But before the end of that week the governor was obliged to call Uncle Dan to a private conference in the Executive Chamber.

“You must remember that you’re a state officer,” warned his Excellency.  “You’re a part of the administration.  But you are out talking politics all the time.  I want you to stay in your department.  Just remember that you’re curator of our museum.”

“I don’t like that blamed job,” complained Breed.  “I don’t care what my title is, it only means that I have to dust off that old stuffed loon, keep moths out of that loosivee, and fleas or some kind of insecks off’n that bull moose.  It ain’t no job for a politician.  And there’s a steady stream through there asking me all kinds of questions about animals.  I don’t know nothing about animals.  I don’t know whether a live moose eats hay or chopped liver.  Those questions keep me all hestered up.  It puts me in a wrong position before the public.  I can’t tell ’em which or what, and they think I’m losing my mind.”

“Post up!  It will keep you busy.  Get books out of the library and read.  Inform yourself and have a story for the folks!”

A few days later the chairman of the state committee had an indignant report to make to the governor regarding Uncle Dan’s natural-history activities.

“He has turned that museum into a circus show, your Excellency.  He has named every one of those stuffed animals for somebody in politics he doesn’t like, and leads a snickering mob of sight-seers around the room and lectures.  When a state officer names a saucer-eyed Canadian lynx for me and then folks come up from that basement and grin at me, it’s time a halt was called.”

His Excellency called for Breed and called a halt, using forceful language.

“I resign,” declared old Dan, nipping his little bunghole of a mouth under the hook of his nose.  “Those animals are getting onto my nerves.  The whole pack and caboodle are chasing me in a nightmare every time I go to sleep.  Their condemned glass eyes are boring me worse than gimlets.  I’m going on with that book of mine.  I’ve got a new idea for it.  I’m going to put in pictures of animals and name ’em for those tin-horn flukedubbles who could never get an office if it wasn’t for the primaries.”

“Look here, Breed, you’re an old man and you’ve done a lot of good work in your day, and we’re all trying to do something for you.  But I have pretty nigh reached the limit of my patience.  Politics isn’t what it used to be.  Different manners, different men.  I’m the head of our party and I command you to eliminate yourself.  You go back to your job, use common sense, and keep out of things!  You are silly—­you’re senile!”

“You have taken me out of where I belong and have put me in where I don’t belong and now you’re blaming me because I can’t learn a lot of new tricks at my age.  I resign, I say!”

“If you give up that job you’ll never get another one.”