But such fighting is not for me.  I should lose half the joy of the battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him!  It wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t do at all.

“It’s a warm day,” observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of his fighting form.  I rather like the look of his eye.

“I never saw the corn ripening better,” I observe, and let him feel a little of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.

There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn of a phrase.  I can be your servant with a “Yes sir,” or your master with a “No sir.”

Thus we warm up to one another—­a little at a time—­we mass our forces, each sees the white of his adversary’s eyes.  I can even see my opponent—­with some joy—­trotting up his reserves, having found the opposition stronger than he at first supposed.

“I hear,” said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be disarming, “that you are opposing my reelection.”

Boom! the cannon’s opening roar!

“Well,” I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness of my thrust, “I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr. Gaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done.”

Boom! the fight is on!

“You are a Republican, aren’t you, Mr. Grayson?”

It was the inevitable next stroke.  When he found that I was a doubtful follower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the Institution which he represented.

“I have voted the Republican ticket,” I said, “but I confess that recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from Democrats—­and I’ve had my doubts,” said I, “whether there is any real Republican party left to vote with.”

I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.

This much is certain:  there was something universal and primal about the battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and me; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower; between the representative and the represented.  And it is a never-ending conflict.  When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of civilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the pendulum inclines toward democracy.

And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only servants, and would be masters.  “The unending audacity of elected persons!” And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough to prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!

Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.  Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and listened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen words into the conversation.  And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the cows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.