"That's the biggest fallacy that man ever introduced as an economy. Did you ever know a man too busy to die?"
"No, but I sometimes think I am."
"Why don't you give up the infernal office? Nothing in it, anyway."
"Why don't you give up your infernal office?"
"What!" cried the Senator, and he began to run his fingers through his beard. "Now that would be a devil of a come off, wouldn't it! How is a State to get along without laws? Hah! Look at the measures that owe their origin to me. Tom, it's all right to be tired, but it's dangerous to trample on common sense. Why don't I give up my office, indeed! Now what could have put that fool notion into your head? Have you heard anybody say that I ought to give it up? If you have, out with it, and I'll make him produce his cause or eat his words. Out with it."
"Oh, I don't know that I've heard anybody say that you ought to give it up," Estell replied, opening his eyes, but closing them again before he had completed the sentence.
"You don't know that you have," the Senator retorted, twisting his beard to a sharp and fierce-looking point. "Estell, old fellow, there are times for joking, but this is not one of them. I make no objection to fair and honorable criticism, Sir; you know that. I grant every man the right to pass upon my acts in office—in office, understand; but when a man says I ought to resign, why he must show cause, or I'll stuff him like a sausage with his own garrulity. That's me, Estell, and you know it."
"Talcom, I reckon that's you. But now to be exact, I haven't heard anybody say you ought not to be in office."
"Good enough, Tom. It's all right. Yes, Sir, it's all right," said the Statesman, with no trace of his recent disquiet, but with pleasant, kindly eyes and a countenance made smooth by the justice of his cause and the pride with which he regarded his determination to defend his good name. "But, Tom, you really need rest. Oh, of course, I don't mean that you should give up public life. No, Sir," he went on, looking at me, "when a man has once been a servant of the people, he is never satisfied to fall back among the powerless 'masters.' And, Sir—of course it wouldn't do to say it everywhere, but I will say it here in confidence—I have often looked at some poor, obscure devil and have said to myself, 'Why the deuce do you want to live? You can't possibly enjoy yourself, for nobody pays any attention to you.'"
And then spoke a voice at the door. I looked around and there Mrs. Estell stood, holding a slipper in each hand, her arms hanging limp. I did not catch the words she uttered first, but these I heard and always shall remember: "And perhaps he has a wife who worships him, and children that think he's a god. And if I were a man I would rather be in his place than to have a world of flattery."