“No. I try to see how the ward wants its alderman to vote on the franchises.”
“Look a-here. What are you so set on the Hummel crowd for?”
“I’m not.”
“Is it because Hummel’s a big contractor and gives you lots of law business?”
“No,” said Peter, smiling. “And you don’t think it is, either.”
“Has they offered you some stock cheap?”
“Come, come, Denton. You know the tu quoque do here.”
Denton shifted in his seat uneasily, not knowing what reply to make. Those two little Latin words had such unlimited powers of concealment in them. He did not know whether tu quoque meant something about votes, an insulting charge, or merely a reply, and feared to make himself ridiculous by his response to them. He was not the first man who has been hampered and floored by his own ignorance. He concluded he must make an entire change of subject to be safe. So he said, “I ain’t goin’ to be no boss’s puppy dog.”
“No,” said Peter, finding it difficult not to smile, “you are not that kind of a man.”
“I takes my orders from no one.”