“Easy for a while until we see how things break on this.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Curtains drawn, you know, and back rooms quiet. Tell the girls to go slow on the piano playing. Did Ike, the dip, come across?”
“Not yet, Captain.”
“Pinch him today and give him the cooler. Get me?”
“It’s done, cap.”
“Close in on the stuss games. Pass the word to go easy.”
“I get you.”
“Mary Randall, eh?” asked Captain Shammer of vacancy when his aid had gone. “Mary Randall! Well, Mary, you sure have got your nerve with you.”
Senator Barker was a member of the Governor’s vice investigating committee. The committee had been appointed to frame a minimum wage law for women. He was a person of ponderous bulk and mental equipment. He had slipped into office, not because the people yearned for him, but because there had happened to be a battle on between two factions of his natural political opponents in the fortunate hour he had selected for aspiring to office. Like most other American officeholders he spent his days and nights scheming out ways to continue living at the public’s expense. He perused Mary Randall’s screed as he sat over his morning grape-fruit.