Queed eBook

Henry Sydnor Harrison
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 534 pages of information about Queed.

Queed eBook

Henry Sydnor Harrison
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 534 pages of information about Queed.

“Well, Plonny!  I’m not asking anything of the party leaders—­”

“But suppose some of your friends wanted to ask something for you?”

Suddenly Plonny leaned over the table, and began speaking rapidly and earnestly.

“Listen here, Mr. West.  I understand your feelings and your position just like they was print, and I was reading them over your shoulder.  You’re walking with y’r eyes on the skies, and you don’t like to look at the ground to see that you don’t break nothing as you go forward.  Your mind’s full of the maw’l idea and desire to uplift the people, and it’s kind of painful to you to stop and look at the plain practical way by which things get done.  But I tell you that everybody who ever got anything big done in this world, got it done in a practical way.  All the big men that you and I admire—­all the public leaders and governors and reform mayors and so on—­got where they have by doing practical good in a practical way.  Now, you don’t like me to say that if you do so-and-so, you’ll be in bad with the State leaders, f’r that looks to you as if I thought you could be infloonced by what would be your personal advantage.  And I honor you f’r them feelin’s which is just what I knew you’d had, or I wouldn’t be here talkin’ to you now.  But you mustn’t blame others if they ain’t as partic’lar, mebbe, as to how things might look.  You mustn’t blame y’r friends—­and you’ve got a sight more of them than you have any idea of—­if they feel all broke up to see you get in bad, both for your own sake and f’r the sake of the party.”

Plonny’s voice trembled with earnestness; West had had no idea that the man admired him so much.

“You want to serve the people, Mr. West?  How could you do it better than in public orf’ce.  Lemme talk to you straight f’r once—­will you?  Or am I only offendin’ you by buttin’ in this way, without having ever been asked?”

West gave his admirer the needed assurance.

“I’m glad of it, f’r I can hardly keep it in my system any longer.  Listen here, Mr. West.  As you may have heard, there’s to be a primary f’r city orf’cers in June.  Secret ballot or no secret ballot, the organization’s going to win.  You know that.  Now, who’ll the organization put up f’r Mayor?  From what I hear, they dassen’t put up any old machine hack, same’s they been doin’ f’r years.  They might want to do it, but they’re a-scared the people won’t stand f’r it.  From what little I hear, the feelin’s strong that they got to put up some young progressive public-spirited man of the reformer type.  Now s’posin’ the friends of a certain fine young man, sittin’ not a hundred miles from this table, had it in their minds to bring him forward f’r the nomination.  This young man might say he wasn’t seekin’ the orf’ce and didn’t want it, but I say public orf’ce is a duty, and no man that wants to serve the people can refuse it, partic’larly when he may be needed to save the party.  And now I ask you this, Mr. West:  What show would the friends of this young man have, if he had a bad spot on his record?  What chance’d there be of namin’ to lead the party in the city the man who had knifed the party in the State?”

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Project Gutenberg
Queed from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.