``If I don't like him, I can get rid of him,'' said the girl.

Her father smiled indulgently. ``That's A LEETLE too up-to-date
for an old man like me,'' observed he. ``The world's moving fast
nowadays. It's got a long ways from where it was when your ma
and I were young.''

``Do you think Davy Hull will make a career?'' asked Jane. She
had heard from time to time as much as she cared to hear about
the world of a generation before --of its bareness and
discomfort, its primness, its repulsive piety, its ignorance of
all that made life bright and attractive--how it quite overlooked
this life in its agitation about the extremely problematic life
to come. ``I mean a career in politics,'' she explained.

The old man munched and smacked for full a minute before he said,
``Well, he can make a pretty good speech. Yes--I reckon he could
be taken in hand and pushed. He's got a lot of fool college-bred
ideas about reforming things. But he'd soon drop them, if he got
into the practical swing. As soon as he had a taste of success,
he'd stop being finicky. Just now, he's one of those nice, pure
chaps who stand off and tell how things ought to be done. But
he'd get over that.''

Jane smiled peculiarly--half to herself. ``Yes--I think he
would. In fact, I'm sure he would.'' She looked at her father.
``Do you think he amounts to as much as Victor Dorn?'' she asked,
innocently.

The old man dropped a half raised spoonful of milk and crackers