"Listen to me, Senator. Didn't you accept fifty thousand dollars of common stock in the United Traction Companies? Are you going to give that back? Will Crockett let you give it back? Not he! Have you forgotten how we cornered the vote in Kankakee County when you ran six years ago? Crockett knows about that. The whole crowd know it. And what about that nice little honorarium you received for your vote in the Senate on the last amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act? If you've forgotten it, the men who put it up haven't! Do you think they'll let you go off like this? As long as you play the game and keep your good looks and can make your popular speeches they'll keep you in the Senate, and the good things will come your way. They'll get you a Cabinet job if you want it. Just say the word. But if you throw them over, they'll turn on you. These little things I've been reminding you of will leak out. Man alive, you're liable to end in the pen!"
"Perhaps," said Merriam, "but I shouldn't go alone. A man named Thompson would go with me, eh? And maybe even Mr. Crockett. And others I might name." (Merriam wished he could name them.)
"That for your threats!" he finished grandly and snapped his fingers, thanking heaven for the rôle of villain he had enacted in a certain college melodrama, in connection with which he had, by diligent practice, acquired the not common art of snapping one's fingers effectively.
Thompson, who, had unwontedly removed his cigar from his mouth at Merriam's speech, now backed away from the huddled figure.
"You think you'd do that!" he said, in a voice in which cynical scorn contended with something a little like fright.
"Not unless I am forced to," said Merriam. "But I have chosen a new course, and I mean to follow it."
But Thompson, standing solidly in the spot to which he had retreated, as if he had "dug in" there, restored his cigar to the accustomed corner of his face and narrowed his little eyes till they were hideously smaller than usual.
"It's unfortunate, Senator," he said, with a kind of exaggerated suavity, "that this reform in your public morals last night was not accompanied by a corresponding change in your private morals."
"What do you mean?" asked Merriam quickly, and his voice faltered ever so little, a fact which the other did not miss.
"Oh, you were known, you know, at Reiberg's Place. You told everybody who you were, I understand. You must have been pretty gay. Celebrating your new virtue, I suppose! But handing fifty-dollar bills to dance-hall girls isn't quite the line for a Reform League hero, Senator! And we know where you went afterwards. She's a pretty little thing, but she's not in the Reform League picture! Suppose we say nothing about the United Traction stock or the Kankakee County vote or the Interstate Commerce business or any other little incidents of the past like that, but just start with this little affair of last night. How will that mix with pure politics, Senator?"