“I don’t feel rusty, exactly,” returned the General, smiling into his glass.  “But when I think of all the marches, Thelismer, of the campaigns, the heartbreaking struggles of the war—­of all the cases won and cases lost, the nights of study and days of labor in the law—­the fuss and fury of politics—­of all the years behind me, I feel as though I’d like to be used as my father used his old boots:  Before he took his bed for the last time he went up into the garret of the old farm-house and laid his boots there on their sides.  ’Let ’em lie down, now, and rest,’ he said.  And I’ve never allowed them to be disturbed.”

The Duke still stared at the ceiling.

“Varden, you and I have known each other so long that you don’t need as much talk from me as you would from a stranger.  When I’ve asked a thing from you in the past I didn’t have to sit down and talk to you an hour about the reasons why I wanted it.  You understood that I had a good reason for asking.  I’m going to ask just one more thing from you in this life.  I’m going to ask it straight from the shoulder.  You and I don’t need to beat about the bush with each other.  I want you to say ‘yes,’ for if you don’t you’re abandoning our old State as though she were a widow headed for the almshouse.”

Thornton leaned forward, grasped his glass and drained it at a gulp, and then looked the amazed General squarely in the eyes.

“You’re going to be nominated as Governor of this State in the next convention, and you’ve got to accept,” he declared.  “Now hold on!  Just as you understand that I’ve got good reasons for asking you to do this, just so I understand all that you’re going to say in objection.  I discount all your objections in advance.  I know you haven’t lost run of affairs in this State—­you know all the mix-up the party is in right now.  They’re going to beat Dave Everett in convention, General, just as sure as the devil can’t freeze his own ice.  It’s going to be ’Seventy-two all over again.  People gone crazy for a change and jumping the wrong way, like grasshoppers in front of a mowing machine.  Spinney means the whole rotten thing over again—­State treasury looted, tax rate reduced to get a popular hoorah, a floating debt that will make us stagger and keep enterprise out of this State for ten years, petty graft in every State office, and every strap on the party nag busted from snaffle to crupper.  Now I want to ask you one question:  Do you want Arba Spinney for the next Governor of this State—­sitting in the chair that you honored?  You know him!  You’ve heard his mouth go.  You understand his calibre.  Do you want him?”

“No,” admitted General Waymouth.

“Well, you’re going to get him if you don’t accept that nomination.  You’re going to get him, blab-mouth, mob-rule, mortification, and merry hell—­the whole bagful!  Do you want that for this State, Vard?”

“Our State can’t afford to have such a man,” agreed General Waymouth, “but—­”