"Yes, that telegram job was a pretty raw one, sir," Morrison admitted. "But I really didn't lie straight out to those men in the square about your participation. I let 'em draw an inference from the way I complimented your fairness and good sense. I was a little hasty last night--but I didn't have much time to do advance thinking." "I'm going to express myself about last night," stated Senator Corson. "Will you wait a moment, sir?" Morrison had not removed his overcoat; he had not even unbuttoned it; he afforded the impression of a man who intended to transact business and be on his way with the least possible delay. He glanced at the electric lights and at the shaded windows. "This seems too much like last night. Won't you allow me? It's a little indulgence to my state of mind!" He hurried across the room and snapped up the shades and pulled apart the curtains. He reached his hand to the wall-switch and turned off the lights. "This isn't last night--it's this morning--and there's nothing like honest daylight on a proposition, gentlemen! Nothing like it! Last night things looked sort of tragic. This morning the same things will look comical if"--he raised his forefinger--"if the inside of 'em is reported. If the real story is told, the people in this state will laugh their heads off." Again the Governor and the Senator put a lot of expression into the look which they exchanged. "I got that mob to laughing last night and, as I told General Totten, that settled the civil war. If the people get to laughing over what happened when Con Rellihan took his orders only from the mayor of Marion, it will--well, it'll be apt to settle some political hash." "Do you threaten?" demanded North. He was blinking into the matter-of-fact daylight where Morrison stood, framed in a window. "Governor North, take a good look at me. I'm not a pirate chief. I'm merely a business man up here to do a little dickering. I can't trade on my political influence, because I haven't any. You have all the politics on your side. I propose to do the best I can with the little stock in trade I have brought." He walked to the table and flapped on it his hand, palm up. "You are two almighty keen and discerning gentlemen. I don't need to itemize the stock in trade I have laid down here. You see what I've got!" He paused and, his eyes glinting with a suppressed emotion that the discerning gentlemen understood, he glanced from one to the other of them. "You've got a cock-and-bull yarn in which you are shown up as a liar and a lawbreaker," the Governor declared. "You've got some guess--so about errors in returns--" "Hold on! Hold on, North!" protested Senator Corson. "It's just as Morrison says--we don't need to itemize his stock in trade. I can estimate it for myself. Morrison, you say you're ready to dicker. What do you want?"