“For some reason, grandfather, you seem all at once to have taken me as a subject for a practical joke,” said the young man, stiffly.  The interlude had taken the sharp edge off his indignation, but he was still bitter.  “It may seem a joke to you.  To me it seems insult and persecution.  I have attended to business, I’ve worked hard and made money for both of us.  To-day you’ve held me up before this section to be laughed at by some and hated by the rest.  I’m glad I’ve had half an hour to think it over since I first heard about what happened in that caucus.  I won’t say the things to you I intended to say.  I’ll simply say this:  I’m going to write a letter declining this nomination.  I’m going to publish that letter.  And I’m going to say in that letter that I will not take any office that isn’t come at honestly.”

“Harlan, sit down.”  His feet had been in one of the porch chairs.  He pushed it toward his grandson.  The young man sat down.

“You don’t know much about the practical end of politics, do you?”

“I do not.”

“You’ll allow that I do?”

“You seem to, if that’s what you call this sort of business that has been going on here to-day.”

“Bub, look at the thing from my standpoint for just one moment.  I’ll consider it from yours, too—­you needn’t worry.  I want you to be something in this world besides a lumber-jack.  You’ve got the right stuff in you.  I tried argument with you.  You’ll have to own up that I did.  It didn’t work—­now, did it?”

“I told you I didn’t want to get into politics.  I don’t want to get in.  I don’t like the company.”

“Politics is all right, Harlan, when the right men are in.  You are the kind the people are calling for these days.  You’re clean, straight, open-minded, and—­”

“Clean and straight!  And the people are calling for me!” The young man broke in wrathfully.  “You say that to me after the sort of a caucus you sprung to-day?  If that’s what you consider a call from the people, I don’t want to be called that way.”

“It was a call, but it had to be shaded by politics a little,” returned the Duke, serenely.

“If a good man is going into politics, he can go in square.”

“Sometimes.  But not when the opposition is out to do him with every dirty trick that’s laid down in the back of the political almanac.”

“If you wanted to start me, and start me fair and right, why didn’t you let my name go before that caucus to-day, and then hold off your hands?”

“Because if I had you’d have stood about the same chance as a worsted dog chasing an asbestos cat through hell.  Look here, bub, I wish I had the time; I’d like to tell you how most of the good men I know got their start in politics.  You can be a statesman after you’ve got your head up where the sun can shine on it, but you’ve got to be touching ground to keep your head up.  And if you’re touching ground in politics, you’ll find that your shoes are muddy—­and you can’t help it.”