"Couldn't you find any one else to do your dirty work but your own brother?"
"May," I said, "you look as if you had a gun trained on me. Fire away, only make it something new. I am tired of that old matter about the judge. 'Most everybody has forgotten all about that except you and Sarah."
"It's something new, fast enough, Van; but it isn't any better," she retorted. "Couldn't you find any one else to do your dirty work but your own brother?"
"What's the matter now?"
"Show him the article, Will."
Will unbuttoned his coat and reached for his inner pocket. From it he hauled out a bulky newspaper, which he handed me. It was a copy of the Sunday Texas World, and a front page article was heavily pencilled.
"That's too much, Van," he protested solemnly, handing me the paper. "Read it."
"Yes, read it all!" May added. The three were silent while I ran through the article. It was the usual exaggerated sort of newspaper stuff purporting to describe the means used to secure a piece of railroad legislation, in which I and some New York men were interested. The sting lay in the last paragraph:—
"It is commonly understood that the lobby which has been working for the past winter in the interest of this rotten bill is maintained by a group of powerful capitalists, dominated by the head of a large Chicago packing company. This gentleman, who suddenly shot into publicity the past winter as the result of an unusually brazen attempt to corrupt a Chicago judge, has opened his office not three blocks from the state Capitol, and has put his brother in charge of the corruptionist forces.... The deserving legislators of our state may soon expect to reap a rich harvest!"