Harwood accepted a cigar, which he found excellent. A moment later a
maid placed on the table beside the checkerboard a tray, with a decanter
and glasses, and a pitcher of water.

"That's for us," remarked Bassett, nodding toward the glasses. "Help
yourself."

"The cigar is all I need; thank you."

The reporter was prepared to ask questions, following a routine he had
employed with other subjects, but Bassett began to talk on his own
initiative--of the town, the county, the district. He expressed himself
well, in terse words and phrases. Harwood did not attempt to direct or
lead: Bassett had taken the interview into his own hands, and was
imparting information that might have been derived from a local history
at the town library. Dan ceased, after a time, to follow the narrative
in his absorption in the man himself. Harwood took his politics
seriously and the petty politicians with whom he had thus far become
acquainted in his newspaper work had impressed him chiefly by their
bigotry or venality. It was not for nothing that he had worshiped at
Sumner's feet at Yale and he held views that were not readily
reconcilable with parochial boss-ships and the meek swallowing of
machine-made platforms. Bassett was not the vulgar, intimate good-fellow
who slapped every man on the back--the teller of good stories over a
glass of whiskey and a cigar. He was, as Pettit had said, a new type,
not of the familiar _cliché_. The decanter was a "property" placed in
the scene at the dictates of hospitality; the checkerboard canceled any
suggestion of conviviality that might have been conveyed by the decanter
of whiskey.