The Duke was not ruffled by the interruption.

“Walt, I’ve been in politics a good many years.  I was in the House in this State when Jim Blaine was there reporting for his newspaper.  I want to tell you that when you get next to the real thing in politics you’ll find that this people thing—­the capital-letter idea—­is a dream.  Yes, it is, now!  Don’t undertake to dispute me!  Here in one town you’ll find a man or a set of men handling a bunch.  A county clique handles another one.  Some especial local interest makes this crowd vote one way; same thing will make another bunch in another town mad and they’ll vote against it.  It’s all factions and self-interest, and you can’t make it over into anything different.  That’s practical politics.  Get out and you’ll see it for yourself.  You can swap and steer—­that’s politics.  But as for uniting ’em into The People—­well, try to weld a cat’s tail and a tallow candle, and see how you get along!”

“It’s high time we had less politics, then,” cried Davis, “when politics lets the picked and chosen get rich selling rum or dodging taxes, and takes a poor man and pestles his head into the mortar till every cent is banged out of his pocket!”

“Davis, I’m patient with ramrodders when they’re having an acute attack like you’re having.  It’s the chronic cases I get after, the ones who are in it for profit, and have been poking you fellows up because they’re paid for doing it.  All of a sudden all of you are yapping at me because I’ve played the game.  I’m talking business with you now.  I suppose I might spread-eagle to you about our grand old State, and the call of duty and the noble principles of reform; I might fly up on this fence here and crow just as loud as any of those reform roosters, and not have any more sense in what I was saying than they do.  I see you’ve got hungry for that revival hoorah.  But I’m not going to perch and crow for the sake of getting three cheers!  I’m going to stay right down here on the gravel with you, boys, and scratch a few times, and show you a few kernels, and cluck a little business talk.  This district—­you and your folks before you—­has been sending me to the legislature for a good many years.  I’m an ordinary man, and I’ve been against ordinary men down there at the State House.  I should have played the game different with angels, but I couldn’t find the angels.”

He pointed through a window to a large building that occupied a hilltop just outside the village.

“Half the counties in the State were after that training seminary,” he went on.  “I beat the lobby, and got it.  How much money do you and your neighbors make boarding the scholars?  I have pulled out State money for more than a thousand miles of State roads in this county.  I got the State to pay every cent of the expense of that iron bridge across the river.  I lugged off bigger appropriations for my district than any other man who has been in the House—­because I know the ropes and have the pull.  I could have played angel, and not brought home a plum.  Would that suit you?”