"Nae pairticular pother withindoors. Muckle powwow wi'out," reported the old man, tersely.
"Then you got a look outside?"
"Aye! When I took the message frae the telegraph laddie at the door."
"Was Joe Lanigan in sight?"
"Aye!"
"It's all right so far, gentlemen," the mayor assured his involuntary conferees. "Joe is on the job with his American Legion boys, as he promised me he'd be. Now I'm going to be perfectly frank and inform you that I have made a promise of my own in this case. I haven't meant to be presumptuous. I don't want you to feel that I've got a swelled head. I'm merely trying to keep my word and carry out a contract on a business oasis. It's only a matter of starting right; then everything can be kept right."
He whirled on Mac Tavish. "Trot down again, Andy. I'm expecting more messages. And keep us posted on happenings!"
"Are such humble persons as North and I are entitled to be let in on any details of your contract, Mister Boss-in-Chief?" inquired the Senator.
"I think the main contract is your own, sir—yours and the Governor's. I don't like to seem too forward in suggesting what it is."
"Nothing you can say or do from now on will seem forward, Morrison. Even if you should order that Hereford steer, there, at the door, to bang us over our heads with his shillalah, it would seem merely like an anticlimax, matched with the rest of your cheek! What's the contract?"