of a crayon pencil
between his thumb and fore finger. Bat knew that trick of
absent-minded motion always presaged senatorial sermonizing, just as
the soft laugh down in the crinkles of the white vest forewarned
danger. ("When I see the tummy wrinkles coming, I always feel like
telling the other fellow to get the button off his fencing sword--You
bet _that_ means business," Bat often confided to the newseditor.)

"Brydges, this country is rapidly lining up two opposing sides:
fighting lines, too, by George! Mobocracy _versus_ Plutocracy! I'm
only a cog in the wheel, myself, a mere marker for the big counters, my
boy; but if I have to put up with the tyranny of one or t'other, I'm
damned if I don't prefer the tyranny of the rich to the tyranny of the
poor, any day! _Why_, is any man poor in this country, Brydges?
Because he's a damned incompetent unfit swinish hog, too lazy to plant
and hoe his own row; so he gets the husks of the corn while the
competent man gets the cob--the cob with the corn on, you bet, number
one, Silver King, Hard, seventy cents a bushel! If I have to put up
with one or t'other, I'm damned if I don't prefer the tyranny of
knowledge to the tyranny of ignorance! One butters your bread, anyway,
and sometimes puts some jam on with the butter. The other snivels and
whines and begs a crust from the other fellow's table, and snaps at the
hand that gives him the crust, and spends the time in self-pity that he
should spend in work! Look at that row of free-born American citizens,
kings in disguise, Brydges! Not a damned man of them ever did a stroke
of honest work in his life except on election day, when we line 'em up;
and damn it, aren't we right, to line 'em up? What kind of rule are
you going to get from that kind of rulership if some one doesn't jump
in and group it and direct it; yes, by George, and _compel_ it to keep
in line and vote right, just as a general licks his recruits in shape
on pain of court martial? Think any battle would ever be won, Brydges,
if the commanding officer hadn't the power of a despot? He makes
mistakes. Of course, he makes mistakes! So do we! But we're keeping
those damned rascals in line for the good of the country; and so, I
say, the plutocrats who are being cursed from one end of the country to
the other to-day, are playing the same part in modern life as the big
war chiefs of the Middle Ages. They are marshalling the forces;
leading the advance; conqueri