Old Jimmy shook a severe yet lofty head. “If some guy tells you, Wop, that Charley needs anybody in his corner at a dinner that guy's stringin' you. Charley can see his way through from napkins to toothpicks, as well as old Chauncey Depew. There's a lot of duffers goin' 'round knockin' Charlie. They're sore just because he's gettin' along, see? They'll tell you how if you butt him up ag'inst a dinner table, he'll about give you an imitation of a blind dog in a meat-shop—how he'll try to eat peas with a knife an' let 'em roll down his sleeve an' all that. So far as them hoboes knockin' Charley goes, it's to his credit. You don't want to forget, Wop, they never knock a dead one.”
“In th' ould gas house days,” enquired the Wop, “wasn't Cha-a-arley a conducthor on wan av th' crosstown ca-a-ars?”
“He was! an' a good one too. That's where he got his start. He quit 'em when they introduced bell punches; an' I don't blame him! Them big companies is all alike. Which of 'em'll stand for it to give a workin' man a chance?”
“Did thim la-a-ads lasht night make spaches?”
“Speeches? Nothin' but Trusts is to be th' issue this next pres'dential campaign.”
“Now about thim trushts? I've been wantin' to ashk yez th' long time. I've been hearin' av trushts for tin years, an' Mary save me! if I'd know wan if it was to come an' live next dure.”
“Well, Wop,” returned old Jimmy engigmatically, “a trust is anything you don't like—only so it's a corp'ration. So long as it stands in with you an' you like it, it's all right, see? But once it takes to handin' you th' lemon, it's a trust.”
“Speakin' av th' pris'dency, it looks loike this fat felly Taft's out to get it in th' neck.”
“Surest ever! Th' trusts is sore on him; an' th' people is sore on him. He's a frost at both ends of th' alley.”
“W'at crabbed him?”