The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-08-01

Because can promise you, since talked 1t over with O'Mara this after noon, that we haven't any nice, dead sure thing on our hands any longer.
 "Oh, you can sit there and smile your cold blooded smile! And if you think I'm experiencing pe.ags of con- science you're mistaken. All have I got from other men who-who weren't strong enough to hang on to 1t. There isn't any friendship in business, or if there is I never played it that way. I'm just telling you that now is our one opportunity if we want to join hands and hurrah with the rest of them for the completion of this job by next May. We lose a railroad at bargain, perhaps. but we've still got a mighty good right of way to the bor- der that will insure our welcome in the ranks. Maybe we lose and--and maybe-well, I never did like to be beaten! Nor do say that such an ar gument will have any weight with you, but it's chance to be on the dead level for once. What do you say? Do we switchw
 Switch" Wickersham snarled. And he leaned forward. face bloodless, and beat upon chair arm. Switch now" He laughed shrilly. "Why, I'm going to beat that blapked woods rat in his matinee idol costume so bad between now and next May that he'll be walk ing the roads for his next job. Switch? I'm going to brand him as the worst incompetent that ever dragged two poor fools down into pauperism. I'll see him broke. I'll wipe that internal smooth smile from his lips if have to-
 wickersham gasped. He came to his feet panting all in an instant with the rage that set his dry lips writhing. But at that point he, too, remembered himself He swallowed and faced All lison, and the latter, sitting pop eyed before his outbreak. gaped now at the change that came back over that twist ed face. Wickersham smiled. Once more his bearing was the very essence of perfect poise and self control
 eff you-if you are afraid"- he in- ferred. 'If you''-
 Allisons laugh was big and booming for all that the astonishment had not yet left his eyes.
 "Cold feet" he rumbled. Gold feet! Mev' And suddenly his gust of mirthless laughter made petty the others insolence. "Wickersham, I've broken better crooks than you'll ever be. A man has to have a big heart to be big crook, and you-and yOu-well. sometimes I wonder whether there wasn't some sort of an oversight in that line when they put you together.
 He couldn't have explained why the thought came to him at that moment any more than he understood his swift ly malicious impulse to use 1t. but all in q flash there came back to him recollection of that day when he and Caleb had burst through the hedge to find the boy Stephen O'Mara pummel- ing a bigger prcstrate boy who shrfek- ed under the earnest thorOughness of that pummeling. Allison, too. rose to his feet.
 q only wanted to give you a chance" Allison continued. "I reckon l can take care of myself. I always could. And you-well. you know as well as do what sort of scrap that-that woods rat can put up, or you ought to. He gave you a sort of a demonstration once, if remember correctly. I stick! I never was overly squeamish. But don't fool yourself. Archie; don't fool yourself. If we fight we'ss fighting with regular guy, your insinuation to the contrary. I merely wanted you to realize what I know now. We'll think we've been in a battle before we come to 0 finishr'
 His hand was on the door knob when the door itself flashed open. Dexter Allison's daughter hesitated, surprised, on the threshold. Her eyes. brilliantly alight, leaped from her fathers face to that of the man half toward her and back again.
 "Oh," she exclaimed uncertainty. "I didn't know you were busy. l saw the