y inside so that he would not be
annoyed by them. But Mr. Mercheson knew how to get orders; he knew
that the thing to do is to stay with the trade.

So he leaned against the work bench and began:--

"This is a great town, Mr. McHurdie; we're always hearing from
Sycamore Ridge. When I'm in the East they say, 'What kind of a town is
that Sycamore Ridge where Watts McHurdie and your noted reformer,
Robert Hendricks, who was offered a place in the cabinet, and this man
John Barclay live?'"

Mr. Mercheson paused for effect. Mr. McHurdie smiled and went on with
his work.

"Say," said Mr. Mercheson, "your man Barclay is in all the papers this
morning. I was in the smoker of the sleeper last evening coming out of
Chicago, and we got to talking about him--and Lord, how the fellows
did roast him."

"They did?" asked Barclay, from his chair behind the stove.

"Sure," replied Mr. Mercheson; "roasted him good and brown. There
wasn't a man in the smoker but me to stand up for him."

"So you stood up for the old scoundrel, did you?" asked Barclay.

"Sure," answered the travelling man. "Anything to get up an argument,
you know," he went on, beginning to see which way sentiment lay in the
shop. "I've been around town this morning, and I find the people here
don't approve of him for a minute, any more than they did on the
train."

"What do they say?" asked Barclay, braiding a four-strand whip, and
finding that his cunning of nearly fifty years had not left his
fingers.

"Oh, it isn't so much what they say--but you can tell, don't you
know; it's what they don't say; they don't defend him. I guess they
like him personally, but they know he's a thief; that's the
idea--they simply can't defend him and they don't try. The government
has got him dead to rights. Say," he went on, "just to be arguing, you
know last evening I took a poll of the train--the limited--the
Golden State Limited--swell train, swell crowd--all rich old
roosters; and honest, do you know that out of one hundred and
twenty-three votes polled only four were for him, and three of those
were girls who said they knew his daughter at the state university,
and had visited at his house. Wasn't that funny?"

Barclay laughed grimly, and answered, "Well, it was pretty funny
considering that I'm John Barclay."

The suspense of the group in the shop was broken, and they laughed,
too.

"Oh, hell," said Mr. Mercheson, "come off!" Then he turned to McHurdie
and tried to