Mr. Britt’s patience was ground between the millstones of anger and indigestion.  He smacked the flat of his hand on his desk.  “When I want a stump speech out of you, Orne, I’ll drop you a postcard and give you thirty days’ notice so that you can get up a good one.  You have made a short day of it, as I said, but you needn’t feel called on to fill it up with a lecture.”  Mr. Britt continued on pompously and revealed that he placed his own favorable construction on the emissary’s early return from the field.  “You didn’t have to go very far, hey, to find out how I stand for that nomination?”

“I went far enough so that you can depend on what I tell you.”

“Go ahead and tell, then.”

Mr. Orne slowly fished a quill toothpick from the pocket of his overcoat, set the end of the quill in his mouth, and “sipped” the air sibilantly, gazing over Britt’s head with professional gravity.  “Of course, you’re the doctor in this case and are paying the money, and if you don’t want any soothing facts, like I was intending to throw in free of charge and for good measure, showing how the best of politicians—­”

There were ominous sounds from the direction of Britt.  Orne checked his discourse, but he did not look at the candidate.  “But no matter,” said the agent.  “That may be neither here nor there.  You’re the doctor, I say!  When I first came in here I thought you had been disobeying my orders and had dabbled into the thing.  Your face looked like you was posted.”

“I’m paying for the goods, not for gobbling, you infernal old turkey!  Come out with the facts!”

“Facts is that the whole thing is completely gooly-washed up,” stated Mr. Orne, with an oracle’s decisiveness.

But that declaration in Mr. Orne’s political terminology did not convey much information to the candidate.  Britt, thoroughly incensed by what seemed to be evasion, leaped up, twitched the toothpick from Orne’s lips, and flung it away.  “I’ve paid for the English language, and I want it straight and in short words, and not trigged by a toothpick.”

“All right!  You’re licked before you start.”

It was a bit too straight from the shoulder—­that piece of news!  Britt blinked as if he had received a blow between the eyes.  He sat down and stared at Orne, elbows on the arms of the chair, hands limply hanging from lax wrists.

“It’s this way!” Mr. Orne started, briskly, with upraised forefinger; but he shook his head and put down his hand.  He turned away.  “I forgot.  You ordered plain facts.”

“You hold on!” Britt thundered.  “How do you dare to tell me that you can go out and in fifteen minutes come back with information of that sort?”

Mr. Orne glanced reproachfully from his detractor to the clock; he had not the same reasons as Mr. Britt had for finding the hours of the day fleeting.  “Mr. Britt, a man doesn’t need to make a hoss of himself and eat a whole head of cabbage by way of sampling it.”  Britt winced at the random simile.  “It’s the same way with me in sampling politics, being an expert.  Your case, to start with, had me gy-poogled and—­”