"As a cigar sign. How does the Boss take it?"
"Urbanely, as always. He's silkier every time I see him." Bowers's memory lingered upon the soft-spoken interview with the great state leader.
"Well?" Shelby jogged him crisply.
"He knows all about Graves—as he knows about everybody. Says he has met the scholar in politics before. Do you remember how he took care of that kid-gloved aggregation which tried to run him out of business a year or so ago? He dumped this distinguished kicker into the cabinet, had another made a plenipotentiary, foisted off number three into some windy commission on the other side of the planet, and so on down the list. They said it seemed to be in the air that harmony should prevail."
Shelby laughed.
"The Boss is the smoothest made," he owned. "What does he advise in this case?"
Bowers leaned forward importantly.
"What do you think the young man would say to an author's job—some
French or Italian consulate?"
"I'll tell you what I say: if the Boss advised that, he's growing senile."
"I didn't say he advised it. He merely suggested that literary people bit at that kind of bait. As a matter of fact, he didn't advise anything. He said if we couldn't fix things with the O'Rourke crowd, that the situation would have to develop a bit."