arades in which the average citizen
delights. The wise Woodruff spent nearly one-third of my "education"
money in this way.

One morning I found him laughing over the bill for a grand Burbank rally
at Indianapolis--about thirty-five thousand dollars, as I remember the
figures.

"What amuses you?" said I.

"I was thinking what fools the people are, never to ask themselves where
all the money for these free shows comes from, and why those who give
are willing to give so much, and how they get it back. What an ass the
public is!"

"Fortunately," said I.

"For us," said he.

"And for itself," I rejoined.

"Perhaps," he admitted. "It was born to be plucked, and I suppose our
crowd does do the plucking more scientifically than less experienced
hands would."

"I prefer to put it another way," said I. "Let's say that we save it
from a worse plucking."

"That _is_ better," said Doc. For, on his way up in the world, he was
rapidly developing what could, and should, be called conscience.

I looked at him and once more had a qualm like shame before his moral
superiority to me. We were plodding along on about the same moral
level; but he had ascended to that level, while I had descended to it.
There were politicians posing as pure before the world and even in the
party's behind-the-scene, who would have sneered at Doc's "conscience."
Yet, to my notion, they, who started high and from whatever sophistry of
motive trailed down into the mire, are lower far than they who began
deep in the mire and have been struggling bravely toward the surface. I
know a man who was born in the slums, was a pickpocket at eight years of
age, was a boss at forty-five, administering justice according to his
lights. I know a man who was born what he calls a gentleman and who, at
forty-five, sold himself for the "honors" of a high office. And once,
after he had shaken hands with that boss, he looked at me, furtively
made a wry face, and wiped his hand with his pocket handkerchief!

The other part of our work of preparation--getting the Wall Street
whales in condition for the "fat-frying"--was also finished. The Wall
Street Roebuck and I adventured was in a state of quake from fear of the
election of "the scourge of God," as our subsidized socialist and
extreme radical papers had dubbed Scarborough--and what invaluable
campaign material their praise of him did make for us!

Roebuck and I went from office to office among the great of commerce,