Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 1047

The governor was not used to having his integrity questioned, and he promptly passed the charges on to Woodruff, demanding that Woodruff answer them.

If Woodruff could not furnish a strong explanation, the governor insisted that he lower his prices in accord with the scale printed in The Advocate.

Woodruff was now impaled on the horns of a dilemma.

As a proud man, his prestige would suffer if he let Pike dictate to him through the governor's office, but to lower his prices would be tantamount to an admission that they had been too high in the first place.

As a consequence, he did neither.

Very angry at Woodruff, the governor used his personal influence to have the printing contract withdrawn from The Gazette and awarded to the lowest bidder, which, by a strange coincidence, happened to be Pike's Advocate.

And, for the moment at least, the governor now found himself allied with the head of the Crittenden faction he had formerly opposed, and Pike was credited with a clear triumph over Woodruff.