“Sick!” scoffed Caleb, in lofty scorn. “I’ve got no time to be sick. An’ s’pose I was? When I worked that merger of the Porter-Hyde Park road, I had grippe. My temp’ture was up at 105, an’ I had lovely little icicles an’ red hot pokers runnin’ through every joint of me. Likewise a head that ached so loud you could hear it a block away. Gee, but I felt so bad I hated to look up at the undertaker signs on the street! An’ what’d I do? Worked, up to the Capital, three days an’ nights, twenty-four hours a day, not once gettin’ a chance to take my clo’es off or bat an eye. I carried through that merger by the skin of its teeth. Then when I got my charter I blew myself to the lux’ry of a whole gorgeous week in the hosp’tal. But not till ev’ry bit of work was wound up. Sick? H’m! A grown man don’t bother much about bein’ sick when there’s something that’s got to be done. Besides”--he added--“I ain’t sick now. An’ I’ll be on hand at the Capital the minute the Assembly opens, Monday. My bein’ there means the killin’ of the Starke bill. An’ they can set the date for the fun’ral without any fear of disappointin’ the mourners.” “Did you ever hear of Napoleon?” asked Caine, whimsically. “Sure I did,” responded Conover. “Read part of a book about him once. Why?” “Like yourself he was the greatest hold-up man of his day,” explained Caine, “and he had a conscience of the same calibre as yours. If he’d been a little bit less of a highwayman they would have laughed at him. If _you_ were a little bit less of a highwayman they’d put you in jail. He had magnetism. Probably almost as much of it as you have. That’s what made me think of him just then. Wellington used to say that Napoleon’s mere presence on a battlefield did more to win victories than an army of forty-thousand men. I suppose it’s the same at the Assembly.” “That’s right,” agreed Caleb, unmoved. “An’ Blacarda knows it, too. He’d give ten thousand dollars. I’ll bet, to have me break a leg between this an’ Monday. But my legs are feelin’ first rate. An’ they’re goin’ to keep on feelin’ better all the time, till they kick the Starke bill into its grave.” “I’ll do what I can through the ‘_Star_’ to help,” said Caine. “Just as I did for the Porter-Hyde Park merger and the Humason Mine charter. What’s the use of owning a newspaper if one can’t boost one’s friends?” “An’ one’s own Steeloid stock at the same time?” supplemented Conover. “We understand each other all right, I guess. Steeloid’s goin’ to take a rise, after Monday. An’ it’s goin’ to keep right on risin’ for the next six months.”