The mayor’s frown changed into a derisive sneer. “The People’s Party!” he sneered. “Who are they? I never heard of ’em before.”
“To be quite frank with you, Mr. Mayor,” the Camera Chap replied, with a smile, “neither did I. The party hasn’t been formed yet. Carroll is going to organize it himself out of the Bulletin’s readers.”
Martin Henkle shrugged his shoulders. “If Carroll wants to make an idiot of himself, I can’t stop him, of course,” he growled. “But if he’s got an ounce of sense he’ll accept my proposition, and turn that lean, hungry paper of his into a profitable sheet. You put it up to him, Mr. Hawley, and see what he thinks about it.”
“Very well, Mr. Mayor,” said the Camera Chap politely. “I’ll make it a point to see him before I take the seven o’clock train to New York.”
The latter part of this answer seemed to astonish the mayor. “But you’re not going to take the seven o’clock train to New York,” he protested. “You’re going to stay in Oldham and earn that fifty dollars by making the affidavit.”
“I think not,” the Camera Chap rejoined quietly.
“Suppose we make it a hundred dollars instead of fifty?”
Hawley shook his head. “Not if you were to make it a hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Mayor!” he declared.
The tone in which he said it ought to have convinced Martin Henkle that it was useless to attempt to alter his decision, but the latter did not quite give up hope of getting that affidavit. He knew that newspaper photographers were poorly paid, as a rule, and, not supposing that Hawley was any exception to that rule, he thought that a hundred dollars must look like a lot of money to him. Even though he refused it now, he no doubt would change his mind after he had had a little time to consider the many things he could do with that sum.
“Well, think it over, Mr. Hawley,” the mayor said. “No use deciding hastily. If you change your mind before the New York train leaves, drop in here again and let me know. I’ll be at the city hall until then. Remember, you get that hundred just as soon as you put your signature to the affidavit.”