The Judge beckoned to Suggs who had hovered near, and the detective handed him a package of documents from his inside pocket. The movement was not lost on Larkin who was watching his enemy with uneasiness. Suggs accompanied the Judge to his room at the hotel and awaited his call outside the door. Larkin looked at him with a scowl as he entered. The Judge adjusted his slouchy coat, shuffled his feet, and stroked his beard with deliberation as Larkin seated himself. “I’m going to ask you, Larkin,” he began, “to write out your resignation as Chairman of our State Executive Committee and withdraw from this race.” The Carpetbagger laughed aloud. “Well, you are an ass, you fawning, timeserving Scalawag--what do you take me for?” “For the criminal adventurer you are!” thundered the Judge. “I’ll not bandy words with you, Butler. I’ve got you now, just where I want you. Five minutes more of that Convention and you’ll be a memory as a politician. You never had a principle in your life. A professed leader of the Republican party in the South composed of Negroes, you loathe the very sight of a Negro. You profess to be a Southerner, yet your ear is always to the ground to hear the slightest whisper from the lowest breed of Yankee demagogues in the North. You lie to the Negro, you lie to the Southern white man, you lie to the Yankee. You’re a pusillanimous, office-seeking turncoat beneath the contempt of a man. Why did you send for me?” “To tell you that it’s time for you to move on, sir!” cried Butler with spluttering rage. “You Carpetbag vultures have winged your way into the South to tear from the loyal men of native birth the rewards of their long patriotic services. Go back to the slums and prison pens of the North where you belong!” “What do you mean?” Larkin broke in with sudden energy. “That you are a criminal adventurer, sir; that’s what I mean!” Larkin laughed again. “Is that all?” “And I have in my pocket the documents to prove that you have never acquired citizenship in the State of New York!” “True, but irrelevant. I am a citizen now of this state under the Reconstruction Acts, and I’m going to represent the old commonwealth in the next Senate while you sink once more into the obscurity your feeble intelligence has prepared for you. Is this all you have to say?” “No, sir, it’s not!” whispered the Judge hoarsely with triumphant malice. “I have a letter in my pocket from the warden of the prison in England where you served your time, enclosing your photograph.” With a sudden cry of anguish Larkin leaped the distance separating them, gripped Butler by the throat, hurled him back in his seat, and held him strangling, spluttering, squirming in mortal terror. In a moment he released him, sank to a chair and buried his face in his hands. “So! I am your master after all,” the Judge sneered, recovering from his terror. Larkin lifted his lion-like head a moment and looked at his opponent.