“I’m not fighting shy of you, Uncle Deck. I’m a business man, and—”
He turned sideways to me and switched his arm furiously, as if he held a goad and was trying to start a balky steer.
“You come along over to my office,” he commanded with a grate in his tones. “This isn’t a matter to blart about on a street corner.”
I followed him. He locked the door behind us.
“You know that I have been elected first selectman of this town?”
“Yes, Uncle Deck. I’m glad the citizens—”
“Yah, for the citizens! First and last, it has cost me five thousand dollars to get this office. And it’s for their own good I worked to get it—and they thought it was only to satisfy my grudge. That’s all the credit a man gets from the fools who vote. But I’m in this office now—I’m headed straight for my mark—and the man who gets in my way will be bored like a cheese target! Do you hear that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They know enough in this town to keep out of my way! I have trained ’em. You don’t dare to come back here, do you—my own nephew—and get in my way?”
“I’m only attending to my business.”