"But why?" he fairly wailed, his carefully rounded, oratorical tones forgotten. "Why on earth do you decline this offer, Blaine? You've nothing big on hand now--nothing your operatives can't attend to. There isn't a case big enough for your attention on the calendar! You know as well as I do that Illington is clean and that the lid is on for keeps! The police are taking care of the petty crimes, and there's absolutely nothing doing in your line here at the moment. This is the chance of your career! Why on earth do you refuse it?" "Well, Mr. Carlis, let us say, for instance, that my health is not quite as good as it was, and I find the air of Illington agrees with it better just now than that of Grafton." Blaine leaned back easily in his chair, and after a slight pause he added speculatively, with deliberate intent, "I didn't know you had interests there!" The Boss purpled. "Look here, Blaine!" he bellowed. "What d'you mean by that?" "Merely following a train of thought, Mr. Carlis," returned the detective imperturbably. "I was trying to figure out why you were so desperately anxious to have me go to Grafton--" "I tell you I am here at the urgent request of the mayor and the chief of police!" the fat man protested, but faintly, as if the unexpected attack had temporarily winded him. "Why in h--ll should I want you to go to Grafton?" "Presumably because Grafton is some fourteen hundred miles from Illington," remarked Blaine, his quietly unemotional tones hardening suddenly like tempered steel. "Going to try to pull off something here in town which you think could be more easily done if I were away? Cards on the table, Mr. Carlis! You tried to bribe me in a case once, and you failed. Then you tried bullying me and you found that didn't work, either. Now you've come again with your hook baited with patriotism, public spirit, the cry of the people and all the rest of the guff the newspapers you control have been handing out to their readers since you took them over. What's the idea?" The Boss rose, with what was intended for an air of injured dignity, but his fat face all at once seemed sagged and wrinkled, like a pricked balloon. "I did not come here to be insulted!" he announced in his most impressive manner. "I came, as I told you, as a public-spirited citizen, because the officials of another city called upon me to urge you to aid them. I have failed in my mission, and I will go. I am surprised, Blaine, at your attitude; I thought you were too big a man to permit your personal antagonism to me to interfere with your duty--" For the first time during their interview Blaine smiled slightly. "Have you ever known me, Mr. Carlis, to permit my personal antagonism to you or any other man to interfere with what I conceive to be my duty?" Before he replied, the politician produced a voluminous silk handkerchief, and mopped his brow. For some reason he did not feel called upon to make a direct answer.