Wilkinson tapped the Colonel on the knee.
"Tell me, Colonel, how much money does that blatherskite get a year?"
"What blatherskite?"
"Gilchrist—the chap that had the nerve to sentence me."
Morehead told him; Wilkinson opened wide his eyes.
"You don't mean to tell me that's all he makes—his salary?"
The Colonel nodded.
"And do you mean to tell me that a man who only gets that much a year has the power to put away a man like me—can do a thing like that? What are we coming to in the United States?"
The Colonel laughed heartily.
"That man Gilchrist is a marked man from now on," went on Wilkinson. "His degradation has begun. He sentenced me all right; and I've sentenced him. I'll see to it that he's hounded out of New York. Any man that tries to set himself up before me—may stand up for five minutes or so, but he'll go down as sure as death and taxes. Every man that's prosecuted me, touched me, laid his hands on me physically or figuratively, is going to get it. I've got a heavy hand, Morehead, and they're going to feel it. They're going to know it's me. Gilchrist will get his, first."