"You have a short memory," said Mr. Grant.
"Why as to that, old friend," replied Fog with a good-natured laugh, at the same time laying his hand on Mr. Grant's shoulder, "you can't call that a fault. Every politician has a short memory—he'd be no politician without it. Mine's no shorter than the rest. Sir, let me tell you, the great secret of the success of the immutable, New-Light, Quodlibetarian Democracy, is in the shortness of the memory. Still, I would like to know what you mean by the remark."
"I mean to say," replied Mr. Grant, "that when you and Nicodemus Handy were endeavoring to persuade me to take an interest in your bank, you didn't think it so undemocratic as you seem to do to-day."
"It is impossible for me to remember what I said on the occasion to which you allude, sir," returned Fog; "but my principles have always been the same. I could not have gone against them, sir; morally impossible."
"And I told you that your bank was a humbug," continued Mr. Grant.
"Ay, ay," rejoined Fog; "that's the old song. You Whigs are monstrous good at prophesying after the result is known."
"You admit, I suppose," said Mr. Grant, "that this Bank of Quodlibet has exploded?"
"Burst, sir, into a thousand tatters," replied Fog.
"You admit that there is a large amount of paper money afloat?"
"A genuine Whig crop," answered Fog: "enough to make a stack as large as the largest in your barnyard."