yellow Huns wouldn't come to him on their knees!"
"Let him do it, then,--go's far as he likes. Only don't ask me ..."
O'Neill had not failed to perceive how the talk wandered from the Labor Commission. Now, drawing on his gloves, he was struck by a humorous thought.
"You're looking for work, for trouble, you say. Why don't you sign on this John the Baptist job yourself?"
Oddly, the small gibe seemed to disconcert the orator. His cheek acquired a pinkness; unexpectedly, too, he seemed to lose the thread of his headlong thesis. However, he brandished his arms, gazing hard.
"That's as it may be! As it may be, my dear fellow! All I ... Ah," he said hurriedly, turning. "One minute.... There's some one knocking...."
And he went striding off with his unequal step toward his visitors' door--not his sick's--though it did seem that "Come in" would really have answered just as well as usual....
The stoutish Commissioner glanced after him, dimly surprised.
Boyhood friends these two, their ways had long parted while the younger followed away the descending fortunes of his father, the inventor of a double-turbine which would never quite work. Their reëstablished intimacy now was of the thorough-going sort: witness Sam's letting him trot along on factory inspection the other day, something he'd have done for no other amateur, not on your life. Yet old V.V. was kind of puzzling at times, as now; wild-talking, then kind of reserved all of a sudden, like pulling down a shade on you. Talked different at different times....