"What's that bull-headed fool been stirring up down-town?" demanded Despeaux when he had Blanchard safely to himself in a corner.
"I was called on the 'phone a few minutes ago."
"No matter! But hold on, Blanchard! I may as well tell you that I'm using a part of our fund to have Morrison shadowed. I suppose the reason you went along was to get a line on him. But it was imprudent. It looked like lending your countenance."
Blanchard explained sullenly why he did accompany Morrison to the meeting.
"Well, I'm glad you were there and heard him inflaming the mob," admitted the syndicate's lobbyist and lawyer. "I want to have Senator Corson fully informed on the point and it will come better from you than from a paid detective. Give it to Corson, and give it to him strong!"
"I don't know that I can justly say that he was inflaming the mob," demurred Blanchard.
"But you've got to say it! You must make it appear that way! Blanchard, it has come to a clinch and we must smash Morrison's credit in every direction. I didn't realize till to-day that he is out to blow up the whole works. Didn't he preach to you on the text of that infernal people-partner notion of his?"
"The people own the moon, if you want to put it that way! But they can't do anything sensible with it, any more than they can with ownership of the state's water-power."
The Conawin magnate exhibited bewilderment. "Despeaux, I'm a business man. I suppose you lawyers go to work in a different way than we do in business. But as I have read the propaganda you're putting out--as I understand it--_you_ are shouting for the people's rights, too!"
"I am! Strongly! Right out open! I even preached on people's rights to Morrison this very day--and looked him right in that canny Scotch eye of his while I preached. I like to keep in good practice!"
"Then why is Morrison so dangerous, if he's only doing what you do?" inquired the business man, with an artlessness that the attorney greeted with an oath.
"Because the infernal ramrod means what he says, Blanchard!"
"But if you don't mean it--if you have put yourself on record--and if you're obliged to step up and honor the draft you've sanctioned--what's going to happen in the showdown?"
Attorney Despeaux moderated his mordancy and became tolerantly patient in enlightening the ignorance of one of his employers. "The people are hungry for some kind of fodder in this water-power proposition. I've been telling all you power-owners so! We'll have to admit it, Blanchard! The time is played out when you can drive the people in this country. You've got to be a nice, kind shepherd and get their confidence and lead 'em. I'm a shepherd! See?" He patted himself on the breast. "There are two cribs!"