The Landloper Part 43

The mighty ones exchanged glances--deprecating glances--apprehensive glances.

"You don't think I'm dangerous, do you, after I've been in politics as long as I have?"

"No, but we feel that the old war-horses are ent.i.tled to run to pasture with their shoes off," coaxed the chairman.

"It seems to me more like tying me up to a stanchion in a stall. I ain't ungrateful, gents. I know this younger element doesn't believe in setting hens in politics any more. It's the incubator nowadays--wholesale job of it. But, by dadder! my settings have always cracked the sh.e.l.ls, twelve to the dozen! Then you don't want me, eh?"

"That job in the state land-office--we thought it would just about fit you," suggested the chairman.

"I'd just as soon be sent to state prison--solitary confinement. The state hasn't got any land any more. It has all been peddled out to the grabbers. I've messed and mingled with men all my life. n.o.body ever comes into the land-office. You ain't afraid of me to that extent, be you?"

"What do you want?" asked the governor.

"Settled, is it, you don't want me in politics?"

"There isn't anything for you to do," declared his Excellency, and he showed a little impatience, though his smile did not fade.

"Well, then make me state liberian," said old Dan, with an air of resignation.

There was deep and horrified silence.

"I'm developing literary instinks," explained Breed. "I've got a son who owns a printing-office, and my granddaughter can take down anything in shorthand and write it off. I'm going to write a book. She'll take it down and he'll print it."

"I can't appoint you state librarian," said the governor, getting control of his emotions. "It's already tied up, that appointment. Keep it under your hat, but I have selected Reverend Doctor Fletcher, of Cornish, and have notified him."

"Giving a plum like that to a parson who never controlled but one vote, and that's his own--and then voted the way the deacon told him to?

I reckon it's about as you say--there are new times in politics. All right! I'll go and climb a sumach-bush. You needn't bother about any job for me, gents. I'll settle down to my literary work."

"What is the book?" asked the chairman.

"I have your word for it that the old days in politics have all gone by," said Breed. "All the old things dead and buried! Very well. That's going to make my book valuable and interesting. No harm in putting it out in these times. I shall ent.i.tle it 'Breed's Handbook of Political Deviltry.' I shall tell the story of how it was done when politics was really politics."

"Going to tell all you know?" inquired the governor.

"Of course. Truth, and not poetry, will be my motto. And just for a test of how popular it will be, I'd like to ask you gents how many of you will subscribe for a volume?"

"I think this committee will take the whole edition," said the chairman, dryly.

"Look here, Dan," blurted the attorney-general, "you must be joking."

"I don't know what ever gave you the impression that I'm a humorist,"

returned Breed. "If there ain't going to be anything more like the old times, then what's the matter with having the story of how it was done?

That book will sell like hot cakes. I'll go out and sell it--it will give me a chance to keep on mixing and messing with men."

"Dan, if it wasn't you talking--knowing you well--I'd say this is a piece of blackmail," declared the attorney-general. "Of course you can't put out a book of that kind in this state."

Mr. Breed blinked angrily.

"I'll take all the cases of libel against you and won't charge my clients a cent."

"Fill everybody else's little tin dipper, eh? Pa.s.sing everybody else a bottle and a rubber nipple! Everybody getting his, and me left out! All right. If that's political grat.i.tude in these new times, go on with you med.i.n.kculum! And last year I snapped the six up-country caucuses that gave you your plurality in joint convention!"

"We appreciate all your past services, Dan. If we didn't we wouldn't be trying so hard to place you," said the governor. "We're taking care of all the old boys. You mustn't embarra.s.s us. In these days it's for the good of the party to put in each office the man who is especially fitted for it. We mustn't invite criticism. A librarian needs peculiar qualifications."

"Well, old Jaquish was liberian, wasn't he? And he wouldn't even go vote unless you went and dragged him to the polls by the scruff of his neck.

What did he ever do for the party? And look at old Tomdoozle as state treasurer!"

"Jaquish was a bookman, and our state treasurer--but no matter. Now listen! I'm going to put you at the head of a new department in the State House where you won't be lonesome. More people will come there than to the library. You'll have the t.i.tle of curator."

"What's that?" asked Breed, suspiciously. "And what is the department, anyway?"

"The museum of natural history in the fish-and-game rooms. We're going to make it complete--mounted specimens of all our animals. You'll be curator--you see, you will get a t.i.tle that sounds well!"

"I'm of a restless and inquiring disposition, and my special forty is politics," stated Breed, sulking. "I don't believe I'm going to relish being ringmaster of a lot of stuffed animals, no matter what kind of a t.i.tle I get. How much pay goes with the job?"

"Fifteen hundred," said the governor.

"Well," sighed Breed, "it will give me a chance to be around the State House during the session, and I'll take it. Then if I don't like it I can resign after the legislature adjourns."

The Big Ones understood his frame of mind and overlooked his ingrat.i.tude.

"And so I'll bid you good day, gents," he said, and straddled out with his hands under his coat-tails.

"So we've got _him_ side-tracked and out of mischief," averred the governor. "That takes care of all of 'em, and I'm relieved. It isn't stylish any more to come to town with a lot of old hounds trotting under the tail of the political cart."

But before the end of that week the governor was obliged to call Uncle Dan to a private conference in the Executive Chamber.

"You must remember that you're a state officer," warned his Excellency.

"You're a part of the administration. But you are out talking politics all the time. I want you to stay in your department. Just remember that you're curator of our museum."

"I don't like that blamed job," complained Breed. "I don't care what my t.i.tle is, it only means that I have to dust off that old stuffed loon, keep moths out of that loosivee, and fleas or some kind of insecks off'n that bull moose. It ain't no job for a politician. And there's a steady stream through there asking me all kinds of questions about animals. I don't know nothing about animals. I don't know whether a live moose eats hay or chopped liver. Those questions keep me all hestered up. It puts me in a wrong position before the public. I can't tell 'em which or what, and they think I'm losing my mind."

"Post up! It will keep you busy. Get books out of the library and read.

Inform yourself and have a story for the folks!"

A few days later the chairman of the state committee had an indignant report to make to the governor regarding Uncle Dan's natural-history activities.

"He has turned that museum into a circus show, your Excellency. He has named every one of those stuffed animals for somebody in politics he doesn't like, and leads a snickering mob of sight-seers around the room and lectures. When a state officer names a saucer-eyed Canadian lynx for me and then folks come up from that bas.e.m.e.nt and grin at me, it's time a halt was called."

His Excellency called for Breed and called a halt, using forceful language.

"I resign," declared old Dan, nipping his little bunghole of a mouth under the hook of his nose. "Those animals are getting onto my nerves.

The whole pack and caboodle are chasing me in a nightmare every time I go to sleep. Their condemned gla.s.s eyes are boring me worse than gimlets. I'm going on with that book of mine. I've got a new idea for it. I'm going to put in pictures of animals and name 'em for those tin-horn flukedubbles who could never get an office if it wasn't for the primaries."

"Look here, Breed, you're an old man and you've done a lot of good work in your day, and we're all trying to do something for you. But I have pretty nigh reached the limit of my patience. Politics isn't what it used to be. Different manners, different men. I'm the head of our party and I command you to eliminate yourself. You go back to your job, use common sense, and keep out of things! You are silly--you're senile!"

"You have taken me out of where I belong and have put me in where I don't belong and now you're blaming me because I can't learn a lot of new tricks at my age. I resign, I say!"

"If you give up that job you'll never get another one."