"Charley, I got to have some more money—need it in my business. Can't you touch old John Markley for me again—say for about five hundred on that hitching rack case? Sister Worthington is kind of wanting me to get action on her case."
Hedrick was dumb with rage, but Handy thought it was acquiescence. He went on:
"You just step down to the bank and say: 'John, I've noticed Ab Handy actin' kind of queer about that hitching rack case.' That's all you need say, and pretty soon I'll step in and say: 'John, I don't see how I can help doin' something for Aunt Julia Worthington.' And I believe I can tap him for five hundred more easy enough. I got an idea he is mightily in earnest about beating her in that suit."
When Hedrick got his breath, which was churning and wheezing in his throat, he cut Handy's sentence off with:
"You human razor-back shoat—you swill-barrel gladiator, why—why—I—I——" And Hedrick sparred for wind and went on before Handy realised the situation. "Ab Handy, I spat on the dust and breathed into the chaff that made you, and put you on the mud-sills of hell to dry, and I've got a right to turn you back into fertiliser, and I'm going to do it. Git out of here—git out of this office, or I——"
And the hulking form of Hedrick fell on the bag of shaking bones that was Handy and battered him through the latched door into the crowded outer office; and Handy picked himself up and ran like a wolf, turning at the door to show his teeth before he scampered through the hall and scurried down the stairs. As Hedrick came puffing out of the broken door his coat snagged on a splinter. He grinned as he unfastened himself:
"Well, the snail seems to be on the thorn; the lark certainly is on the wing.
"God's in his heaven.
All's right with the world!"
And he batted his eyes at the group of loafing local statesmen in his office as he viewed the wreckage, and went to the telephone and ordered a carpenter, without wasting any words on the crowd.
We decided long ago that the source of Hedrick's power in politics was what we called his "do it now" policy. All politicians have schemes. Hedrick puts his through before he talks about them. If he has an idea that satisfies his judgment, he makes it a reality in the quickest possible time. That is why the fellows around town who hate Hedrick call him the rattlesnake, and those who admire him call him the Wrath of God. When he put up the telephone receiver he reached for his hat and bolted from the office under a full head of steam. He went directly to John Markley's back office, got the check that Markley had given to Handy, dictated a letter in the anteroom of Markley's office to a Kansas City plate-maker, inclosed fifty dollars as he passed the draft counter, and, as he swung by the post-office he mailed the Handy check with instructions to have ten photographic half-tone cuts made of the check and mailed back to Hedrick in four days.