Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/195

 *—tell him you'll lay down fer the sake of old times—that's the thing—tell him an'thin' to get him to hold off fer a few days. Then you'll have time to turn 'round."

"Look here, Jennings," said Grigsby, straightening up and glaring at the secretary of state, "Chatham's got all you fellows hypnotized. You think he's a little tin god, that he's incapable of doing a mean act, of throwing a friend down, or anything of that sort. I tell you I know him better than all of you do. He and I used to be close, thicker'n—"

"You wasn't borrowin' money out o' the state treasury them days, though, was you, Bill?" interrupted Jennings.

Grigsby colored.

"No, you was somethin' of a reformer yourself."

Grigsby colored more deeply.

"An' as fer the throwin' down—we know who done the heft o' that. Course I don't care—it suits me—but give a houn' his dues."

Grigsby's color had changed by swift gradations of tone to splenetic blackness. He broke in upon Jennings' indictment of him, and his defense of the governor: