Mr. Adams of Barren. "None of us is
much on talk, but if we had you, I guess we could lay things wide open."

"If you was thar, and give it to 'em as hot as you did when you was
talkin' for Zeb, them skunks in the front seats wouldn't know whether
they was afoot or hossback," declared Mr. Williams of Devon, a town
adjoining Mercer.

"I used to think railrud gov'ment wahn't so bad until I come to the House
this time," remarked a stocky member from Oxford; "it's sheer waste of
money for the State to pay a Legislature. They might as well run things
from the New York office--you know that."

"We might as well wear so many Northeastern uniforms with brass buttons,"
a sinewy hill farmer from Lee put in. He had a lean face that did not
move a muscle, but a humorous gray eye that twinkled.

In the meantime Mr. Redbrook looked on with an expression of approval
which was (to Austen) distinctly pleasant, but more or less mystifying.

"I guess you ain't disappointed 'em much," he declared, when the round
was ended; "most of 'em knew me well enough to understand that cattle and
live stock in general, includin' humans, is about as I represent 'em to
be."

"We have some confidence in your judgment, Brother Redbrook," answered
Mr. Terry of Lee, "and now we've looked over the goods, it ain't set back
any, I callate."

This observation, which seemed to meet with a general assent, was to
Austen more mystifying than ever. He laughed.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I feel as though some expression of thanks were
due you for this kind and most unexpected reception." Here a sudden
seriousness came into his eyes which served, somehow, only to enhance his
charm of manner, and a certain determined ring into his voice. "You have
all referred to a condition of affairs," he added, "about which I have
thought a great deal, and which I deplore as deeply as you do. There is
no doubt that the Northeastern Railroads have seized the government of
this State for three main reasons: to throttle competition; to control
our railroad commission in order that we may not get the service and
safety to which we are entitled,--so increasing dividends; and to make
and maintain laws which enable them to bribe with passes, to pay less
taxes than they should, and to manipulate political machinery."

"That's right," said Mr. Jarley of Wye, with a decided emphasis.

"That's the kind of talk I like to hear," exclaimed Mr. Terry.

"And nobody's had the gumption to fi