The man sat down weakly and bowed his face in his hands. Presently he looked up.
“I don’t care,” he said. “Come inside.”
At the end of an hour’s talk Arbuthnot, alias Ransom, agreed to everything that Average Jones proposed.
“Mind you,” he said, “I don’t promise I won’t kill him later. But meantime it’ll be some satisfaction to put him down and out politically. You can find me here any time you want me. You say you’ll see Linder to-morrow?”
“To-morrow,” said Average Jones. “‘Look in the next day’s papers for the result.”
Setting his telephone receiver down the Honorable William Linder lost himself in conjecture. He had just given an appointment to his tried and true, but quite impersonal enemy, Mr. Horace Waldemar.
“What can Waldemar want of me?” ran his thoughts. “And who is this friend, Jones, that he’s bringing? Jones? Jones! Jones?!” He tried it in three different accents, without extracting any particular meaning therefrom. “Nothing much in the political game,” he decided.
It was with a mingling of gruffness and dignity that he greeted Mr. Waldemar an hour later. The introduction to Average Jones he acknowledged with a curt nod.
“Want a job for this young man, Waldemar?” he grunted.
“Not at present, thank you,” returned the newspaper owner. “Mr. Jones has a few arguments to present to you.”