"There's poorer wit than yours, Dennie, out of the insane asylums. I'll shtow that away in me mind an' fire it off in the Boord the nexht time I make a speech. If I had your brains, lad, I'd a made more out av 'em than you have."
"You've done well enough with your own," said Dennie. "They tell me it's been a good year for business in the Board, Colonel."
"Not over-good, Dennie. The office aint what it was once. It useter be that ye cud make a nate pile in wan terrum, but now wid the assessmints an' the price of gettin' there, yer lucky if ye come out aven."
"The trouble is that you fool away your money, Colonel. You ought not to hand over to every bummer that comes along. You should be discreet. There's a big floating vote in this district, and you can float still more into it if you go about it the right way."
The Colonel looked curiously into Dennie's ingenuous blue eyes, and said with an indifferent air, "Ye mought be right, and then agin ye moughtn't."
"Oh, certainly, we don't know as much before election as we do after."
"Is yer mind workin', Dennie? Air ye figgerin' at somethin'?"
"Oh, no; I happened to meet The Croak this morning—you know The Croak, he's in the green-goods line?"
"Do I know him? Me name's kep' on his bail-bond as reg'lar as on the parish book."
"Yes, of course; well, I met him, as I was saying, and, to make a long story short, I found that Bockerheisen had got hold of him, and they've packed a lot of tenement-houses with Poles and Italians and organized an association. There are about 600 of them. Dutchy keeps them in beer, and that's about all they want, you know."