."

Gantry's playful mood fell away from him like a cast-off garment.

"I don't quite believe I'd do that, if I were you, Evan. There are
pie-eaters on both sides in every political contest, and while they
can't do any cause any great amount of good, they can often do a good
bit of harm. I wouldn't be too hard on them, if I were you."

"What would you do?--or, rather, what did you do when you were managing
the State campaign two years ago?" inquired Blount pointedly.

"I cut the pie," said the traffic manager simply.

"In other words, you let this riffraff blackmail you and, incidentally,
put a big black mark against the company's good name."

"Oh, no; I wouldn't put it quite that strong. Not many of these little
fellows ask for money, or expect it. A free ride now and then in the
varnished cars is about all they look for."

"But you can't give them passes under the interstate law," protested the
purist.

"Not outside of the State, of course. But inside of the State boundaries
it's our own business."

"You mean it _was_ our own business, previous to the passage of the
State rate law two years ago," corrected Blount.

"It is our own business to this good day--in effect. That part of the
law has been a complete dead-letter from the day the governor signed it.
Why, bless your innocent heart, Evan, the very men who argued the
loudest and voted the most spitefully for it came to me for their return
tickets home at the end of the session. Of course, we kept the letter of
the law. It says that no 'free passes' shall be given. We didn't issue
passes; we merely gave them tickets out of the case and charged them up
to 'expense.'"

"Faugh!" said Blount, "you make me sick! Gantry, it's that same childish
whipping of the devil around the stump by the corporations--an expedient
that wouldn't deceive the most ignorant voter that ever cast a
ballot--it's that very thing that has stirred the whole nation up to
this unreasonable fight against corporate capital. Don't you see it?"

Gantry shrugged his shoulders.

"I guess I take the line of the least resistance--like the majority of
them," was the colorless reply. "When it comes down to practical
politics--"

"Don't say 'practical politics' to me, Dick!" rasped the reformer.
"We've got the strongest argument in the world in the fact that the
present law is an unfair one, needing modification or repeal. We mustn't
spoil that argument by becoming law-breakers ourselves and