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He poured the drink, added water, and looked again at the Judge, leering with a kind of comic cu
"Really?" replied the Judge. He stood in the middle of the floor and studied the scene beneath him.
From my spot by the wall, I looked at both of them. _To hell with them__, I thought, _to hell with both of them__. When they talked like that, it was to hell with both of them.
"Yeah," the Boss was saying, "you're a gent, and so you don't ever get impatient. Not even for your likker. You aren't even impatient for your drink right now and it's likker your money paid for. But you'll get a drink, Judge. I'm asking you to have one. Have a drink with me, Judge."
Judge Irwin didn't answer a word. He stood very erect in the middle of the floor.
"Aw, have a drink," the Boss said, and laughed, and sat again in the big chair and stuck out his legs on the red carpet.
The Judge didn't pour himself a drink. And he didn't sit down.
The Boss looked up at him from the chair and said, "Judge, you happen to have an evening paper round here?"
The paper was lying over on another chair by the fireplace, with the Judge's collar and tie on top of it, and his white jacket hung on the back of the chair. I saw the Judge's eyes snap over there to it, and then back at the Boss.
"Yes," the Judge said, "as a matter of fact, I have."
"I haven't had a chance to see one, rushing around the country today. Mind if I take a look?"
"Not in the slightest," Judge Irwin said, and the sound was the file scraping on that cold tin again, "but perhaps I can relieve your curiosity on one point. The paper publishes my endorsement of Callahan for the Senate nomination. If that is of interest to you."
"Just wanted to hear you say it, Judge. Somebody told me, but you know how rumor hath a thousand tongues, and how the newspaper boys tend to exaggeration, and the truth ain't in 'em."
"There was no exaggeration in this case," the Judge said.
"Just wanted to hear you say it. With your own silver tongue."
"Well, you've heard it," the Judge said, standing straight in the middle of the floor, "an in that case, at your leisure–" the Judge's face was the color of calf's liver again, even if the word did come out cold and spaced–"if you have finished your drink–"
"Why, thanks, Judge," the Boss said, sweet as chess pie, "I reckon I will take another spot." And he heaved himself in the direction of the bottle.
He did his work, and said, "Thanks."
When he was back in the leather chair with the fresh load in the glass, he said, "Yeah, Judge, I've heard you say it, but I just wanted to hear you say something else. Are you sure you took it to the Lord in prayer? Huh?"
"I have settled the matter in my own mind," the Judge said.
"Well, if I recollect right–" the Boss ruminatively turned the glass in his hands–"back in town, when we had our little talk, you sort of felt my boy Masters was all right."
"I made no commitment," the Judge said sharply. "I didn't make any commitment except to my conscience,"
"You been messing in politics a long time, Judge," the Boss said, easy, "and–" he took a drag from the glass–"so has your conscience."
"I beg your pardon," the Judge snapped.
"Nuts," the Boss said, and gri
"Certain features of his career came to my attention."
"Somebody dug up some dirt for you, huh?"
"If you choose to call it that," the Judge said.
"Dirt's a fu
"That doesn't alter the fact," the Judge said from way up there where his head was, above the rays of the desk lamp, "that Masters doesn't strike me as a responsible man."
"He better be responsible," the Boss said, "or I'll break his God-damned neck!"
"That's the trouble, Masters would be responsible to you."
"It's a fact," the Boss admitted ruefully, lifting his face under the light, and shaking his face in fatalistic sadness. "Masters'd be responsible to me. I can't help it. But Callahan–now take Callahan–it sort of seems to me he's go
"Well–"
"Well, hell!" The Boss popped straight up in the chair with that i
"I'll have to take my chance," the Judge said from way up there.
"Chance?" And the Boss laughed. "Judge," he said, and quit laughing, "you haven't got but one chance. You been guessing right in this state going on forty years. You been sitting back here in this room and nigger boys been single-footing in here bringing you toddies and you been guessing right. You been sitting back here and gri
"No man," Judge Irwin said, and stood up there straight in the middle of the floor, "has ever been able to intimidate me."
"Well, I never tried," the Boss said, "yet. And I'm not trying now. I'm going to give you a chance. You say somebody gave you some dirt on Masters? Well, just suppose I gave you some dirt on Callahan?–Oh, don't interrupt! Keep your shirt on!"–and he held up his hand. "I haven't been doing any digging, but I might, and if I went out in the barn lot and stuck my shovel in and brought you in some of the sweet-smelling and put it under the nose of your conscience, then do you know what your conscience would tell you to do? It would tell you to withdraw your endorsement of Callahan. And the newspaper boys would be over here thicker'n bluebottle flies on dead dog, and you could tell 'em all about you and your conscience. You wouldn't even have to back Masters. You and your conscience could just go off arm in arm and have a fine time telling each other how much you think of each other."
"I have endorsed Callahan," the Judge said. He didn't flicker.
"I maybe could give you the dirt," the Boss said speculatively. "Callahan's been playing around for a long time, and he who touches pitch shall be defiled, and little boys just will walk barefoot in the cow pasture." He looked up at Judge Irwin's face, squinting, studying it, cocking his own head to one side.
The grandfather's clock in the corner of the room, I suddenly realized, wasn't getting any younger. It would drop out a _tick__, and the _tick__ would land inside my head like a rock dropped in a well, and the ripples would circle out and stop, and the _tick__ would sink down the dark. For a piece of time which was no long or short, and might not even be time, there wouldn't be anything. Then the _tock__ would drop down the well, and the ripples would circle out and finish.