Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/398

376. Mr. Magee peered out the window. "Hooperstown," he read, "Reuton—10 miles." He saw Mr. Max get up and leave the car.

"Not a thing to it, Doc," Cargan repeated. "Your bunch has tried to get me before. You've shouted from the housetops that you had the goods on me. What's always happened?"

"Your own creatures have acquitted you," replied the professor, from a cloud of Cargan cigar smoke.

"Fair-minded men decided that I hadn't done wrong. I tell you, Doc, there's dishonest graft, and I'm against that always. And there's honest graft—the rightful perquisites of a high office. That's the trouble with you church politicians. You can't see the difference between the two."

"I'm not a church politician," protested the professor. "I'm bitterly opposed to the lily-white crowd who continually rant against the thing they don t understand. I m practical, as practical as you, and when—"

Noiselessly Mr. Max slid up to the group, and stood silent, his eyes wide, his yellow face