me because we are alike in that we keep our mouths shut.  You must have impressed him very favorably.  He seems willing to take you at face value.  It would have been quite natural for him to have asked me about you, but he didn’t.  Do you know Thatcher—­Edward G.?  He has business interests with Bassett, and Thatcher dabbles in politics just enough to give him power when he wants it.  Thatcher is a wealthy man, who isn’t fooling with small politics.  If some day he sees a red apple at the top of the tree he may go for it.  There’d be some fun if Bassett tried to shake down the same apple.”

“I know Thatcher’s son.”

“Allen?  I met him the other day.  Odd boy; I guess that’s one place where Ed Thatcher’s heart is all right.”

After a moment’s reflection with his face turned to the open window Fitch added:—­

“Mr. Harwood, if you should go to Bassett and in course of time, everything running smoothly, he asked you to do something that jarred with those ideals of yours, what should you do?”

“I should refuse, sir,” answered Dan, earnestly.

Fitch nodded gravely.

“Very well; then I’d say go ahead.  You understand that I’m not predicting that such a moment is inevitable, but it’s quite possible.  I’ll say to you what I’ve never said before to any man:  I don’t understand Morton Bassett.  I’ve known him for ten years, and I know him just as well now as I did the day I first met him.  That may be my own dullness; but ignoring all that his enemies say of him,—­and he has some very industrious ones, as you know,—­he’s still, at his best, a very unusual and a somewhat peculiar and difficult person.”

“He’s different, at least; but I can’t think him half as bad as they say he is.”

“He isn’t, probably,” replied Fitch, whose eyes were contemplating the cornice of the building across the street.  Then, as though just recalling Dan’s presence:  “May I ask you whether, aside from that ‘Courier’ article, you ever consciously served Bassett in any way—­ever did anything that might have caused him to feel that he was under obligations?”

“Why, no, sir; nothing whatever.”

“—­Or—­” a considerable interval in which Fitch’s gaze reverted to the cornice—­“that you might have some information that made it wise for him to keep his hand on you?”

“Absolutely nothing,” answered Dan, the least bit uncomfortable under this questioning.

“You’re not aware,” the lawyer persisted deliberately, “that you ever had any dealings of any kind even remotely with Mr. Bassett.”

“No; never, beyond what I’ve told you.”