“Plenty,” he said. “Nothing.”

I had a suggestion:

“If you’ve got something on him, maybe we ought to talk it over. I wouldn’t mind seeing Bush win, myself. If what you’ve got is any good, what’s the matter with putting it up to him?”

He looked at me, at the sidewalk, fumbled in his vest pocket for another toothpick, put it in his mouth, and mumbled:

“Who are you?”

I gave him a name, something like Hunter or Hunt or Huntington, and asked him his. He said his name was MacSwain, Bob MacSwain, and I could ask anybody in town if it wasn’t right.

I said I believed him and asked:

“What do you say? Will we put the squeeze to Bush?”