he horse sense to
know there ain't no electric stoves out in the Labrador forests in
winter. That way we don't need to worry. If it's the Skandinavia tricks
it's different. They'll play the game to the finish. It don't signify a
curse if you close down the recreation shanty or not. We've got to meet
it as a competition, and fight it the way we'd fight any other."

Bat's eyes snapped.

"That's the kind of dope Skert Lawton's handed me," he protested.

"And Skert's a wise guy," came the prompt retort.

Quite suddenly Bat flung out his gnarled hands.

"Hell!" he cried violently. "Have we got to sit around like mush-men,
while the rats are chawin' our vitals. Fifteen or sixteen year I've
handled this lay-out without a growl I couldn't kick plumb out o' the
feller who made it. Now--now, because of a fool play I made, I've got to
set the kid gloves on my hands, sayin' 'thank you,' while the boys git
up and plug me between the eyes. No, sir. It ain't my way. It's me for
the shot gun in the stern of the gopher all the time. It's me to mush up
the features of any hoboe who don't know better than to grin when I'm
throwin' the hot air. I can't stand for the politics of labour where I
hand out the wage. A man's a man to me, not one darn slobber of policy.
I'm goin' to jump in on that talk. And when I'm thro'--"

"You'll get all the trouble in the world plumb on your neck." Bull's
fine eyes were alight with humour. He revelled in the fighting spirit of
the older man. "Here, Bat," he cried, "I'm a fool kid beside you. I
don't begin to know my job when I think of you. But I'm up sides with
all the politics games. Politics are ideals, notions. They haven't real
horse sense within a mile. They're just the fool thoughts of folk who
haven't better to do than sit around and think, and talk, an' see how
they can make other folk conform to the things they think. That's all
right. It's human nature in its biggest conceit, or it's another way of
helping themselves without pushing a shovel. It don't matter which it
is. But what I want to impress on you is, it's the biggest thing in
life. It's the whole thing in life. Get a notion and think it hard
enough, and talk it hard enough, and you'll hypnotise a hundred brains
bigger than your own, and sweep the crowd with you. You'll even
hypnotise yourself into believing the truth of a thing your better sense
knows isn't true, never was true, an' couldn't be true anyway. And when
you're fixed tha