“You know him, do you?” asked the Lieutenant. “Hello, Bates! Have they put you on the Society notes?”
“I'm hunting interviews,” replied the other. “How do you do, Mr. Montague? Glad to see you again.”
“Come up,” said the Lieutenant, “and have a seat.”
“I was talking to Mr. Montague about the armour-plate frauds,” he added, when the other had drawn up a chair. “I told him you knew the story of the Government's investigation. Bates comes from Pittsburg, you know.”
“Yes, I know it,” Montague replied.
“That was the first newspaper story I ever worked on,” said Bates. “Of course, the Pittsburg papers didn't print the facts, but I got them all the same. And afterwards I came to know intimately a lawyer in Pittsburg who had charge of a secret investigation; and every time I read in the newspapers that old Harrison has given a new library, it sets my blood to boiling all over again.”
“I sometimes think,” put in the other, “that if somebody could be found to tell that story to the American people, they would rise up and drive the old scoundrel out of the country.”
“You could never bring it home to him,” said Bates; “he's too cunning for that. He has always turned his dirty work over to other people. You remember during the big strike how he ran away and left the job to William Roberts; and after it was all over, he came back smiling.”
“And then buying out the Government to keep himself from being punished!” said the Lieutenant, savagely.
Montague turned and looked at him. “What is that?”