"There's fight enough on the docket, as the thing stands, without calling in another bunch to make it three-sided, sir! Rellihan, open the door for Mac Tavish! Andy, run to the public booth in the corridor and call Dalton and tell him to pay no attention to any hullabaloo by hysterical women. Tell him I said so! Ask him to keep that to himself. And rush back!" He turned on the Senator and the Governor. There was no longer apology or compromise in the demeanor of the mayor of Marion. "I know I'm a rank outsider! You needn't try to tell me what I know myself. I didn't think I'd need to be so rank! But I'm just what you're forcing me to be. I have jumped in here to stop something that there's no more sense in than there is in a dog-fight. They may fight in spite of all I can do! But, by the gods! I'm not going to stand by and see men like you rub their ears! Senator Corson, I advise you and Governor North to go and sit down. You're only making spectacles of yourselves!" XV THE BOSS OF THE JOB After Senator Corson had recovered his poise his dignity asserted itself and he sat down and assumed an attitude that suggested the frigidity of a statue on an ice-cake. He checked Governor North with an impatient flap of the hand. "You have had your innings as a manager, North!" He proceeded frostily with Morrison. "There was never a situation in state history like this one you have precipitated, sir, and if I have made an ass of myself I was copying current manners." "It is a strange situation, I'll admit, Senator," Morrison agreed. "As a newsmonger, you say, do you, that minutes are valuable?" "Yes, sir!" "Well, we'd better find out how valuable they are. Will you send General Totten below to investigate?" Morrison surveyed appraisingly the panoplied adjutant-general. "I'd never think of making General Totten an errand-boy, sir, if I'm to imply that I have any say in affairs just now." "You have assumed all say! You have put gentlemen in a position where they can't help themselves." The Senator scowled in the direction of Rellihan. But Rellihan did not mind; right then he was opening the door to the returning Mac Tavish. "I routed Mac Tavish out of bed and brought him along to attend to errands. He will go and see how matters are below, and outside," proffered Morrison, courteously. The self-appointed manager gave Mac Tavish his new orders and added: "Inquire, please, if any telegrams have arrived for me. I'm expecting some." Rellihan again deferentially opened the door for the messenger of the mayor of Marion; Mac Tavish had knocked and given his name. "It's all richt, sir!" he had reported on his arrival from his mission to the telephone. The exasperated Governor viewed that free ingress and muttered. Mac Tavish's unimpeded egress on the second errand provoked the Governor more acutely.