"No, Judy. I don't want another dram, and I never indulge in hints, especially with a straightforward person like you. If I wanted a drink I'd tell you so, but in fact I hardly ever taste liquor of any sort, and that toddy you gave me was the first I've sipped in a year or more."
"Yes, it's curious, but they's a good many young men nowadays as don't take to their drams natural like. I s'pose it's all right, but I don't understand it. Anyhow, that's no matter. As I was a sayin', Boyd Westover's got that notion in his head 'bout folks a bein' down on him, an' it'll come back to him when the snow drives him down out'n the mountings. Now the way to cure him of it's to git him 'lected to somethin', an' I's got the somethin' picked out. When he fin's as folks has voted for him agin t'other feller, he jes' naturally can't go on a thinkin' folks is down on him. See?"
"Yes, I see that, and your idea is a good one, Judy, if we can get him to run for some office."
"Git him to run? We won't ax him. We'll jes' run him ourselves, an' we'll 'lect him too, ef the big figgers tops the little ones as I's always seed 'em do in a 'lection count."
Judy was apt to be confident in her predictions, chiefly for the reason that she never made a prediction till she knew all the facts that might bear in any way upon its fulfilment.
"That's what I wanted to see you about, Carley. This is the way of it. You kin help, an' I'm a bettin' my fingers agin fishhooks you'll do it."
"It's a good bet, Judy," he interrupted. "I'd do anything imaginable for Westover, and, now that I know you, I'd do even more than that for you. Go on. What's your plan?"
"Well, you see that measly little soap-locked sap-head, William Wilberforce Webb—they's more name to the man than man to the name—has gone an' got hisself enominated fer the Senate. That suits me down to the ground. You an' me is a goin' to beat him out'n his boots, an' 'lect Westover in his stid. That's the game an' the way the wind blows, an' the lay o' the land."
"But, Judy, can we do it? You see Webb has secured the regular Whig nomination, and this is a strong Whig district."
"That's all right," answered Judy, confident of the "figgerin'" she had made Marcellus McGrath do on her slate. "You see it's this a'way. The Democrats ain't got no chanst to 'lect a man o' their own, but they're a layin' low to rip the righteousness out'n the reg'lar Whig candidate ef they git the chanst, an' you an' me's a goin' to give 'em the chanst. We'll enominate Westover as a 'Independent Whig candidate' an' every Democrat in the distric' 'll vote for him. They won't be no Democrat candidate."