"If you want to talk to me you know where to find me! Good-by!"

"Wait! Wait! What time will you be in?"

"The paper goes to press at two-thirty. Any time after then."

"I'll drop around before three."

Four hours later Bruce was glancing through that afternoon's paper,
damp from the press, when there entered his office a stout, half-bald
man of sixty-five, with loose, wrinkled, pouchy skin, drooping nose,
and a mouth--stained faintly brown at its corners--whose cunning was
not entirely masked by a good-natured smile. One eye had a shrewd and
beady brightness; the gray film over the other announced it without
sight. This was "Blind Charlie" Peck, the king of Calloway County
politics until Blake had hurled him from his throne.

Bruce greeted the fallen monarch curtly and asked him to sit down.
Bruce did not resume his seat, but half leaned against his desk and
eyed Blind Charlie with open disfavour.

The old man settled himself and smiled his good-natured smile at the
editor.

"Well, Mr. Bruce, this is mighty dry weather we're having."

"Yes. What do you want?"

"Well--well--" said the old man, a little taken aback, "you certainly
do jump into the middle of things."

"I've found that the quickest way to get there," retorted Bruce. "You
know there's no use in you and me wasting any words. You know well
enough what I think of you."

"I ought to," returned Blind Charlie, dryly, but with good humour.
"You've said it often enough."

"Well, that there may be no mistake about it, I'll say it once more.
You're a good-natured, good-hearted, cunning, unprincipled, hardened
old rascal of a politician. Now if you don't want to say what you came
here to say, the same route that brings you in here takes you out."

"Come, come," said the old man, soothingly. "I think you have said a
lot of harder things than were strictly necessary--especially since we
both belong to the same party."

"That's one reason I've said them. You've been running the party most
of your life--you're still running it--and see what you've made of
it. Every decent member is ashamed of it! It stinks all through the
state!"

Blind Charlie's face did not lose its smile of imperturbable good
nature. It was a tradition of Calloway County that he had never lost
his temper.

"You're a very young man, Mr. Bruce," said the old politician, "and
young blood loves strong language. But suppose we get away from
personalities, and get away from the party's