“What are you trying to do? Provoke a fight?” retorted the other fiercely.
“Make you wipe out that council of Germans.”
“I won’t be bulldozed and blackmailed!” shouted Embree in the loud wrath of a weak man cornered.
“Then it’s the lynching party and the end of you politically. We’ll have an interview with Rappelje in this evening’s paper. He’ll talk. That silent kind always do, once they break over.”
The Governor collapsed.
“Wait!” he pleaded. “Give me time to think.”
He walked to the window and stared out toward the east—his Mecca—Washington. When he turned, his face was so haggard that Jeremy felt a stab of remorse; but Embree contrived to summon the fleeting wraith of that once bounteous smile.
“You’ve got me,” he admitted. “I’ll make another list. Wait while I outline it.”
“No. I’ve got to go to the office.”
“Come back here in an hour, then. I’ll have it ready.” The hour Jeremy put in in outlining to Galpin and Verrall the probable new course of the paper. Galpin was grimly pleased.