"I thought you promised me you would just bluff with that note and not go so far, Lige Bemis," said Barclay.
"Did he just bluff with me when he called me a boodler and threw me downstairs in the county convention?"
"Then you lied to me, sir," snapped Barclay.
"Oh, hell, John—come off," sneered Bemis. "Haven't I got a right to lie to you if I want to?"
The two men stared at each other like growling dogs for a moment, and then Barclay turned away with, "What is there in the typhoid talk?"
"Demagogery—that's all. Of course there may be typhoid in the water; but let 'em boil the water."
"But they won't."
"Well, then, if they eat too much of your 'Old Honesty' or drink too much of my water unboiled, they take their own risk. You don't make a breakfast food for hogs, and I can't run my water plant for fools."
"But, Lige," protested Barclay, "couldn't we hitch up the electric plant—"
"Hitch up the devil and Tom Walker, John Barclay. When the wolves got after you, did I come blubbering to you to lay down and take a light sentence?" Barclay did not answer. Bemis continued: "Brace up, John—what's turned you baby when we've got the whole thing won? We didn't kill Hendricks, did we? Are you full of remorse and going to turn state's evidence?"