Planning it out beforehand, Blount had meant to give the ethical reasons which had constrained him to put a conclusive end to the attorney-generalship scheme.  But when the crux came, the carefully planned argument side-stepped and he was reduced to the necessity of declaring his purpose baldly.  The railroad people had offered him a place, and he had accepted it.

“So McVickar talked you over to his side, did he?” was the boss’s gentle comment.  “It’s all right, son; you’re a man grown, and I reckon you know best what you want to do.  If it puts us on opposite sides of the political creek, we won’t let that roil the water any more than it has to, will we?”

To such a mild-mannered surrender, or apparent surrender, the stirring filial emotions could do no less than to respond heartily.

“We mustn’t let it,” was the quick reply; but after this the younger man added:  “I feel that I ought to make some explanations—­they’re due to you.  I’ve been knocking about here in the city with my eyes and ears open, and I must confess that the political field has been made to appear decidedly unattractive to me.  From all I can learn, the political situation in the State is handled as a purely business proposition; it is a matter of bargain and sale.  I couldn’t go into anything like that and keep my self-respect.”

“No, of course you couldn’t, son.  So you just took a job where you could earn good, clean money in your profession.  I don’t blame you a particle.”

Blount was vaguely perturbed, and he showed it by absently laying aside the cigar which he had lately lighted and taking a fresh one from the open box on the table.  He could not help the feeling that he ought to be reading between the lines in the paternal surrender.

“You think there will be more or less political work in my job with the railroad?” he suggested, determined to get at the submerged facts, if there were any.

“Oh, I don’t know; you say McVickar has hired you to do a lawyer’s work, and I reckon that is what he will expect you to do, isn’t it?”

Blount laid the second cigar aside and crossed the room to readjust a half-opened ventilating transom.  Mr. McVickar had not defined the duties of the new counselship very clearly, but there had been a strong inference running through the private-car conference to the effect that the headship of the local legal department would carry with it some political responsibilities.  At the moment the newly appointed placeman had been rather glad that such was the case.  The vice-president had convinced him of the justice of the railroad company’s contention—­namely, that the present laws of the State, if rigidly administered, amounted to a practical confiscation of the company’s property.  While Mr. McVickar was talking, Blount had hoped that the new office which the vice-president was apparently creating for him would give him a free hand to place the company’s point of view fairly before the people of the State, and to do this he knew he would have to enter the campaign in some sort as a political worker.  Surely, his father must know this; and he went boldly upon the assumption that his father did know it.