"Or Tammanyism!" interjected Enoch.
"They are equally menacing in my mind," said the older man. "As you know, too, Huntingdon, there has been a quiet but very active minority very much against you. They have spent years trying to get something on you, and they've never succeeded. But—well, you understand mob psychology better than I do—if Brown evolves a slogan, a clever phrase, built about your gambling propensities, it will damn you far more effectively than if he had proved that you played crooked politics or did something really harmful to the country."
Enoch nodded. "Whom do you think Brown is for, Mr. President?"
"Has it ever occurred to you that Brown often picks up Fowler's policies and quietly pushes them?"
Again Enoch nodded and the President went on, "Brown never actively plays Fowler's game. There's an old story that an ancient quarrel separates them. But word has been carefully passed about that there is to be a dinner at the Willard to-morrow night, of the nature of a love feast, at which Fowler and Brown are to fall on each other's necks with tears."
Enoch got up from his chair and prowled about the great room restlessly, then he stood before the chief executive.
"Mr. President, why shouldn't Fowler go to the White House? He's a brilliant man. He's done notable service as Secretary of State. I don't think the cabinet has contained his equal for twenty-five years. He has given our diplomatic service a distinction in Europe that it never had before. He has a good following in the party. Perhaps the best of the old conservatives are for him. I don't like his attitude on the Mexican trouble and sometimes I have felt uneasy as to his entire loyalty to you. Yet, I am not convinced that he would not make a far more able chief executive than I?"
"Suppose that he openly ties to Brown, Huntingdon?"
"In that case," replied Enoch slowly, "I would feel in duty bound to interfere."
"And if you do interfere," persisted the President, "you realize fully that it will be a nasty fight?"