“Well?”
“Well,” Rankin went on, “you see Pusey’s been comin’ up in the world this last year. After he got holt o’ the Citizen, which no one thought he ever could do, he braced up consider’ble an’ started in fer to edit a clean sheet—a reg’lar home an’ fireside companion. You wouldn’t know ’im now—new clothes, plug hat Sundays, an’ he gets shaved.”
“Shaved?”
“Yep, has a cup at the barber’s with a quill pen painted onto it.”
They marveled sufficiently, and Rankin resumed:
“He’s al’ays had it in fer me you know, an’ he’s a pretty slick one, he is, if I must say so. He went to work quiet like, to beat me out—”
“And he did it!”
“Yes, sir, he done it.”
Rankin sunk his hands in his trousers’ pockets and slid his heels across the floor until his legs were stretched out before him. Then he stared abstractedly, thinking of his defeat.
“Well—I’ll get through with it. I read in the papers ’at Congress ’uld adjourn the last o’ May. I thought we’d ought to have an early convention. I wanted to fix it all up and have an instructed delegation waitin’ fer you on your return, so I calls a meetin’ o’ the county committee, settin’ it on Saturday the twenty-seventh. I felt pretty good over it, too, for I thought I’d took Pusey by surprise. He didn’t say nothin’ in the paper, but he ain’t the feller to be caught nappin’—no sir, he ain’t. I didn’t give him credit fer it.”