"Gentlemen," said the Chairman of Committee, Jeems Bee, "it 'pears to
me that there's a social p'int right here. Reybold, bein' the only
Whig on the Lake and Bayou Committee, ought to have something if he
sees fit to ask for it. That's courtesy! We, of all men, gentlemen,
can't afford to forget it."

"No, by durn!" cried Fitzchew Smy.

"You're right, Bee!" cried Box Izard. "You give it a constitutional
set."

"Reybold," continued Jeems Bee, thus encouraged, "Reybold is (to speak
out) no genius! He never will rise to the summits of usefulness. He
lacks the air, the swing, the _pose_, as the sculptors say; he won't
treat, but he'll lend a little money, provided he knows where you
goin' with it. If he ain't open-hearted, he ain't precisely mean!"

"You're right, Bee!" (General expression.)

"Further on, it may be said that the framers of the govment never
intended _all_ the patronage to go to one side. Mr. Jeffson put _that_
on the steelyard principle: the long beam here, the big weight of
being in the minority there. Mr. Jackson only threw it considabul more
on one side, but even he, gentlemen, didn't take the whole patronage
from the Outs; he always left 'em enough to keep up the courtesy of
the thing, and we can't go behind _him_. Not and be true to our
traditions. Do I put it right?"

"Bee," said the youthful Lowndes Cleburn, extending his hand, "you put
it with the lucidity and spirituality of Kulhoon himself!"