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 pocket, and looked a long time at the lining of his hat before he put it on. "Why don't you have him arrested?"

Wickson patted him on the shoulder and turned him to the door. "We can't do that until he shoots me."

"If you know he's going to shoot you, you can prove it."

"You think so?" He turned the knob. "There are a good many things in this business that a man knows and can't prove."

With the opening of the door the activities of the outer office interrupted them and silenced Arnett. He followed or waited for Wickson as the District Attorney excused himself to a visitor, gave instructions to an assistant, bent to hear a hurried report in confidence, or stopped to "jolly" a newspaper man. When they reached the elevator Collins's young detective, Plummer, was with them. He stood aside, at the ground floor, and followed them out to the street, carefully unalert, with the comprehensive glances of an apparently idle eye.

"But I don't get this thing at all," Arnett complained, as they turned up the street.

Wickson took his elbow. "I'm in the position of a policeman in a thieves' quarter—where the political boss of the quarter protects them—in return for their help in elections. See? Only in this case the whole town is the quarter, and Bradford is the political boss, and he hasn't been able