"There's one thing I don't quite see, and that is your real reason for wanting him for governor. Tell me that, will you, Colonel?"
Colonel Morehead took his cigar from his mouth, and thrusting his face close to Wilkinson's, he said, speaking very distinctly so that his client should not misunderstand his meaning:
"Because, my dear Peter, after you've spent your millions on appeals and bribes and legal curlyques—when you find at the end of the race that a ten-year term is still staring you in the face, it will be a deuced comfortable thing, Peter, to know that up in Albany you've got a friend, a partisan, a son-in-law who's got the power to pardon."
There was a pregnant pause in which both men watched each other with a curious expression on their faces. Finally Wilkinson rose and strode around the end of the desk, and holding out his hand, he said:
"Colonel, I've been curt and disagreeable in my talk to you. I want to say now that I take back everything, except the good things, that I've said. You're a wonder—a perfect wonder!"
"Remember, I'm to manage this campaign," warned the Colonel. "Everything will be done from the outside. No one, not even Leslie nor Beekman, must know a word about it. You promise?"
"I promise to keep my hands off," agreed Wilkinson, but the next instant he added: "Come to think of it, though, I don't see why we have to do it. I'm sure that my conviction will never get that far. If necessary I'll buy up every judge from here to Washington."