He told his side of the case; and Bunny understood that he was bargaining, drawing a fancy picture of the tremendous difficulties involved. The county machine had been having a peck of trouble of late, some damned fool had stolen some money—a silly thing to take the county’s money, said Mr. Coffey, when you could make so much more in legitimate ways. Also there had been criticism of road contracts; they had a crank in this town that published a weekly paper, the “Watchdog,” and filled it with reckless charges. Well, the long and short of it was that to use the emergency repair funds of the county to build a road for an oil operator, would be bound to stir up a lot of fuss, and lose votes which the county machine needed. As Mr. Ross had said, the Excelsior Pete crowd, who already had a road to their tract, wouldn’t favor Dad’s road; they might furnish material for the crank’s weekly paper, and they might make a kick to the state committee, and make Mr. Coffey’s life a little hell.
Dad listened politely—as the process of bargaining required. He said that he appreciated all these troubles, and would expect to make up for them. In the first place, there would be the job of carrying the county supervisors into office. Would it seem a fair proposition if Dad were to contribute five thousand dollars to the war chest of the campaign committee? Mr. Coffey blew a big cloud of grey-blue tobacco-smoke into the air, and sat gazing fixedly at the figure 5 and three O’s written in these clouds.
“You understand,” Dad added; “that’s a party matter, and separate from any proposition I make to you personally.”
“Let’s have your whole idea,” said Mr. Coffey, quietly.
So Dad gave his spiel about believing in cooperation, and how he always got a little organization together wherever he worked, and stood by his friends and gave them a share of what he made. He told about his Ross-Bankside No. 1, and how he had formed a syndicate for that well, and, in order to make sure of getting his derrick material on the spot, he had let the president of a big lumber company have two percent of it—jist a little friendly service, and the well had earned so far nearly six hundred thousand dollars net profits, and the president of this company had made over twelve thousand, jist for his trouble in seeing that Dad always got his lumber the day he asked for it.
And now here was the same thing; if Dad could get a road, he would gamble on the Paradise tract, and Mr. Coffey might gamble with him. Dad offered to carry him to the amount of two percent of the well; the cost would run over a hundred thousand dollars, so Mr. Coffey would be getting a two thousand dollar investment, and if the well became a producer, he might get five or ten, or even thirty or forty thousand dollars; such things had happened many times, and were to be reckoned on. Of course, Dad would expect this to mean that he and Mr. Coffey would be friends; they would work together, and help each other with any little favors that might be needed.
And Mr. Coffey puffed several more clouds of smoke, and studied them, and said he felt friendly to Dad; but he thought it would be better if Dad would contribute two thousand dollars to the campaign fund, and carry five thousand for Mr. Coffey personally. And Dad, looking him in the eye, inquired, “Can you deliver the goods?” Mr. Coffey said yes, he could deliver them all right, Dad needn’t have any worries. So it was a bargain, and Dad took out his checkbook and wrote out two thousand dollars to the order of the treasurer of the county campaign committee of the Republican party. Then he asked Mr. Coffey whether he held any public office, and the latter replied no, he was just a plain business man; so Dad said all right then, the agreement could be in Mr. Coffey’s name; and he wrote a memorandum to the effect that he had received the sum of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations, in return for which Mr. Coffey was owner of five percent interest in the net profits of a well to be drilled on the Abel Watkins ranch near Paradise, to be known as the Ross Junior-Paradise No. 1. But it was understood and agreed that the said well was not to be drilled until there was a good hard road completed from the main street of Paradise to the entrance of the Abel Watkins ranch, and if the said road were not completed within sixty days the said J. Arnold Ross was under no obligation to drill the said well, nor to return to the said Jacob Coffey the said one dollar and other good and valuable considerations. And Dad handed that to the said Jacob Coffey, and smiled, and remarked that he hoped it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the “Watchdog.” Mr. Coffey smiled, and laid his hand on Bunny’s shoulder, and said he hoped this young man wouldn’t make any mistake and talk about it; and Dad said that Bunny was learning the oil business, and the first lesson he had learned was never to talk about his father’s affairs.
So then they shook hands all round, and the two got into their car, and Bunny exclaimed, “But Dad, I thought you were a Democrat!” And Dad laughed and said that he wasn’t deciding the tariff on hyperchlorides, nor the independence of the Philippine Islands, he was jist gettin’ a road to the Watkins ranch. Bunny said, “There’s one thing I don’t understand; how can Mr. Coffey do all that, if he hasn’t any office?” To which Dad answered that the big fellows as a rule avoided holding office for that very reason, so they
