Massachusetts." Of course, that was puttin' it on too thick; but say,
honest, I like Senator Hoar's speeches. He once quoted in the
United States Senate some of my remarks on the curse of civil
service, and, though he didn't agree with me altogether, I noticed
that our ideas are alike in some things, and we both have the knack
of puttin' things strong, only he put on more frills to suit his
audience.

As for the common people of the district, I am at home with them
at all times. When I go among them, I don't try to show off my
grammar, or talk about the Constitution, or how many volts there
is in electricity or make it appear in any way that I am better
educated than they are. They wouldn't stand for that sort of thing.
No; I drop all monkeyshines. So you see, I've got to be several
sorts of a man in a single day, a lightnin' change artist, so to speak.
But I am one sort of man always in one respect: I stick to my
friends high and low, do them a good turn whenever I get a
chance, and hunt up all the jobs going for my constituents. There
ain't a man in New York who's got such a scent for political jobs as
I have. When I get up in the mornin' I can almost tell every time
whether a job has become vacant over night, and what department
it's in and I'm the first man on the ground to get it. Only last week I
turned up at the office of Water Register Savage at 9 A.M. and told
him I wanted a vacant place in his office for one of my
constituents. "How did you know that O'Brien had got out?" he
asked me. "I smelled it in the air when I got up this mornin'," I
answered. Now, that was the fact. I didn't know there was a man in
the department named O'Brien, much less that he had got out, but
my scent led me to the Water Register's office, and it don't often
lead me wrong.