and give me all the time
you can," was the sullen rejoinder; and in due course the Honorable Jasper
G. Bucks, clothed upon and in his right mind, was enabled to keep his
appointment with the New York attorney at the Mid-Continent Hotel.

But first came the whipping-in of MacFarlane. Bucks went alone to the
judge's room on the floor above the parlor suite. It was now near
midnight, but MacFarlane had not gone to bed. He was a spare man, with
thin hair graying rapidly at the temples and a care-worn face; the face of
a man whose tasks or responsibilities, or both, have overmatched him. He
was walking the floor with his head down and his hands--thin, nerveless
hands they were--tightly locked behind him, when the governor entered.

For a large man the Honorable Jasper was usually able to handle his weight
admirably; but now he clung to the door-knob until he could launch himself
at a chair and be sure of hitting it.

"What's this Hawk's telling me about you, MacFarlane?" he demanded,
frowning portentously.

"I don't know what he has told you. But it is too flagrant, Bucks; I can't
do it, and that's all there is about it." The protest was feebly fierce,
and there was the snarl of a baited animal in the tone.

"It's too late to make difficulties now," was the harsh reply. "You've got
to do it."

"I tell you I can not, and I will not!"

"A late attack of conscience, eh?" sneered the governor, who was sobering
rapidly now. "Let me ask a question or two. How much was that security
debt your son-in-law let you in for?"

"It was ten thousand dollars. It is an honest debt, and I shall pay it."

"But not out of the salary of a circuit judge," Bucks interposed. "Nor yet
out of the fees you make your clerks divide with you. And that isn't all.
Have you forgotten the gerrymander business? How would you like to see the
true inwardness of that in the newspapers?"

The judge shrank as if the huge gesturing hand had struck him.

"You wouldn't dare," he began. "You were in that, too, deeper than----"

Again the governor interrupted him.

"Cut it out," he commanded. "I can reward, and I can punish. You are not
going to do anything technically illegal; but, by the gods, you are going
to walk the line laid down for you. If you don't, I shall give the
documents in the gerrymander affair to the papers the day after you fail.
Now we'll go and see Falkland."

MacFarlane made one last protest.

"For God's sake, Bucks! spare me that.