I looked straight at him until his gaze fell. Then I said, my voice even lower than usual: "If you will look at the election figures carefully you will find written upon them a very interesting fact. That fact is: In all the doubtful states--the ones that elected you--Scarborough swept everything where our party has heretofore been strongest; you were elected by carrying districts where our party has always been weakest. _And in those districts, James, our money was spent--as you well know._"
I waited for this to cut through his enswaddlings of self-complacence, waited until I saw its acid eating into him. Then I went on: "I hope you will never again deceive yourself, or let your enemies deceive you. As to your plans--the plans for Goodrich and his crowd--I have nothing to say. My only concern is to have Woodruff's matters--his pledges--attended to. That I must insist upon."
"Really, Harvey,"--there was an astonishing change from the complacent, superior voice of a few minutes before,--"I'll do what I can--but--the responsibilities--the duties of--of my position--"
"You are going to _take_ the office, James," said I. "You can't cheat the men who _gave_ it to you."
"I pledged my word," I went on. "You gave the promises. I indorsed for you. The debts _must_ be met." Never before had I enjoyed using that ugliest of words.
"You ask me to bring myself into unpopularity with the entire country," he pleaded. "Several of the men on your list are ex-convicts. Others are about to be indicted for election frauds. Many are men utterly without character--"
"They did _your_ work, James," said I. "I guarantee that in no case will the unpleasant consequences to you be more than a few disagreeable but soon forgotten newspaper articles. You haggle over these trifles, and--why, look at your cabinet list! There are two names on it--two of the four Goodrich men--that will cost you blasts of public anger--perhaps the renomination."
"Is _this_ my friend Harvey Sayler?" he exclaimed, grief and pain in that face which had been used by him for thirty years as the sculptor uses the molding clay.
"It is," I answered calmly. "And never more your friend than now, when you have ceased to be a friend to him--and to yourself."