"So are the ten commandments fair enough; but you're on the wrong track, Mr. Ardmore, if you're trying to support the present administration with stupid things in books. I don't follow precedents, Mr. Ardmore; I create them."
"But I should think you would have to be awfully careful not to mix up the business of the executive and judicial branches of the government. I think I heard Grissy speak of that once, though I'm not certain. Grissy knows more than almost any other living man."
"I don't doubt that your friend is a well-educated person, but in times like these you've got to rise above the constitution; and just now it's more convenient to forget it. There's a constitution of North Carolina, too, if you're looking for constitutions, but in good society such things are not mentioned. Papa always refers to the constitution with tears in his eyes when he's making speeches, but papa's very emotional. If I could make a speech I should tell the people what I think of them—that they're too silly and stupid for words."
"You are right, Miss Dangerfield. I have felt exactly that way about the people ever since I was defeated for alderman in New York. But let me have the paper."
She turned to the morning mail while he read, and opened the envelopes rapidly. Such of the letters as she thought interesting or important she put aside, and when Ardmore finished reading a double-leaded telegram from Columbia, in which the governor of South Carolina was quoted as declaring his intention of taking immediate steps for the apprehension of Appleweight, she was still reading and sorting letters, tapping her cheek lightly meanwhile with the official paper-knife.
"Here, Mr. Ardmore," she said, drawing a paper from her pocket, "is the answer to that telegram we sent yesterday evening. Suppose you read that next, and we can then decide what to do."
She was making the letters into little piles, humming softly meanwhile; but he felt that there was a storm brewing. He read the message from Columbia a number of times, and if the acting governor had not been so ominously quiet he would have laughed at the terse sentences.
"There must be a mistake about this. He wouldn't have used 'diverting' that way; that's insulting!"
"So you appreciate its significance, do you, Mr. Ardmore? The iron enters your soul, does it? You realize that I have been insulted, do you?"