“Oh, you think so, do yeh? You imagine you’ve got me on the hip, ay?”
“Well, p’raps we’re no jedge, but it sorts o’ looks that way, now, don’t it?” Milton tipped back his chair, satisfiedly, and put one of his big feet up on the hearth, to dispute possession with the Boss.
Beekman reflected for a minute: then he began, after glancing at the clock:
“There’s no time to waste. I might as well talk up ’n’ daown with yeh. Your man Fairchild makes me tired. Ef he’d set his heart on goin’ to Congress, why on airth didn’t he come to me in the first place, ’n’ say so? It could ’a’ been arranged, easy’s slidin’ off a log. But no, instid of that, he must go ’n’ work up th’ thing his own way, ’n’ then come ’n’ buck agin me in my own caounty, ’n’ obleege me to fight back. D’yeh call that sense? He’s smart enough in his way, I grant yeh. He’s fixed up a putty fair sort o’ organisation in Dearborn, although it can’t last long, simply because it’s all built up on money, ’n’ I don’t go a cent on that kind of organising. Still it’s good enough in its way. But, he made his mistake in lettin’ the idea run away with him that he could skeer me into a conniption fit with his musharoon organisation. He didn’t knaow me. He never took the trouble to find aout abaout me. He jest took it fur granted that I’d crawl daown aout o’ my tree, like Davy Crockett’s coon, as soon’s he pinted his gun at me. Well, I didn’t come worth a cent. Then, when he faound aout that he’d struck a snag, ’n’ that Dearborn County wasn’t the hull deestrick, he turns raoun’ ’n’ aouts with his wallet, ’n’ tries to hire me to come daown. Fur that’s what you was here for last week, ’n’ you knaow it’s well’s I do.”
Milton tried to get in some words here, of dissent or explanation, but the Boss would not hear them.
“Lem me go on; ’s no use your lyin’. That was Fairchild’s second mistake. He thought politics was all money. Ef I was poorer than Job’s turkey, he couldn’t buy me to so much as wink an eye fur him. I’m not in politics fur what I kin make aout of it. I’m in because I like it; because it’s meat ’n’ drink to me; because I git solid, substantial comfort aout of it. Ther’s satisfaction in carryin’ yer eend; there’s pretty nigh as much in daownin’ them that’s agin yeh. Jest naow I’m a thinkin’ a good deal what fun it ’d be to let the floor aout from under your man altogether, ’n’ nominate this feller from Tecumsy.”
“But,” broke in Milton, “you’re a candidate yer-self, ’n’——”
“Wait till I’m threw, will yeh? I said, I’m leanin’ a good deal jest naow to’rd this man from Tecumsy. I c’d beat him easy ’nough at the polls, ef he turned cranky, but I daoubt ef it ’d be wuth while. I ain’t seen him yet, but I’m told he’s here, ’n’ ef I like his looks durn me ef I ain’t a mine to nominate him. He can’t do no harm, even ef he tries. These reform spurts don’t winter well. They never last till spring. The boys lose their breath for a few months. But then they git daown to work agin, and baounce the reformers to the back seats where they belong. But it ’d be one thing to elect a high-toned, kid-gloved, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-maouth kind o’ man like what’s-his-name, ’n’ a hoss o’ quite another color to ’lect Fairchild. He’d make me trouble from the word ‘go!’ Understan’, I ain’t afraid of his meddlin’ with me here in Jay caounty; not a bit of it. But he’d use his position to cripple me in the deestrick. The present Congressman tried that on— ’n’ you ain’t so much as heerd his name mentioned fur a re-nomination. But it was bother ’nough to squelch him. I ain’t goin’ to hev it to do all over agin.”
“Right you air, tew!” Milton responded.
The Boss held up his hand to forbid further interruption, while he looked curiously at his visitor, as if puzzled by his acquiescence. He went on: