“Not at all, sir. I was duly elected to each, served my time out in them all, and have honorable discharges to show in every instance.”
“You must have found some perplexity in the performance of duties so very different?”
“Ah—I see you have been long enough in Leaphigh to imbibe some of its prejudices! It is a sad country for prejudice. I got my foot mired in some of them myself, as soon as it touched the land. Why sir, my card is an illustration of what we call, in Leaplow, rotation in office.”
“Rotation in office!”
“Yes, sir, rotation in office; a system that we invented for our personal convenience, and which is likely to be firm, as it depends on principles that are eternal.”
“Will you suffer me to inquire, colonel, if it has any affinity to the social-stake system?”
“Not in the least. That, as I understand it, is a stationary, while this is a rotatory system. Nothing is simpler. We have in Leaplow two enormous boxes made in the form of wheels. Into one we put the names of the citizens, and into the other the names of the offices. We then draw forth, in the manner of a lottery, and the thing is settled for a twelvemonth.”
“I find this rotatory plan exceedingly simple—pray, sir, does it work as well as it promises?”
“To perfection.—We grease the wheels, of course, periodically.”
“And are not frauds sometimes committed by those who are selected to draw the tickets?”