As may be recalled, State Senator Horace K. Maydew, of our town and county, being a leader of men and of issues, once upon a time hankered mightily to serve the district in Congress and in the moment that he could almost taste of triumph accomplished had the cup dashed from his lips through the instrumentality of one who, locally, was fancied as being rather better than a dabster at politics, himself. During the months which succeeded this defeat, the mortified Maydew nursed a sharpened grudge toward the enemy, keeping it barbed and fletched against the time when he might let fly with it. Presently an opportunity for reprisals befell. Maydew's term as State Senator neared its close. For personal reasons, which he found good and sufficient, the incumbent did not offer as a candidate to succeed himself. But quite naturally, and perhaps quite properly, he desired to name his successor. Privily he began casting about him for a likely and a suitable candidate, which to the senator's understanding meant one who would be biddable, tractable and docile. Before he had quite agreed with himself upon a choice, young Tobias Houser came out into the open as an aspirant for the Democratic nomination, and when he heard the news Senator Maydew re-honed his hate to a razor-edge. For young Tobe Houser, who had been a farmer-boy and then a country school teacher and who now had moved to town and gone into business, was something else besides: He was the nephew of Judge Priest, the only son of the judge's dead sister. It was the judge's money that had helped the young man through the State university. Undoubtedly—so Maydew read the signs of the times—it was the judge's influence which now brought the youngster forth as an aspirant for public office. In the Houser candidacy Maydew saw, or thought he saw, another attack upon his fiefship on the party organisation and the party machinery.
On an evening of the same week in which Tobe Houser inserted his modestly-worded announcement card in the Daily Evening News, Senator Maydew called to conference—or to concurrence—two lieutenants who likewise had cause to be stalwart supporters of his policies. The meeting took place in the living room of the Maydew home. When the drinks had been sampled and the cigars had been lighted Senator Maydew came straight to the business in hand:
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I've got a candidate—a man none of us ever thought of before. How does the name of Quintus Q. Montjoy seem to strike you?”
Mr. Barnhill looked at Mr. Bonnin, and Mr. Bonnin looked back at Mr. Barnhill. Then both of them looked at Maydew.
“Montjoy, eh?” said Barnhill, doubtfully, seeming not to have heard aright.
“Quintus Q. Montjoy you said, didn't you?” asked Bonnin as though there had been any number of Montjoys to choose from. He spoke without enthusiasm.
“Certainly,” answered Maydew briskly, “Quintus Q. Montjoy, Esquire. Any objections to him that you can think of, off-hand?”
“Well,” said Mr. Barnhill, who was large of person and slow of speech, “he ain't never done anything.”
“If I'm any judge he never will do anything—much,” supplemented Mr. Bonnin, who was by way of being small and nervous.
“You've said it—both of you,” stated their leader, catching them up with a snap. “He never has done anything. That gives him a clean record to run on. He never will do anything—on his own hook, I mean. That'll make him a safe, sound, reliable man to have representing this district up yonder at Frankfort. Last session they licked the Stickney warehouse bill for us. This season it'll come up again for passage. I guarantee here and now that Quint Montjoy will vote right on that proposition and all other propositions that'll come up. He'll vote right because we'll tell him how to vote. I know him from the skin out.”