won't know I've bumped into this mix.
He's got enough worries of his own without bothering about me."

"But Phil,----"

"Listen, Blatch. I know what was in that envelope and where it came
from. I want to know where Uncle Milt stands in connection with this
campaign-fund money, and I want to know what Podmore is trying to do.
What did he want?"

"Podmore isn't as clever as he thinks he is," Ferguson laughed. "He
actually came here to see if he could work out a little graft
proposition by threatening to expose a deal which he imagines has taken
place between the Alderson Construction Company and your uncle. His
mind works that way. He thinks everybody is as crooked as himself and
that all governments are like the late Rives administration. Well, he
knows different now."

"Then no such deal is involved?"

"Good heavens, Phil! Surely you didn't think that? Neither your uncle
nor the Party cares a hang about this money of Nickleby's or
Alderson's, or whoever owns it. We're not interested in what becomes
of it. There's been no deal of any kind."

"That's all I want to know, Blatch," said Kendrick, rising. "It's just
one of those things a fellow bumps into now and then, and if Uncle Milt
needed my help at all I wanted to know it, that's all. I know he's
absolutely on the square, of course."

"Absolutely," assured Ferguson earnestly. "Your uncle is one of the
hardest working, most conscientious and high principled public men of
the day, Phil, and perhaps I have had greater opportunity of knowing
that than most. No man can hold high public office, seemingly, without
paying the penalty of prominence--petty jealousy, envy, deliberate
misrepresentation, even underhand attacks upon his character. A
certain class of political aspirant seems to look on that sort of thing
as part of the game, and you don't want to believe all you see in some
newspapers around election time. That's the way it's been. But false
accusation never yet downed an honest man, Phil. Remember that."

As Kendrick noted the expression on the lawyer's face he thought to
himself that in spite of the marks of dissipation which marred it,
there was a finer side to Blatch Ferguson's character which few would
suspect.

"Please say nothing about my connection with Podmore, Blatch. It was
an unavoidable unpleasantness which is now over. Some day soon when I
have more time I'll drop in and give you all the details."

Miss Margaret Williams