“Oh, you have!” exclaimed Wiggin, now all attention.
“Yes, and this time I'd bet my two arms and the first joint of my right leg agin a pinch o' snuff that Carson'll beat you worse than a man was ever whipped in his life.”
“You think so, Baker?” Wiggin was trying to sneer.
“I don't think anything about it; I know it,” said Pole.
Wiggin stared at the ground a moment aimlessly, then he said, doggedly, and yet with an evident desire for information at any sort of fountain-head: “What makes you think I'm beat, Baker?”
“Because you've showed you hain't no politician, an' you've got a born one to beat. For one thing, you've stirred up a hornet's nest. Women, when they set the'r heads agin a'body, are devils in petticoats, an' the one that presided this mornin' has got more influence than forty men. Before you are a day older every man who has a wife, mother, or sweetheart will be afraid to speak to you in broad daylight. Then ag'in, no candidate ever won a race on a platform of pure hate an' revenge. You made that crowd as mad as hell just now, while you was belchin' out that stuff, but as soon as Sister Parsons showed 'em what a friend of the'rs Dwight was they melted to him like thin snow after a rain.”