"It was the governor of the state your message offended," said Shelby, quietly. "Personally I'm not thin-skinned, as you know." "Yet, in my poor way--" the Boss included the chamber in a comprehensive gesture. "Yes; in last analysis you put me here. I don't forget that." The leader shrugged. "You were always so devilishly direct, Ross," he let fall good-humoredly. "It's your besetting sin, and spoiled the making of a clever politician. You lack the diplomatic instinct." Shelby proved him in the right immediately. "You've come about the canal bill," he said. "Sit down." "Yes; the canal bill--and other matters." He laid his hat and stick upon a desk, and drawing a chair beside Shelby's near a window embrasure, leaned to him, chin in hand, as in the days of their hand-in-glove intimacy. "Between us two plain speech after all is best," he went on. "You've no mistaken notions about me. You recognize the newspaper bogy which goes by my name as a caricature. You know that I am as proud of this state in my way as you are in your way. You know also the manner and method of my ascendency in state affairs, and by the same insight you know its scope." "Yes. I know its scope." "So far as knowledge of method goes, you are as capable of party leadership as I. Indeed, if that were all, you might set up a rival shop, as some of the editors kindly suggest, and attempt to put me out of business. Naturally you don't share that delusion." "No." "No; you're too sane. My tenure doesn't rest on mere control of the purse-strings. My great asset is forty years' dealing with all sorts and conditions of men. Nobody else has quite my equipment." "Why tell me what I know? All talk of my setting up a machine of my own is idle. I am aware of the extent of your influence. You have tacitly offered me the state delegation to the national convention in June, and it is within your power to deliver it--probably to name the candidate. Have you come to withdraw the offer?" The Boss straightened. "I have come in a spirit of compromise," he returned. "We've differed widely on this question of a greater canal. You have evolved a plan best suited to Utopia; my own is aimed to meet the human nature I know best--the human nature De Witt Clinton, in whose steps you evidently aspire to tread, comprehended and took into the reckoning. Be practical as he was practical--as you were in the early days of our acquaintance. I no longer ask you to sign the bill; I respect your punctilio. I only beg that you will permit this measure which your party has espoused to become a law without your signature. Everybody will understand your position. You will occupy an honorable middle ground." "For me there is no honorable middle ground. It lies with me to approve or reject." The Boss got upon his feet. "I dislike coercion," he said. The governor rose. "You need use none. No amount of it could hypnotize me into seeing a bad bill as a good bill."