Peter answered with an oath.
“The worst of it is, that in cooking your goose, you burnt ours to a cinder. We haven't the ghost of a chance now, and the Republican candidate will have a walk-over to Congress,” said a third supporter.
Alas for human delusions! This fiasco was the crowning glory of Roper's political campaign. Like the celebrated ambitious toad which cracked its sides by the force of its own inflation, Peter came to grief, ignominious grief; that is to say, it would have been ignominious to any one not thoroughly inoculated with disgrace as he, according to his own version, must have been from the day of his birth.
“Let me ask you a question, Roper,” said a fourth friend. “Why did you bring out such a thing against your mother? It was your misfortune as long as you kept quiet about it, but now it is your shame. What was the good of telling against your own mother? Don't you know that people, even the humblest, must censure and despise you for it? Few, very few decent men, like to have anything to do with a man who reviles his dead mother, no matter if she was a poor cook. What pleasure can you find in proclaiming your shame?”
Roper laughed loud and derisively, saying:
“What will you bet that I'll have just as good and just as many friends in San Diego as I ever had before?”
“Do you mean to say that the people of San Diego approve of language such as you used to-night? Approve your conduct?”
“Never mind about that, only will you take my bet?”
The henchman shrugged his shoulders and walked off, but if he had taken that bet, he would have lost.
When Colonel Hornblower received the news of Roper's fiasco, it occurred to him that he would take a trip to Europe. He had now made money enough out of the troubles and distress he and Roper brought upon others, to indulge in that luxury, the pleasure of saying he had been to Europe.