“Accepting it! I should say not!” was the indignant reply. “What do you take me for? All the money in the world couldn’t make the Bulletin stop fighting Henkle and his gang. But I’m mighty glad to hear the news which Frank has brought. It shows that we’ve got that grafter worried. He must be dead scared, or he wouldn’t have made these overtures of peace.”
The Camera Chap nodded. “Yes, it certainly looks as if he has begun to see ‘the writing on the wall.’ He realizes that the power of the Bulletin is growing, and that it means the finish of him and his gang unless he can swing us over to his side.”
“By the way, Fred,” he added, with a chuckle. “I’ve launched your boom as candidate for the mayoralty of Oldham.”
“Who—what?” exclaimed Carroll in great astonishment.
“Yes; I told Henkle that you intend to be his successor in the city hall.”
The proprietor of the Bulletin stared at him dazedly.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he ejaculated. “What on earth put such an idea into your head?”
“I don’t know,” the Camera Chap replied, with a grin. “It came to me like a flash. I wanted to get his goat, and it seemed to me that would be a good way of going about it. I wasn’t wrong, either. He certainly appeared somewhat jarred by my announcement.”
“Oh, I see,” said Carroll. “It was merely a joke?”
“Not at all,” the Camera Chap rejoined. “Now that I’ve launched your boom, Fred, you’ve got to run. Just think what a fine thing it would be for the Bulletin if its proprietor were the mayor of the town!”