"That's too rough--too rough, that kind of talk, Thelismer," protested
the State chairman.

Thornton swung away from him and went to the window of the living-room
and gazed out on his constituents.

"You can't handle voters the way you used to--you've got to hair-oil 'em
these days."

Presson was no stranger in "The Barracks." But he walked around the big
living-room with the fresh interest he always felt in the quaint place.
Thornton stayed at the window, silent. The crowd had not left the
yard--an additional insult to him. They were gathering around Niles and
his sheep, and Niles was declaiming again.

The broad room was low, its time-stained woods were dark, and the
chairman wandered in its shadowy recesses like an uneasy ghost.

"It isn't best to tongue-lash the boys that are for you," advised
Presson, fretfully, "not this year, when reformers have got 'em filled
up with a lot of skittish notions. Humor those that are _for_ you."

"_For_ me?" snarled "the Duke," over his shoulder, and then he turned on
Presson. "That bunch of mangy pups out there for _me?_ Why, Luke, that's
opposition. And it's nasty, sneering, insulting opposition. I ought to
go out there and blow them full of buckshot."

He shook his fists at the gun-rack beside the moose head which flung