Lovell laughed a little and said there ought to be some way out that wasn't so violent. He was acquainted with Botchey Miller and after all Botchey wasn't such a bad egg. He didn't see any use in getting hard without some reason and he thought Botchey ought to have a couple of days to get his business straight.
Bender began to get sore and he told Lovell it didn't make a — what he thought, that he was running the show.
Lovell's face turned red as a beet and he declared loudly that he had some rights in the matter and that if Bender didn't hold off a while and co-operate with him he'd wire the Adjutant-General and raise some hell.
That sounded like a funny story to Tom Bender and he laughed and told him to go right ahead and wire. He had his orders and he wasn't afraid of any wire.
“Look here,” he said, “these guys have been splitting wide open for months. Did you know that not three hours ago old Jeff Peebles had a mob together to clean the place up?” Jim Lovell winced a little and Bender went on: “Now, there ain't gonna be no more foolishness. They're shutting down pronto.”
Lovell nodded and said all right, his only reason for saying anything was to try to head off a war. Bender asked him what he meant.
“Well,” he said, “you know you can't lock everything tight without something happening. As long as you got an oil field you're gonna have bootlegging and gambling...”
“Yeah, I know. There'll be hip-pocket bootlegging and a man'd be a damn' fool to think he could stop that. There'll be dice shooting and poker games, too... but that'll be when the boys get together. I ain't trying to stop that. It's these organized gangs I'm after.”
“Well,” Lovell said, “I've warned you. Now there's just one more thing: you want me to help you or not?”
“Thanks,” Bender said dryly. “I'll handle it. I wanna know all my trouble's in front.”