“What do you think of that, gentlemen?” said he, folding the letter and putting it into his pocket. “I tell you, General House can come as near breakin’ the shell and gettin’ at the meat of the kernel as any man I ever knew’. He’s brainy, and no mistake. Our citizens are excited,” Ballard went on, “and in their excitement they are foolish. They’re attemptin’ to bite the hand that is feedin’ us all. ‘The Town Company has made this town. I address my remarks, Mr. Gilder, to you. Modesty forbids, sir, that I should say to my friends, Mr. Donald and Mr. Winthrop, that which I unhesitatingly proclaim to an outside party. Now let me ask, Mr. Gilder, if I didn’t tell you long ago that the members of the Waterville Town Company were the brainiest men this country had ever produced?”
"I believe you made that remark,” replied Vance.
“Yes, sir, and I am proud to repeat the statement, and in the letter which I have just read to you I have the evidence, the prima facie evidence, that Watcrville is only restin’, as it were, preparatory to enterin’ the free-for-all hurdle race, and makin’ the fastest time on record. Yes, sir, her time will be a record breaker, and she will distance all would-be competitors, notwithstandin’ the slanderous and libelous articles now goin’ the rounds in the press.’
“We now,” continued Mallard, “are a ways-and-means committee. The closing of our public school would indeed be a calamity. They asked me over at the town meetin’ how much money was in the school treasury. I told them I didn’t know. I beg you gentlemen’s pardon for my reply, I do know. There is not a cent. I was forced into the awkward position of tellin’ a falsehood for the good of my adopted city, Waterville. Now, gentle men, what do you advise?”
“I think,” said Donald, “that our taxpayers proper are not objecting to the expense of our public school. The Waterville Town Company owns fully three-fourths of all the property in Waterville, and we want the school to go on. The citizens who are the loudest in denouncing the expense, and calling most vigorously for retrenchment, as a matter of fact, do not pay a penny of tax.”
“You’re right,” said Dick Ballard, glowingly, “that’s the talk! There’s argument in your remarks, Mr. Donald, and if I had them printed on dodgers I would regard it as a personal privilege to deliver copies to members of my State Militia Company, and issue a general order to have them distributed over the entire town.”
“I wish to call your attention to one thing,” continued Ballard. “No member of my State Militia Company voted to discontinue our public school; no, sir, not one.”