The man of God took his daughter’s firm, round chin between his thumb and forefinger and shook it lovingly. “One ‘gee whiz’ in the family is enough,” said he. “I am glad you feel like one, however. You take me back twenty-five years, my dear. Your mother used to say ‘gee whiz’ when she felt like it. It is, after all, a rather harmless way of exploding.”
“I know—but don’t you think it is wonderful?” she cried. “I mean, Oliver going to the Legislature and—”
“Whoa, Jane!” interrupted Oliver, a trifle thickly. He wondered what was the matter with his voice. “Steady! Sammy’s crazy. I wouldn’t any more think of letting ’em put me up for—why, gee whiz! It’s too ridiculous for words.”
Her face fell. “I must say I like ‘gee whiz’ only when it expresses enthusiasm,” she said. “It’s an awful joy-killer, the way you used it just then, Oliver.”
“I don’t want any politics in mine,” he stated, almost sullenly. Then brightly: “If I had to choose between the two, I’d sooner go in for religion.”
Mr. Sage smiled. “If more clean-minded, honest fellows like you, Oliver, were to go into politics, there wouldn’t have to be so many preachers in the land.”
“What chance has an honest man got in politics, I’d like to know?”
“The same chance that he has in the church. The people want honest men in politics, just as they demand honest men in their pulpits.”
“That’s all right, sir, but it’s easier to be good in a church than it is in a barroom—and that’s just about the distinction.”
“You forget we’ve got prohibition now,” said Jane, ironically. “There isn’t a barroom in the whole United States and there isn’t a single drop of intoxicating liquor.” She laughed derisively.