"What?" asked the Colonel.

"Graft me," repeated Mayor Stitz. "I say for how much you will graft me
when I shall pass one such ordinance my council through?"

"What's that?" asked the Colonel, puzzled.

"For how much you will make me one graft?" Mayor Stitz repeated slowly.
"Graft! Graft! Understand him not?"

The Colonel shook his head.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Graft! Graft! Graft!" exclaimed the mayor with annoyance. "Don't you
know him? When I make you one ordinance to pass, so, then you make me
one graft, so! Like I read me in this book. Me to you, one ordinance;
you to me one graft. So!"

A look of dismay came over the face of the Colonel, as he frowned at
the smooth, honest face of the mayor, from which beamed eyes of childish
honesty and frankness.

"Here in this book," said the mayor slowly and distinctly, like one
explaining some simple thing to a child, "I read me of this graft
business. It is to me this graft comes. So it is by all big cities. Man
would have one ordinance. Goot! In every town is such one boss grafter.
To the boss grafter gives the ordinance-wanting man a graft. So! Then
for the ordinance-wanting man does the boss grafter get one ordinance
made like is wanted. Yes! So, it is; no graft, no ordinance! Some graft,
some ordinance! I read him in this book Doc Weaver gives me as a lesson
to go by. It is a goot way. I like me that graft business."

A glimmer of the meaning entered the Colonel's mind, but he could hardly
connect the idea of graft with the honest Johann Stitz. As a fact, to
Mayor Stitz the idea of unlawful gain did not come. Graft was a way out
of the difficulty of having to decide things. It was a system authorized
by the lawmakers of great cities, and a system that could operate
in Kilo. Whenever Stitz and his council passed an ordinance someone
complained, and upbraided him; he saw now why this was; they had not
used the approved system. But the Colonel still frowned.

"Well, what--how much do you want?" he asked.

Mayor Stitz turned up his innocent face and smiled blandly again.

"That makes not!" he exclaimed. "In the books it says much money, but
is not yet Kilo so gross as New York. We go easy yet a while. It is what
you want to graft me. One bushel apples--one bushel potatoes--that YOU
must say."

The Colonel moved closer to the mayor. He thought of Miss Sally, and of
Skinner.

"I will make you a present of a bushel of apples," he said.

The mayor laid dow