As the Colonel entered the mayor's shoe shop Stitz was reading a magazine, which he laid beside him on the car seat while he listened to the Colonel. A pile of similar magazines lay beside him on the seat. They were the missionary offerings of Doc Weaver, who was interested in whatever was latest in religion, government or popular science. They were magazines telling of the municipal corruption of “New York, The Vile,” “Philadelphia, Defiled but Happy,” “Chicago, the Base,” and “St. Louis, the Decayed.” Doc Weaver had given them to Mayor Stitz to show him the evil of graft, and to keep his administration clean and pure.
When the Colonel had laid before the mayor his request for an ordinance compelling all opera house owners in Kilo to install and maintain four nickel-plated fire-extinguishers in each opera house, the mayor beamed on him through his iron-rimmed spectacles.
“Ho! Ho-o!” he exclaimed, “it is to make Mister Skinner buy some fire-extinguishers, yes? So shall my city council pass an ordinance, yes? Um!”
He smiled broadly at the Colonel, and then nodded.
“For how much you graft me?” he asked blandly.
“What?” asked the Colonel.
“Graft me,” repeated Mayor Stitz. “I say for how much you will graft me when I shall pass one such ordinance my council through?”
“What's that?” asked the Colonel, puzzled.
“For how much you will make me one graft?” Mayor Stitz repeated slowly. “Graft! Graft! Understand him not?”
The Colonel shook his head.