t; the boodlers know it; the foreign investors know it.
I make the government keep its faith. If a man is promised a job he
gets it. If outside capital buys a concession it gets the goods. I
run a monopoly of square dealing here. There's no competition. If
Colonel Diogenes were to flash his lantern in this precinct he'd have
my address inside of two minutes. There isn't big money in it, but
it's a sure thing, and lets a man sleep of nights.'

"Thus Homer P. Mellinger made oration to me and Henry Horsecollar.
And, later, he divested himself of this remark:

"'Boys, I'm to hold a _soiree_ this evening with a gang of leading
citizens, and I want your assistance. You bring the musical corn
sheller and give the affair the outside appearance of a function.
There's important business on hand, but it mustn't show. I can talk
to you people. I've been pained for years on account of not having
anybody to blow off and brag to. I get homesick sometimes, and I'd
swap the entire perquisites of office for just one hour to have a
stein and a caviare sandwich somewhere on Thirty-fourth Street, and
stand and watch the street cars go by, and smell the peanut roaster
at old Giuseppe's fruit stand.'

"'Yes,' said I, 'there's fine caviare at Billy Renfrew's cafe, corner
of Thirty-fourth and--'

"'God knows it,' interrupts Mellinger, 'and if you'd told me you knew
Billy Renfrew I'd have invented tons of ways of making you happy.
Billy was my side-kicker in New York. There is a man who never knew
what crooked was. Here I am working Honesty for a graft, but that man
loses money on it. Carrambos! I get sick at times of this country.
Everything's rotten. From the executive down to the coffee pickers,
they're plotting to down each other and skin their friends. If a mule
driver takes off his hat to an official, that man figures it out that
he's a popular idol, and sets his pegs to stir up a revolution and
upset the administration. It's one of my little chores as private
secretary to smell out these revolutions and affix the kibosh before
they break out and scratch the paint off the government property.
That's why I'm down here now in this mildewed coast town. The
governor of the district and his crew are plotting to uprise. I've
got every one of their names, and they're invited to listen to the
phonograph to-night, compliments of H. P. M. That's the way I'll get
them in a bunch, and things are on the programme to happen to them.'

"We three we