Then the Senator took another grip on his cigar with bared teeth and began to march again.
"Corson, what's going to be done with that blue-blazed understudy of
Ananias?"
"Depend on the wrath of Heaven, perhaps," said the Senator, sarcastically. "I haven't had time to look in Holy Writ this morning and ascertain just what kind of a lie Ananias told. But whatever it was, it was tame beside what Morrison told that mob about me last night."
"You've had your fling at me about my exclusiveness! What are you putting out yourself this morning in the way of statements?" The Governor banged his fist down on the newspapers which littered the study table.
"Nothing! Not yet!"
"I've got to have my self-respect with me when I deliver my inaugural address this forenoon. The only way I can possess it is by ramming Morrison into jail."
"On what ground, may I ask?"
"Interference with the Chief Executive of this state! Inciting the mob against the militia! Putting state property in danger. Forgery—contempt of court! I'll appeal to the judges to act. I'll call in the attorney-general. You and I were forcibly detained!"
"Yes, we might allege abduction," was Corson's dry rejoinder. "Our helplessness in the hands of a usurper would win a lot of public sympathy."
"I tell you, we would have the sympathy of the people," asserted the
Governor, too angry to be anything else than literal.