"Well--I'll--be--damned!" he said slowly.
Garwood withdrew the hand he had outstretched and held there so awkwardly, but he fancied there might be hope for him in Rankin's words, which would have served him as well to express his abundant good nature in other exigencies, as they did to show his anger and surprise in this.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he repeated, "I didn't s'pose you'd have the nerve!"
Garwood flushed. The shuffle of feet on the tiled floor had died into an attentive stillness. He knew that the throng was looking on absorbed in this most interesting meeting that all the possibilities of chance could have brought about in Grand Prairie that day. Garwood flushed and longed to escape.
"Come on," he began, in a confidential tone, "over to my office. I was just going to hunt you up. I wanted to have a talk with you."
"No, you wasn't, either," Rankin exploded, "you damned liar you, you wasn't goin' to hunt me up; you know it, an' I know it. You 'as afraid to see me, you big stiff, an' you haven't got an'thin' to say to me either. I've had enough o' your _talk_ now, an' I don't want no more of it. What talkin' 's done hereafter, _I'll_ do myself, an' I'll begin it right now, an' right here--this place's good as any."
Garwood had drawn himself erect, and was struggling with his congressional dignity.
"Let me pass, sir!" he said, as sternly as he could.
Rankin drew a hand from his coat pocket, and stretched it toward Garwood. The congressman threw up his forearm as if to ward a blow, but Rankin caught him by the collar of his coat. He smiled pityingly.
"Oh, don't git skeered," he said, "I hain't goin' to hurt you."
"Remove your hand from me instantly, sir!" said Garwood, white with rage.
But Rankin held him fast in his big grip, and slowly backed him to the wall, and held him there, his head against the colored lithograph of soldiers decked in gala dress uniforms, hung there to lure honest country lads to the recruiting office over at Springfield and so into the regular army.
"Now, you listen at _me_!" said Rankin. "You're a liar an' you're a coward; you're a low-down, contemptible houn', you're a damned sight worser'n Pusey settin' in there; I just tell you this to let you know what I think o' you. An' now I want to serve notice on you, here'n now, publicly, that Jim Rankin's goin' to go right on livin' in this man's town, that he's goin' to figur' some in politics, that he's ag'in you, an' that you'd best get all you can out o' this term in Congress, fer I give you fair warnin' that you're servin' your last term. I'm ag'in you, an' I'm agoin' to camp down on your trail from this on, an' if you have the gall to show your face fer renomination ag'in, I'll make it my business to git you--an' I'll _git_ you!"