“Charm, gentlemen. Charm charm charm, remember. You are supposed to work it that way. When thieves fall to quarreling among themselves you know what happens. It says.”

“Take it up with Czar, he’s the charm department,” Dave said, sulkily.

“Just please remember,” Kleet continued, like a patient teacher drilling a familiar lesson into dull ears, “that this is the biggest stake yet. You’ve got the Northwest sewed up, you can sew up the whole country and have it in the bag. Only you’ve got to start now and keep going. Bay isn’t important and your granddaughter isn’t important. It’s us. There’ll be plenty of young fellows presidential timber four—eight—twelve years from now. The young guys are going in for politics nowadays, maybe they don’t like the mess the country’s been in since the Twenties. Anyway, they’re getting younger and younger in politics, you can see for yourself. It isn’t just that we’re getting older so that anybody under sixty looks younger to us. They damn well are younger. It used to be, running for Governor or Congress or Senate, you had to have hammocks under your eyes and a couple of chins and no hair. Not any more. Now it’s young and tough and hep. Look at Nixon and young Kennedy—no offense, Czar—and Meyner and that kid been Michigan Governor for God knows how long—Williams, isn’t it? Even Stevenson was youngish the first run—no kid, but youngish—and he damn near made it. It’s getting tougher all the time. What you want is somebody young for Front Man and us older boys to pull the strings. Young, they can take the punishment. The old ones crack up. Look at Wilson, look at Harding, look at Roosevelt, look at Ike. You take a kid like Bay, start him out Governor of Alaska, no trouble with that, then Washington State Congressman, then the Senate, he’s well known by that time—–”

“By that time I’ll be a nice ninety-eight, if I’m alive,” Czar said.

“I’ll be alive!” bellowed Husack, empurpled. “I don’t know about you two mealymouths, but I’ll be alive.”

“The way you look,” Czar observed, mildly, “I’d say you’re likely to fall down with a stroke this minute, Dave, if you don’t watch it.”

“Yes, and I’ll bet you damn well would like—–”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” Kleet purred.

The putty-faced Gus stood in the doorway. “It is half past twelve o’clock,” he said. He began to gather up the glasses as though the room were empty.

“Etta Gurkin,” said Czar, musingly, as they walked toward the car. “I never believed in keeping a secretary around that long. They know too much. Get them married off—or marry them. Maybe you can’t fire Etta. Maybe she’s got too much on you—or something. And this girl, too.”

“I’ve heard of old men like you, what happens to them. Their mind gets dirty.”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” Sid Kleet implored again.

7

TWO LONG TABLES and a connecting shorter one formed the U-shaped luncheon board classic in the world of Chambers of Commerce. Nick’s new Caribou Café banquet room just accommodated the guests, on this extraordinarily crowded occasion. There in the doorway, a one-woman reception committee, stood Bridie Ballantyne. Some atavistic competitive urge had compelled her to change her hat. Dina Drake, probably. The garnet velvet was now periwinkle blue. She took over in a fuss of competence.