“I had better come and see YOU? I—! Well, sir! WELL! I am not accustomed—”
“I know, but I think you'd better. It's dirty weather, and I've got cold somehow or other. I ain't feelin' quite up to the mark, so I cal'late I'll stay in port much as I can. You come right down. I'll be in my room, and the hotel folks 'll tell you where 'tis. I'll be waitin' for you.”
Mr. Atkins breathed hard. In his present frame of mind he would have liked to deliver a blast into that transmitter which would cause the person at the other end of the line to shrivel under its heat. But he was a politician of long training, and he knew that such blasts were sometimes expensive treats. It might be well to hear what his enemy had to say. But as to going to see him—that was out of the question.
“I do not,” he thundered, “I do not care to continue this conversation. If—if you wish to see me, after what has taken place between us, I am willing, in spite of personal repugnance, to grant you a brief interview. My servants will admit you here at nine o'clock to-morrow morning. But I tell you now, that your interference with this appropriation matter is as useless as it is ridiculous and impudent. It is of a piece with the rest of your conduct.”
“All right, Heman, all right,” was the calm answer. “I don't say you've got to come. I only say I guess you'd better. I'm goin' back to Bayport tomorrer, early. And if I was you I'd come and see me to-night.”
“I have no wish to see you. Nor do I care to talk with you further. That appropriation—”
“Maybe it ain't all appropriation.”
“Then I cannot understand—”
“I know, but I understand. I've come to understand consider'ble many things in the last fortni't. There! I can't holler into this machine any longer. I've been clear out to 'Frisco and back in eleven days, and I got cold in those blessed sleepin' cars. I—”
The receiver fell from the congressman's hand. It was a difficult object to pick up again. Heman groped for it in a blind, strangely inadequate way. Yet he wished to recover it very much.