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Title: William Adolphus Turnpike

Author: William Banks

Release Date: May 22, 2008 [eBook #25562]

Language: English

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WILLIAM ADOLPHUS TURNPIKE

by

WILLIAM BANKS

[Frontispiece: Kindly hands bound up his wounds]

J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
27 Melinda Street, Toronto
1913

All rights reserved

TO MY MOTHER

WILLIAM ADOLPHUS TURNPIKE

CHAPTER I

"What! never been to a political meeting; an' you living in a city.
Back to the hamlet for you, boy; you're lost.

"You're not? You know where you live, and could find your way home in
the dark? My, but you're cert'nly the quick actor when it comes to
thinking.

"Sure I've been to more'n a dozen political meetin's. Ain't my Pa a
member er the ex-ecutive of Ward Eighteen Conservative Club? He's a
charter member, too. Don't he rent the parlor for a pollin' booth on
votin' day, hire himself for a scrooteneer, and have my uncle Henry for
constable?

"Your father wouldn't do them things, eh! Well, maybe he ain't never
had the chance.

"The first political meeting I went to? Well it was in the hall where
the Sons of Italy meets, and Pa he ain't got no business there really
because it's not his gang what's holding the meeting. It's all
furriners organised into the Ward Eighteen European Reform Club by
Jimmy Duggan, the coal and woodyard man. My Pa and Jimmy Duggan is
great friends. Jimmy says to Pa, he says, 'Come along, Joe, I got the
greatest bunch of murd-erers of English into the club you ever seen,'
he says, 'and tonight the Honorable Wallace Fixem, Minister of Public
Works, is going to attend our inaggeral meetin',' he says, 'a