a list. And you can imagine who they picked out as Republican voters in
this town! And they'll stand and challenge every one else till their
throats are sore. You and me has cut up a few little innocent tricks in
politics in our time, Squire, but we never framed anything quite as tidy
as this for a steal. If your friend, here, is in politics, he--"

"I'm Presson, chairman of the State Committee," explained that
gentleman. The Duke of Fort Canibas was too much absorbed to make
presentations.

"Hell! That so?" ripped out the other, frankly astonished. "Well, I'm
glad you're here. You ought to be able to help us out."

Presson was not cheerful or helpful. "They're slashing this whole State
open from one end to the other with their devilish reform hullabaloo,"
he said.

"I hear there _is_ quite a stir outside," agreed the agitator, blandly.
He looked the chairman up and down with interest. "You may call me
Sylvester--Talleyrand Sylvester. Yankee dickerer! Buy and sell
everything from a clap o' thunder to a second-hand gravestone. It brings
me round the country up here, and so I've been the Squire's right-hand
man in the political game, such as there's been of it." He turned his
back on the pondering Duke and continued, sotto voce: "I reckon if he'd
stayed in himself, Colonel, they wouldn't have had the courage to tackle
him. They might have hit him with that whole stockin'ful of mud they've
been collectin', and he wouldn't have staggered. But when they go to hit
the young feller, there, with it, he's down and out."

"Eh!" barked the magnate of Canibas, catching the last words. "I am?