"No, I can't vote here—but I can get as bitter over their fights as if they were my own. I couldn't explain why I'm interested any more than a hound could tell why he wants to run with the pack. It's just that the game calls a man."
"Morgan calls politics the sport of the great unwashed," observed Anne. "He says it gives the lower class a substitute for mental activity and demagogues a chance to exploit them."
"Does he?" inquired Boone drily.
"Boone"—Anne's eyes filled suddenly with a grave anxiety—"aren't you really working so hard about all this business—because Uncle Tom is so deeply involved in it and because you think he's in some danger?"
Boone leaned forward to right a twisted martingale, and when he straightened up he answered slowly: "I suppose any prominent man in a hard fight may be in—some danger, but he doesn't seem to take it very seriously."
"Why," she demanded, "can't men oppose each other in politics without getting rabid about it?"
"They can—when it's just politics. This is more than that, according to the way we feel about it."
"Why?"
"Because we charge that the city hall is in the hands of plunderers and that for tribute they give criminals a free hand in preying on the citizens."
"And yet," demurred the girl, with puzzled brow, "men like Judge McCabe laugh at all this 'reform hysteria,' as they call it. They aren't criminals."