“I don’t want to hear any more from you, Townsend,” he declared. “You are a sick man—and an old man. If you weren’t—”
“Here! here! I’m not sick. And I’m not so darned old that I can’t see through a jellyfish. I saw through you the first time you came into this room. And I saw through what you were up to with this post-office business the minute I heard of it. You probably as good as promised Sim Thacher the post office away back when you were hunting the nomination. You would have come to me about it months ago if you hadn’t figured I was down and out and not worth considering any more. Elisha Cook and the Supreme Court had licked me, and so you thought you could do it. Pshaw!” in huge disgust; “Elisha Cook is a man, whatever else he is.”
The Honorable Mooney drew himself erect. His chest expanded.
“Townsend,” he declaimed, with all the dignity of his platform manner, “I make allowances for you. I realize you are not well. And I suppose it is natural you should be disappointed because your friend—your housekeeper I am told she is now—has lost the post office here. I am sorry for her myself, in a way. But I have the interests of the folks I represent in Congress to consider. It is my duty to think of them and act for their good. Miss Clark has not—no, sir, she has not run that office as it ought to be run. She has neglected it. More than that, she has been spending the public money to hire that worthless brother of—”
“Sshh!” Foster Townsend brought his palm down upon his knee with a crack which startled the representative of an outraged people to silence. “Be still!” ordered the captain. He slowly shook his head. “Well, there!” he went on, in a calmer tone. “That was a real pretty speech of yours, but you needn’t finish it; I can guess the end. I have said more than I meant to say, myself. No use wasting time. Although,” with another momentary outburst, “when I think of how you and your gang worked and schemed to put a lone woman out of her job, I— Humph!... Mooney, she isn’t going to be put out of it. She is going to stay right where she is.”
The Honorable Alpheus stared. Then he smiled, a smile of dignified pity.
“Townsend,” he proclaimed, loftily, “I don’t see what you hope to gain by this sort of thing. Simeon Thacher will be the Harniss postmaster. The appointment is made—or as good as made. That is my final word to you.”
Townsend lifted his hand. “Better wait until you hear mine, Mooney,” he said, warningly. “I was fussing with politics when you were running to school and I have learned enough to know that nothing political is done until it has been done.... I went up to see Senator Gore last week. He and I are old friends.”
A change came over Mr. Mooney’s face. It lost something of its confidence, its high disdain.
“Well—well, I am very glad you did,” he asserted, after an instant’s pause. “Yes, indeed. The Senator is a friend of mine, too, I am proud to say. He knows all about this post office matter. I advised with him before I made up my own mind.”