Katherine heard, her mouth hardened, a certain defiance came into her manner. But she went straight ahead seeking evidence to support her suspicion.
Every day made her feel more keenly her need of intimate knowledge about the city’s political affairs; then, unexpectedly, and from an unexpected quarter, an informant stepped out upon her stage. Several times Old Hosie Hollingsworth had spoken casually when they had chanced to pass in the building or on the street. One day his lean, stooped figure appeared in her office and helped itself to a chair.
“I see you haven’t exactly made what Charlie Horn, in his dramatic criticisms, calls an uproarious and unprecedented success,” he remarked, after a few preliminaries.
“I have not been sufficiently interested to notice,” was her crisp response.
“That’s right; keep your back up,” said he. “I’ve been agin about everything that’s popular, and for everything that’s unpopular, that ever happened in this town. I’ve been an ‘agin-er’ for fifty years. They’d have tarred and feathered me long ago if there’d been any leading citizen unstingy enough to have donated the tar. Then, too, I’ve had a little money, and going through the needle’s eye is easy business compared to losing the respect of Westville so long as you’ve got money—unless, of course,” he added, “you’re a female lawyer. I tell you, there’s no more fun than stirring up the animals in this old town. Any one unpopular in Westville is worth being friends with, and so if you’re willing——”
He held out his thin, bony hand. Katherine, with no very marked enthusiasm, took it. Then her eyes gleamed with a new light; and obeying an impulse she asked:
“Are you acquainted with political conditions in Westville?”
“Me acquainted with——” He cackled. “Why, I’ve been setting at my office window looking down on the political circus of this town ever since Noah run aground on Mount Ararat.”
She leaned forward eagerly.
“Then you know how things stand?”