n as solid
as if it had been put there by a file-maker, expert in permanent
pimpling--"

"Yes, I noticed them when you were at breakfast this morning," sniffed
Jim.

"Why, it's no joke, Jim; this discussion about the country will wind up
in some sort of a revolution. I have been talking around lately among
the plain people, and a lot of them declare straight up and down that
the country is going to peter out like the water in the tap here in our
fifth flat when I am completely soaped up and have to stand there and
feel it crackle and dry in my ears and burn me blind. Pretty soon those
people who read my paper, say the prosperity of the United States will
slow down into a quiet trickle, then a dribble shading off into a blast
of air and a maddening gurgle, while folks stick their heads out the
window and swear at the government for not giving them notice."

"It's an awful big country to save," said Jim. "Look at the
Prohibitionists."

"Well, Jim, I must say I get discouraged when I read of one man being
worth a thousand million dollars. It makes me feel mighty poor. I don't
see any use in being ambitious and taking any stock at all in anything
so far as I am concerned, but I do hate to see the government come to
harm. I get to thinking that if the Declaration of Independence isn't
going to hold out that I'll change my politics and then see what will
happen. When a fellow who is as set in his ways as I am changes his
politics, reform must be coming, for I would probably be the last man to
flop."

"If you could stick to one girl the way you do to the Republican party,"
said Jim, "you would soon be letting the country go to blazes."

I could see that he was inclined toward shallow conversation. It was
evident that he had more to tell me than he dared in view of the
calamity which had followed his former confidences. I said nothing,
merely making note of his mental condition. I was not through with the
country by any means. It was best to pump Jim by indirect conversation.

"It's an awful thing to think of changing your politics," I continued.
"Why, up in Oswegatchie County, as far back as anybody can remember or
read in the town papers on file, my folks have been Republicans and have
been honored with office, earned good salaries and some of the longest
obituary poems ever penned by that necrological songbird, Amelia
Benson."

"She sang like a catbird for fifty cents a column," remarked Jim.

"Her style was good