I waited, by no means free from uneasiness and anxiety, from a certain lack of self-respect that was unfamiliar. Mr. Young, the Colonel explained, was a legal light in Galesburg, near Elkington,—the Railroad lawyer there. And when at last Mr. Young appeared he proved to be an oily gentleman of about forty, inclining to stoutness, with one of those “blue,” shaven faces.
“Want me, Colonel?” he inquired blithely, when the door had closed behind him; and added obsequiously, when introduced to me, “Glad to meet you, Mr. Paret. My regards to Mr. Watling, when you go back.
“Alf,” demanded the Colonel, “what do you know of this fellow Krebs?”
Mr. Young laughed. Krebs was “nutty,” he declared—that was all there was to it.
“Won't he—listen to reason?”
“It's been tried, Colonel. Say, he wouldn't know a hundred-dollar bill if you showed him one.”
“What does he want?”
“Oh, something,—that's sure, they all want something.” Mr. Young shrugged his shoulder expressively, and by a skillful manipulation of his lips shifted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other without raising his hands. “But it ain't money. I guess he's got a notion that later on the labour unions'll send him to the United States Senate some day. He's no slouch, either, when it comes to law. I can tell you that.”
“No—no flaw in his—record?” Colonel Varney's agate eyes sought those of Mr. Young, meaningly.
“That's been tried, too,” declared the Galesburg attorney. “Say, you can believe it or not, but we've never dug anything up so far. He's been too slick for us, I guess.”