“Well, matters came to a head last night at the club when we talked over your renomination. To be perfectly frank, a good many of our men thought Williams was going to get the nomination, and, if he had got it, we were going to make him our candidate, too.” Douglas Briggs laughed. “You _are_ frank, Farley. So, now that I have the nomination, you’re all at sea. Is that the idea?” “We can’t stand the opposition candidate!” said De Witt. Saunders shook his head. “No; Bruce is too much for our stomachs. He’s out of the question altogether.” “So we’ll have to choose between endorsing you or putting up a candidate of our own,” Farley went on. “In fact, that is what most of the men want to do.” “You want to help to elect Bruce, you mean?” said Briggs, pleasantly. “That’s what it would amount to,” De Witt acknowledged. Briggs hesitated. “Gentlemen, you are placing me in a very delicate position,” he said at last. “What can I do?” “You can give my friends here some assurances, Congressman,” said Farley. “What assurances?” “In the first place, you can give us your word that those stories in the opposition papers are false.” Briggs rose slowly from his seat. His face grew pale. After a long silence, he said: “Farley, do you remember what I said to you last Spring, when you asked me to deny those stories? I said they were too contemptible to be noticed!” Farley looked disappointed. “Then you won’t help us? You won’t help me in the fight I’ve been making for you?” “Gentlemen,” Douglas Briggs went on, speaking slowly and impressively, “I know perfectly well what you are driving at, and I’m going to try to meet you halfway. But I’m a man as well as a politician, and you can’t blame me if I resent being placed on the rack like a criminal. However, I appreciate your motives in coming here, and I’m grateful to Farley for all he’s done for me. Let me say this, once for all: If I am elected I shall go back to Congress with clean hands and with a clear conscience, ready to do my duty wherever I see it. Within the past few months my relations with Franklin West have been the subject of newspaper talk. West has been my personal friend. I have trusted him and respected him. Lately I have discovered that he is a scoundrel. He is coming here this morning, and I shall give myself the pleasure of telling him so. Now, gentlemen, if you honor me with an endorsement, I pledge my word that you will find me in perfect sympathy with the work you’re doing.” He stopped, his lips tightening. “I confess that I shouldn’t have the courage to say these things, to humble myself like this, but for this good fellow here. I only wish there were more like him.” Farley smiled. “Well, Congressman, I knew you’d see through West some day.”