"Tom is bigger than that; I don't know how much bigger, but some. He has votes to sell, and Kittredge, at least, seems to believe that he can deliver the goods. I don't know the inside of the deal. I'll tell you frankly that I tried to shove it over to you, neck and heels, at first. When that little notion failed, I pushed it along to Kittredge." Blount's eyebrows, which promised in time to be as portentous as the Honorable Senator's, met in a frown. "I'm going to find Gryson, dead or alive," he said. Gantry looked up quickly. "Which means that you know what has become of him?" "He has been put out of the way for a purpose, and the purpose is to keep me from finding out something that Gryson wants to tell me. That was the animus of the scheme to send me on a fool's errand to Lewiston. After you left me last night I found out that Gryson had been worrying Collins the day before; had been in the office a number of times and was sweatingly anxious about something." Gantry flung his cigarette away and lighted another. After a deep inhalation or two he said: "Let it alone, Evan. I have a hunch that you'll be happier if you don't try to drag the cover off of that particular cesspool." "Listen," said Blount shortly. "When my father turned me down last night I told him that I still had five days in which to--" "I know," Gantry nodded. "Just the same, you're not going to do it." "If I don't, it will be because I can't; because the time is too short." Then, with a sudden and impulsive gesture of appeal: "Dick, for Heaven's sake help me to find that man Gryson, if you know where he is! I shall blow up if I can't do something!" Gantry rose and tossed the second cigarette among the coals in the grate. "I've been afraid all along that they'd corner you and beat you to death with feather-dusters," he lamented. "And the only thing I can say will make matters worse instead of better. I have it pretty straight that Gryson has been fired--shooed out of town, and probably out of the State." "Who did it, Gantry?" "There is only one man in this bailiwick who can take the whip to a fellow like Tom Gryson. I guess I don't need to name him for you, Evan." Blount got out of his chair and stood with his back to the fire, and his face was white. "Good God! the rottenness of it, Dick!" he groaned. And then: "I've got to get out of this and begin all over again in some corner of the world where at least one man in ten hasn't forgotten the meaning of common honesty and decency and fair dealing. Heaven knows I'm no saint, but if I stay here this cursed crookedness will get into my blood and I'll be just as degraded as the worst of them. No, I'm not raving; there have been times when I've felt myself slipping--times when I've been tempted to get down and fight with the weapons that everybody fights with in this God-forsaken, law-breaking, graft-ridden commonwealth!" Gantry had risen and he was slowly shaking his head.