“Well, the fellows work well, and deserve it. Here, you needn’t go out of your district, you know, and this will be enough.” He handed more money to his companion. “Have ‘em up in time, and don’t let them get high until after the election of delegates. It was thought that perhaps Mr. Musher and I had better go to the Convention. It’s just possible, Jim, that some of Bodley’s friends may make trouble.”
“No fear, Mr. Slugby, we’ll take care of that. Who do you want for chairman of the meeting?” answered Jim.
“Edward Gasserly is the best chairman. He understands things.”
“Very well, Sir, all right,” said Jim.
“Remember, Jim, Wednesday night, seven o’clock. You’ll want thirty men to make every thing short and sure. Gasserly, chairman; Musher and Slugby, delegates. And you needn’t say any thing about Abel Newt, because that will all be settled in the Convention; and the delegates of the people will express their will there as they choose. I’ll write the names of the delegates on this.”
Mr. Slugby tore off a piece of paper from a letter in his pocket, and wrote the names. He handed the list, and, taking out his watch, said,
“Bless my soul, I’m engaged at eleven, and ‘tis quarter past. Good-by, Jim, and if any thing goes wrong let me know.”
“Sartin, Sir,” replied Jim, and Mr. Slugby departed.
Mr. William Condor had a similar interview with Tom, and Mr. Ele took a friendly glass with Ned. And other Mr. Slugbys, and Condors, and Eles, had little interviews with other red-faced, trip-hammer-fisted Jims, Toms, and Neds. These healths being duly drunk, the placards were posted. They were headed with the inspiring words “Liberty and Equality,” with cuts of symbolic temples and ships and lifted arms with hammers, and summoned the legal voters to assemble in primary meetings and elect delegates to a convention to nominate a representative. The Hon. Mr. Bodley’s letter of resignation was subjoined:
“FELLOW-CITIZENS,—Deeply grateful for the honorable trust you have so long confided to me, nothing but the imperative duty of attending to my private affairs, seriously injured by my public occupations, would induce me to resign it into your hands. But while his country may demand much of every patriot, there is a point, which every honest man feels, at which he may retire. I should be deeply grieved to take this step did I not know how many abler representatives you can find in the ranks of that constituency of which any man may be proud. I leave the halls of legislation at a moment when our party is consolidated, when its promise for the future was never more brilliant, and when peace and prosperity seem to have taken up their permanent abode in our happy country, whose triumphant experiment of popular institutions makes every despot shake upon his throne. Gentlemen, in bidding you farewell I can only say that, should the torch of the political incendiary ever be applied to the sublime fabric of our system, and those institutions which were laid in our father’s struggles and cemented with their blood, should totter and crumble, I, for one, will be found going down with the ship, and waving the glorious flag of our country above the smouldering ruins of that moral night.