“Say, I just warmed up all over when I see you, Austen.  I’m so glad to run across an honest man.  We ain’t forgot in Mercer what you did for Zeb Meader, and how you went against your interests.  And I guess it ain’t done you any harm in the State.  As many as thirty or forty members have spoke to me about it.  And down here I’ve got so I just can’t hold in any more.”

“Is it as bad as that, Mr. Redbrook?” asked Austen, with a serious glance at the farmer’s face.

“It’s so bad I don’t know how to begin,” said the member from Mercer, and paused suddenly.  “But I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Austen, seeing your father is—­where he is.”

“Go on,” said Austen, “I understand.”

“Well,” said Mr. Redbrook, “it just makes me tremble as an American citizen.  The railrud sends them slick cusses down here that sit in the front seats who know all this here parliamentary law and the tricks of the trade, and every time any of us gets up to speak our honest minds, they have us ruled out of order or get the thing laid on the table until some Friday morning when there ain’t nobody here, and send it along up to the Senate.  They made that fat feller, Doby, Speaker, and he’s stuffed all the important committees so that you can’t get an honest measure considered.  You can talk to the committees all you’ve a mind to, and they’ll just listen and never do anything.  There’s five hundred in the House, and it ain’t any more of a Legislature than a camp-meetin’ is.  What do you suppose they done last Friday morning, when there wahn’t but twenty men at the session?  We had an anti-pass law, and all these fellers were breakin’ it.  It forbid anybody riding on a pass except railroad presidents, directors, express messengers, and persons in misfortune, and they stuck in these words, ’and others to whom passes have been granted by the proper officers.’  Ain’t that a disgrace to the State?  And those twenty senators passed it before we got back on Tuesday.  You can’t get a bill through that Legislature unless you go up to the Pelican and get permission of Hilary—­”

Here Mr. Redbrook stopped abruptly, and glanced contritely at his companion.

“I didn’t mean to get goin’ so,” he said, “but sometimes I wish this American government’d never been started.”

“I often feel that way myself, Mr. Redbrook,” said Austen.

“I knowed you did.  I guess I can tell an honest man when I see one.  It’s treason to say anything against this Northeastern louder than a whisper.  They want an electric railrud bad up in Greenacre, and when some of us spoke for it and tried to get the committee to report it, those cheap fellers from Newcastle started such a catcall we had to set down.”

By this time they were at the Widow Peasley’s, stamping the snow from off their boots.

“How general is this sentiment?” Austen asked, after he had set down his bag in the room he was to occupy.