The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
grabbers. I've messed and mingled with men all my life. Nobody 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 entitle 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? Passing everybody else a
bottle and a rubber nipple! Everybody getting his, and me left out! All
right. If that's political gratitude in these new times, go on with you
medinkculum! 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 embarrass 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 title 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 title 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
title 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
ingratitude.
“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
title 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 basement 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 glass 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.”
Uncle Dan put his hands under his coat-tails and marched out, his beak
in the air.
“The trouble is,” he confided to old Sturdivant in the
adjutant-general's office, “this younger element that's coming along
thinks men like you and I have lost all our ability and influence.
They're sally-lavering all over us, telling us how they want us to have
an easy job. But it's all a damnation insult--that's what it amounts
to.”
“All I have to do is lap sticking-paper and gum up the places where
these rolls are torn,” said old Sturdivant. “I'm perfectly contented.”
“Then stay were you're put and swaller the insult,” retorted Breed,
with disgust. “I thought you had more get-up-and-get. There's a stuffed
rabbit in that museum. He'll make a good chum for you in your off hour.
Go and sit down with him.” He went over to old Ambrose's desk. Ambrose
was numbering dog's-eared pages with a rubber stamp and would not admit
that he had been insulted by the state committee. “There's nobody got
the right to ask me to stop being active and influential in this state,”
insisted Breed. “They haven't taken my pride into account. I ain't
naturally a kicker. I've always obeyed orders. If I've got to go out
alone and show 'em that the old guard can't be insulted, then I'll do
it.”
This time he took the trail of Walker Farr once more and followed that
energetic young man until he cornered him.
Farr harkened with interest to the story of the scrapping of the
Honorable Daniel Breed as related by that gentleman himself.
“And the moral of the tale is,” added Mr. Breed, “when a gang does you
dirt turn around and plaster a few gobs onto the dirt-slingers. That
ain't the rule in religion, but it's the natural and correct policy in
politics. I have been hurt in my tender feelings. If them animals had
been alive and savage enough I would have taken 'em up to the state
committee-room and ste' boyed 'em onto the ungrateful cusses who have
tried to make my last days unhappy. I know every sore spot in this
state. You don't know 'em unless you have got second sight. I can take
you to every man who has got a political bruise on him. Good gad! I have
been poulticing those sore spots for twenty-five years. You need a man
like I am.”
“I'll admit that I do need such a man. I am a stranger in the state. But
I'm going to be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Breed. How do I know but
you're a spy who wants to attach himself to me for the benefit of the
ring?”
“You don't know,” returned Mr. Breed, serenely. “You have to take
chances in politics. I'm taking chances when I join in with you. Just
who are you and how do you happen to be mixed up in our politics?”
“I am mixing into politics because the men, women, and children are
being poisoned by the Consolidated water. That's platform enough, isn't
it?”
“Well, I reckon it is, knowing what I know of general conditions. You
have got a pretty good head for politics, even if you ain't sincere on
the water question,” said Breed, with a politician's ready suspicion of
motives. “You've got a come-all-ye hoorah there that will make votes.”
“As to my personality, that has nothing to do with the matter. I am only
an agent. Will you come with me and allow Mr. Converse to ask you some
questions?”
“Sure thing!” agreed the Honorable Daniel, with great heartiness. “In
politics the first thing to do before you get real busy is to have a
nice heart-to-heart talk with the gent who says 'How much?' and laps his
forefinger and begins to count. You understand, young man, that I have
been in politics a long time. And I ain't an animal-trainer--I'm a field
worker and I can earn my pay.”
And inside of a week Walker Farr, who had been previously struggling
hard against lack of acquaintance in the state, found that Mr. Breed