addicted to gambling that it had as soon shake dice for hornets as
anything, and we will let them play loaded dice on us, and shake sixes,
and we will turn up deuces and trays, and let them win the condemned
mess of hornets that didn't give honey, and that have nothing but
stings, and wish whoever wins the hornets much joy. Understand me, boy,
I am not saying anything against the policy of our administration, if it
has got one, and I will hold up my hands and root for the army as long
as it is in the game, and will encourage the President all I can to do
what he thinks is right, but I shall always feel that Spain sold him a
gold brick for 20,000,000 plunks, and that he has not yet found out that
it is made of brass. I know the tobacco trust, and the cordage trust,
and lots of other trusts that are interested, are trying to make him
believe that the gold brick he bought is good stuff, and that he must
protect it, or some other nation will get it away from him, but you wait
until that Scotch-Irish blood of the President begins to boil, when he
finds out that he has been bunkoed, and he will get those trust magnates
together some day, and he will get pale around the gills, and mad as a
wet hen, and he will say that he has heard about all the funeral dirges
on the longdistance telephone from Manila that he wants to hear, and
that the wails of the mourning mothers of the dying boys are keeping him
awake nights, and that he has got about enough, trying to put bells
on the Filipino wildcats, and that they can take the whole Philippine
archipelago and go plum to hades with it, for he is going to stop the
death rate, and get those boys home and set them to plowing corn."

"Oh, Uncle Ike, don't get excited. I only wanted to change the subject
from my own troubles to the troubles of our country," and he went out
singing, "There's Only One Girl in All This World for Me," while Uncle
Ike took off his collar and wiped the perspiration off his neck, and
fanned himself awhile, and then lit his pipe, smoked a spell, and
finally said: "Well, it is none of my condum business, anyway, I
s'pose."

CHAPTER XI.

Uncle Ike was sitting in his room with a bath robe on, and his great,
big, bare feet in a tub of hot water, in which some dry mustard had been
sifted, and on a table beside him was a pitcher of hot lemonade, which
he was trying to drink, as it got cool enough to go down his neck
without scorching his throat. His head was hot,