ear out his
adversary. It was an old game with him. Still, the suit disturbed the
value of his bonds, and having other resources, he gleefully decided
to use them.

And thus it fell out that one fine day in April, Trixie Lee, from the
bedraggled outer hem of the social garment down by the banks of the
Sycamore, called to the telephone Robert Hendricks of the town's
purple and fine linen, who dwelt on the hill. He did not recognize her
voice, the first time she called. But shrewd as Judge Bemis was, and
bad as he was, he did not know it all. He did not know that when
Hendricks had received the first anonymous letter three days before,
he had instructed the girls in the telephone office, which he
controlled, to make a record of every telephone call for his office or
his house, and when the woman's voice on the telephone that day
delivered Judge Bemis's message, the moment after she quit talking he
knew with whom he had been talking.

"Is this Mr. Hendricks?" the voice had begun, rather pleasantly. Yes,
it was Mr. Hendricks. "Well, I am your friend, but I don't dare to let
you know my name now; it would be all my life is worth." And Robert
Hendricks grinned pleasantly into the rubber transmitter as he
realized that his trap would work. "Yes, Mr. Hendricks, I am your
friend, and you have a powerful enemy." What with the insinuations in
the _Index_ and the venom that Lige Bemis had been putting into
anonymous circulars during the preliminary waterworks campaign, this
was no news to Mr. Hendricks; so he let the voice go on, "They want
you to dismiss that suit against the waterworks company that you
brought last week." There was a pause for a reply; but none came; then
the voice said, "Are you there, Mr. Hendricks--do you hear me?" And
Mr. Hendricks said that he heard perfectly. "And," went on the voice,
"as your friend I wish you would, too. Do you remember a letter you
once wrote to a woman, asking her to elope with you--a married woman,
Mr. Hendricks?" There was a pause for a reply, and again the voice
asked, "Do you hear, Mr. Hendricks?" and Mr. Hendricks heard; heard in
his soul and was afraid, but his voice did not quaver as he replied,
"Yes, I hear perfectly." Then the voice went on, "Well, they have that
letter--a little note--not over one hundred words, and with no date
on it, and the man who has it also has a photograph of page 234 of a
certain ledger in the county treasurer's office for 1879, and there is
an entr