"I'm not rainbow-hunting this time," he put in quickly. "The fellow knows something interesting, and he's ready to out with it. He was employed in the Eureka quarries during the canal improvement, and saw things, he says, that we would like to hear." "You talked with him?" "Yes; he accosted me in a side street late last night." "If he's anxious to inform and reform, why doesn't he? I don't like the look of it. What does he want?" "You." "He wants me?" "He said he would speak plainly with you." Graves's revulsion was fairly physical. "You manage it, Volney," he entreated. "You will know how." Sprague shook his head. "He was positive on that point. It must be you or nobody." "I doubt if it's worth while." The editor lost patience. "It was you who reminded me that we lacked the concrete. Now I offer it to you." "But in such a shape!" "Can you quibble over that--and in politics?" "No one who knows Jap Hinchey's character would believe him under oath." Sprague's reply was astute. "I'm thinking of those who don't know him," said he. "The district is wide." "And an affidavit is an affidavit?" His smile was sardonic. "Very well. I'll see him. What is Jap's At Home?" "You will find him fishing on the dock behind his shanty, probably. I'd follow this thing up promptly, Bernard." "Yes," promised the candidate, listlessly. "I will." Alone, he fingered his manuscript, read it drearily, and of a sudden tore it into little bits, the mood which gendered it gone beyond recall. The sordid necessity of seeing Hinchey taught him afresh the folly of his dabbling in politics at all, and his whole being revolted against the contact with humanity in the raw which even mugwumpery seemed to entail. Left to himself, Sprague might have headed his own John Brown raid into the established order of things; led it with brilliancy perhaps, in any case with honest zeal. Yet the root of his discontent struck rather deeper than Jasper Hinchey and the cold waterish zone of reform; Ruth had her part in it. He somehow reasoned that his course merited her approval and encouragement; it had met with banter. So gyved, lagged the hope of the independents to his task.