HOW STORRI FOOLISHLY WROTE A MESSAGE
Governor Obstinate being stubbornly and openly for gold, party opinion, disliking concealment and skulking mystery, began to burn the grass of imperious inquiry about the feet of Senator Hanway. Men could understand a gold-bug or a silver-bug, and either embrace or tolerate him according to the color of their convictions. But that monstrous insect of finance, the straddlebug, pleased no one; and since Senator Hanway, whose patriotism was self-interest and who possessed no principle beyond the principle of personal aggrandizement, was on every issue a straddlebug, finance first of all, our sinuous statesman commenced to taste troublous days.
Senator Gruff urged him to declare for gold.
"You will have two-thirds of the better element with you," said Senator Gruff, "and by that I mean the richer element."
Senator Hanway submitted that while the richer or managing element was for gold, the masses might be for silver. If he were nominated following a gold declaration, a silver public might defeat him at the polls.
"But the public," explained Senator Gruff, disagreeing, "are as sheep; the managers of party are the wolves. The howl of one wolf in politics is of graver moment than the bleating of many sheep."
"But the sheep are the more numerous," laughed Senator Hanway, who was amused by what he termed the zoölogical figures of Senator Gruff.
"What matters that?" said Senator Gruff. "Wasn't it Virgil who wrote 'What cares the wolf how many the sheep be'? The wolves, I tell you, win."
Senator Hanway, full of inborn furtivities, still hung in the wind of doubt.
"Would it not be as wise," he argued, "to claim the public's attention with some new unusual proposition? Might not the public, being wholly engaged thereby, forget finance?"