"I'll take you," said the man; "but what sticks me is that you didn't stay right on board that train. It stops at Burnside regular, and it don't stop here at all."
"But it stopped to-day," remarked the Duke.
"I know it did, and that's what sticks me again."
The old man rose from the table and smiled down on him.
"Here's a good cigar, brother. I've often worked out many a puzzle while having a bang-up smoke."
He invited Harlan by a nod of the head, and they went out and strolled in the maple grove behind the house.
"I suppose you think by this time, bub, that I'm in my second childhood, and playing dime novel. But there are some things in politics that have to be done as gentle and careful as picking a rose petal off a school-ma'am's shoulder." The Duke chuckled and smoked for a time. "When I've had a job of that sort to do I haven't even talked to myself, Harlan. So you mustn't think I'm distrustful of you because I don't tell you what's on."
"I'm willing to wait," said his grandson.
"Learn your lesson, Harlan--the one I'm trying to teach you now. I never knew but one man who could keep his mouth shut under all circumstances when he felt it was his duty to do so. That was old Ben Holt. He's dead now. He fell off a bridge on his way to church and didn't holler 'Help!' for fear of breaking the Sabbath. You don't find any more of that kind in these days--not in political matters. I'm not distrusting you, I say, but I'm teaching you the lesson. Keep your mouth shut till it's time to open it. I'm drawing this thing here strong on you, so as to impress it. As for the other fellows--if I had got off the train at Burnside to-day the news would have been in every afternoon paper in the State. They'd only need that one fact to build fifty stories on--all different. _Most_ of those stories would have hurt; there'd have been one guess, at least, that would kill the scheme. Sit down here, and let's take it easy."
He sat at the foot of a tree, his broad straw hat beside him. He leaned his head against the trunk, and gazed upward and away from his grandson. When the question came it was so irrelevant, so astonishing, that the young man gasped without replying.
"Harlan, how do you stand with the Kavanagh girl?"