A Third Citizen (a Swede. In a sing-song voice). “Answer me this, Mr. Pinski. If a majority of the citizens of the Fourteenth Ward don’t want you to vote for it, will you still vote for it?”
Pinski (hesitating).
The Five Hundred. “Ho! look at the scoundrel! He’s afraid to say. He don’t know whether he’ll do what the people of this ward want him to do. Kill him! Brain him!”
A Voice from Behind. “Aw, stand up, Pinski. Don’t be afraid.” Pinski (terrorized as the five hundred make a rush for the stage). “If the people don’t want me to do it, of course I won’t do it. Why should I? Ain’t I their representative?”
A Voice. “Yes, when you think you’re going to get the wadding kicked out of you.”
Another Voice. “You wouldn’t be honest with your mother, you bastard. You couldn’t be!”
Pinski. “If one-half the voters should ask me not to do it I wouldn’t do it.”
A Voice. “Well, we’ll get the voters to ask you, all right. We’ll get nine-tenths of them to sign before to-morrow night.”
An Irish-American (aged twenty-six; a gas collector; coming close to Pinski). “If you don’t vote right we’ll hang you, and I’ll be there to help pull the rope myself.”
One of Pinski’s Lieutenants. “Say, who is that freshie? We want to lay for him. One good kick in the right place will just about finish him.”