"Oh, yes," said I, pressing my advantage. "Waldorf was up here night before last, you remember, and got thirty thousand dollars. I thought you would like to know that your contribution was being spent with a liberal hand." Peter Bolton’s face assumed a gray-green tint, and he cried out: "I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve gone crazy--" Then, as if he feared that I would take offense at the words, he fell from the attitude of protest to one of cringing obsequiousness. "No, I don’t mean that--I mean that I want you to do some business for me." The man appeared carried away with fright; his claw-like hands worked convulsively, and a perspiration started on his forehead. I saw in his eyes a foretaste of the terrors of unsuccessful crime, and that as he remembered the purposes that lay behind those rifles in the Council’s armory, his conscience conjured up the vision of the police and the hangman stretching forth their hands to seize him. "Good God, Bolton!" cried General Wilson again. "What have you been doing? You couldn’t look more upset if you had murdered your grandmother and Hampden had uncovered the corpse." "It’s nothing--nothing," gasped Bolton, recovering himself with an effort; "just a little joke we have--just a little joke." And he framed his thin lips into the semblance of a ghastly smile. General Wilson’s red face grew redder yet as an angry color swept over it. "Well, you’ve got too many jokes to suit me, and a damned queer taste in humor--that’s all I’ve got to say about it. I came to talk business, and you’ve been wasting my time with your tomfoolery." And with an angry wave of his hand he got to his feet and strode out. Almost before General Wilson had reached the hall, Bolton had turned eagerly to me. "Come in and shut the door," he said with a quavering voice. "That gilded ass may stop to listen." He was silent a minute as I obeyed him, and I surmised that he was turning over in his mind the possible plans by which I might be gagged. And as he motioned me to a seat his calculating eye was taking my measure with all the coolness of a butcher estimating the value of a steer. "You are a young man," he began with an insinuating drawl. I admitted the charge, but offered him the consolation to be drawn from the theory that I should probably get over it in time. He paid no attention to my flippant suggestion, but continued in a slow tone of ironic emphasis: "You are old enough, though, to know that you have got to look out for your own Interests. That’s what every Man must do, if he wants to keep in Business." Peter Bolton’s sarcastic drawl punctuated his important words with capitals. "If you don’t think enough of your Interests to look out for Yourself, nobody is going to look out for them for you." "If you want to do me a good turn," I said with strategic frankness, "you might tell me what your business is with Big Sam."