In the Arena Part 2

"What's Knowles going to do?"

"He's sworn to expose the whole deal, as you've just told me you knew; one of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand Jury and sending you and Genz over the road, that's all!"

Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last summer's straw hat-brim.

"He can't hardly afford it, can he," he drawled, "he being the representative of the law and order and purity people? They're mighty sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns 'em."

"I don't understand," said I.

"Well, I hardly reckoned you would," he returned. "But I expect if Mr. Knowles wants it warm all round, _I'm_ willing. We may be able to do some of the heating up, ourselves."

This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. "You mean, then," I said, "that you think you've got a line on something our boys have been planning--like the way we got onto the closet trick--and you're going to show _us_ up because we can't control Knowles; that you hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I tell you plainly I know I can't shut him up, and you can go ahead and do us the worst you can."

"Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered," he answered, "that isn't what I mean, though I don't know as I'd be above making such a threat if I thought it was my only way to keep out of the penitentiary. I know as well as you do that such a threat would only give Knowles pleasure. He'd take the credit for forcing me to expose you, and he's convinced that everything of that kind he does makes him solider with the people and brings him a step nearer this chair I'm sitting in, which he regards as a step itself to the governors.h.i.+p and Heaven knows what not. He thinks he's detached himself from you and your organization till he stands alone.

_That_ boy's head was turned even before you fellows nominated him. He's a wonder. I've been noticing him long before he turned up as a candidate, and I believe the great surprise of his life was that John the Baptist didn't precede and herald _him_. Oh, no, going for you wouldn't stop him--not by a thousand miles. It would only do him good."

"Well, what _are_ you going to do? Are you going to see him?"

"No, sir!" Lafe spoke sharply.

"Well, well! What?"

"I'm not bothering to run around asking audiences of Farwell Knowleses; you ought to know that!"

"Given it up?"

"Not exactly. I've sent a fellow around to talk to him."

"What use will that be?"

Gorgett brought his feet down off the desk with a bang.

"_Then_ he can come to see _me_, if he wants to. D'you think I've been fool enough not to know what sort of man I was going up against? D'you think that, knowing him as I do, I've not been ready for something of this kind? And that's all you'll get out of _me_, this afternoon!"

And it was all I did.

It may have been about one o'clock, that night, or perhaps a little earlier, as I lay tossing about, unable to sleep because I was too much disturbed in my mind--too angry with myself--when there came a loud, startling ring at the front-door bell. I got up at once and threw open a window over the door, calling out to know what was wanted.

"It's I," said a voice I didn't know--a queer, hoa.r.s.e voice. "Come down."

"Who's 'I'?" I asked.

"Farwell Knowles," said the voice. "Let me in!"

I started, and looked down.

He was standing on the steps where the light of a street-lamp fell on him, and I saw even by the poor glimmer that something was wrong; he was white as a dead man. There was something wild in his att.i.tude; he had no hat, and looked all mixed-up and disarranged.

"Come down--come down!" he begged thickly, beckoning me with his arm.

I got on some clothes, slipped downstairs without wakening my wife, lit the hall light, and took him into the library. He dropped in a chair with a quick breath like a sob, and when I turned from lighting the gas I was shocked by the change in him since afternoon. I never saw such a look before. It was like a rat you've seen running along the gutter side of the curbstone with a terrier after it.

"What's the matter, Farwell?" I asked.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" he whispered.

"What's happened?"

"It's hard to tell you," said he. "Oh, but it's hard to tell."

"Want some whiskey?" I asked, reaching for a decanter that stood handy. He nodded and I gave him good allowance.

"Now," said I, when he'd gulped it down, "let's hear what's turned up."

He looked at me kind of dimly, and I'll be shot if two tears didn't well up in his eyes and run down his cheeks. "I've come to ask you,"

he said slowly and brokenly, "to ask you--if you won't intercede with Gorgett for me; to ask you if you won't beg him to--to grant me--an interview before to-morrow noon."

"_What!_"

"Will you do it?"

"Certainly. Have you asked for an interview with him yourself?"

He struck the back of his hand across his forehead--struck hard, too.

"Have I tried? I've been following him like a dog since five o'clock this afternoon, beseeching him to give me twenty minutes' talk in private. He _laughed_ at me! He isn't a man; he's an iron-hearted devil! Then I went to his house and waited three hours for him. When he came, all he would say was that you were supposed to be running this campaign for me, and I'd better consult with you. Then he turned me out of his house!"

"You seem to have altered a little since this afternoon." I couldn't resist that.

"This afternoon!" he shuddered. "I think that was a thousand years ago!"

"What do you want to see him for?"

"What for? To see if there isn't a little human pity in him for a fellow-being in agony--to end my suspense and know whether or not he means to ruin me and my happiness and my home forever!"

Farwell didn't seem to be regarding me so much in the light of a character as usual; still, one thing puzzled me, and I asked him how he happened to come to me.

"Because I thought if anyone in the world could do anything with Gorgett, you'd be the one," he answered. "Because it seemed to me he'd listen to you, and because I thought--in my wild clutching at the remotest hope--that he meant to make my humiliation more awful by sending me to you to ask you to go back to him for me."

"Well, well," I said, "I guess if you want me to be of any use you'll have to tell me what it's all about."

"I suppose so," he said, and choked, with a kind of despairing sound; "I don't see any way out of it."

"Go ahead," I told him. "I reckon I'm old enough to keep my counsel. Let it go, Farwell."

"Do you know," he began, with a sharp, grinding of his teeth, "that dishonourable scoundrel has had me _watched_, ever since there was talk of me for the fusion candidate? He's had me followed, _shadowed_, till he knows more about me than I do myself."