Gergue waved his hand. “That made it more like a joke on your paw. Everybuddy knowed what your paw thinks of you. Figured it’d pupplex him. It did, too, Wint. It certainly did pupplex your paw.”
“It would,” Wint agreed. “But—I should think Caretall would as soon see my father elected as me.”
“Yo’r paw had a little too much wind in his sails. Needed a little coolin’ off. Amos gave it to him.”
“But how about Kite?” Wint asked. “Why was he so ready to fall in with it?”
Gergue looked at Wint sidewise. “Why, he don’t like yo’r paw so very much,” he explained, with an appearance of frankness, “and besides that, Kite’s wet, and your paw’s dry. That stands t’ reason.”
“He figured I would be wet, of course.”
Gergue nodded emphatically. “Natural,” he said. “Natural, he figured that way.”
“Did Caretall have that idea, too?”
Gergue wagged his head. “We-ell, now,” he parried, “Amos don’t lay so much on that end of it. He’s a wet man, in politics; but he don’t touch it hisself. I guess he just wanted t’ give you a leg up—see what you’d do. Amos keeps his eye on the young fellows, that way.”
They had crossed the tracks while they were talking, and now they met two men. Wint knew these men casually; they knew him. They were workmen; and they saw Wint and Gergue together, and grinned, and one of them called: “Morning, Mr. Mayor.”