Virginia lifted her finger and her father took the outstretched arm and drew it around his neck.
“I have to put up with the nincompoops for Virginia’s sake. But I’m going to explode some day and say things. I can feel it coming on me—”
He stopped abruptly and leaned forward, releasing Virginia’s arm.
“Young man, I can talk to you—you’re not a suffragette—you’re a real man. Between the women, the Jews and the foreigners this country is not only going to the dogs—it’s gone—hell bent and hell bound. It’s no use talking any more. I’ve given up and gone to playing checkers—”
“We may save it yet, sir,” Vassar interrupted cheerfully.
“Save it? Great Scott, man, have you been down Broadway lately? Look at the signs—Katzmeyers, Einsteins, Epsteins, Abrahams, Isaacs and Jacobs! It would rest your eyes to find a Fogarty or a Casey. By the eternal, an Irishman now seems like a Son of the American Revolution! The Congressman from this district, sir, is a damned Pole from Posen!”
Virginia burst into a fit of laughter.
“What’s the matter, Miss Troublemaker?” Holland growled.
“You didn’t get the name, father dear—this is Mr. John Vassar, the damned Pole Congressman to whom you have so graciously referred—”
Holland frowned, searched his daughter’s face for the joke, and looked at Vassar helplessly.