"By-and-by a kind of a murmur goes through the crowd. The women had
looked into the magic crystal and seen that they were beautiful, and was
confiding the secret to the men. The men seemed to be urging the lack
of money and the hard times just before the election, but their excuses
didn't go.

"Then was my time.

"I called McClintock away from an animated conversation with his mules
and told him to do some interpreting.

"'Tell 'em,' says I, 'that gold-dust will buy for them these befitting
ornaments for kings and queens of the earth. Tell 'em the yellow sand
they wash out of the waters for the High Sanctified Yacomay and Chop
Suey of the tribe will buy the precious jewels and charms that will make
them beautiful and preserve and pickle them from evil spirits. Tell 'em
the Pittsburgh banks are paying four per cent. interest on deposits
by mail, while this get-rich-frequently custodian of the public funds
ain't even paying attention. Keep telling 'em, Mac,' says I, 'to let the
gold-dust family do their work. Talk to 'em like a born anti-Bryanite,'
says I. 'Remind 'em that Tom Watson's gone back to Georgia,' says I.

"McClintock waves his hand affectionately at one of his mules, and then
hurls a few stickfuls of minion type at the mob of shoppers.

"A gutta-percha Indian man, with a lady hanging on his arm, with three
strings of my fish-scale jewelry and imitation marble beads around her
neck, stands up on a block of stone and makes a talk that sounds like
a man shaking dice in a box to fill aces and sixes.