n elections.

"I've helped 'lect mor'n one feller t' office in my day. Take Ross
Shelby now: both times he run fer th' 'Sembly I worked like a nailer.
'Cause why? He done right by me. Why I luved that cuss like--like--"
he hesitated for a simile--"like my own son," he added, with the
passing of one of his brood, and forthwith whacked the youngster for
overturning the bait can. "Jes' like my own son. An' so I should
still ef he hedn't done me dirt; ef he'd ben square. Now, you're
square."

"I try to be," returned Bernard, ravished by the tribute. "That's my
platform in this campaign, you know."

"Yes; jes' so. An' I rather 'magine I'll vote yer way."

"Thank you."

"Pro-vi-ded," Jasper added, "pro-vi-ded we c'n 'range things."

"Arrange things?"

Jasper's eyes wandered musingly over his interlocutor's face.

"'Range things, I sez, an' I sez it again."

He abandoned something of his drawl. "I 'magine I c'd tell sumpin ef I
tuk a notion."

Graves brooked his tone with difficulty.

"I shouldn't be here if I didn't think so too," he answered coolly.

"Jes' so," agreed Jasper, absorbed in a sinker. "I c'd tell sumpin
erbout a party thet I 'magine you'd cock yer ear t' hear."

"Shelby?"

"I 'magine I didn't jes' quite say. No, I 'magine not."

"If you will exercise your imagination less, Mr. Hinchey, and say
plainly what you have to say, I shall be obliged," retorted Bernard,
exasperated by his shiftiness.

Jasper was unmoved.

"Easy t' see _you_ ain't ben in pol'tics long. Wall, whut I've got t'
say is this: I used t' work fer this party off 'n' on,--this party
whose name I ain't a-mentionin'. He wuz in pol'tics too. Likewise run
a quarry an' s'm'other things t' num'rous t' mention. 'Twas in the
quarry I worked, mostly erbout 'lection time. Cur'ous, ain't it, whut
good pay a feller'll git fer light work erbout 'lection time? Wall,
this year I ain't hed proper treatment. This party 'lows money is
tight, an' he's filled his quarry up with dagoes, damned dagoes." He
paused to scowl over the shanties of his immediate neighbors and at the
industrious washerwoman up the dock. "Wouldn't it make you sick th'
way furrin labor's a-crowdin' out th' true 'Merican? I jes' despise
dagoes."

Graves was too disgusted to reply. He recollected having heard a negro
speak contemptuously of Jews, but this case seemed yet more extreme.

"Wall," pursued the true American, "I wuz with this party a spell