these days," he retorted.
"They all know you by a different stripe since you set the other chap at
work, Squire Thornton. And the pendulum of power is swinging the other
way! The people are behind _me_. You'd better get aboard." His style of
humor depended most on its effrontery. He held out one of his badges.
"Better put it on," he advised. "Get aboard with the rush! They're all
for 'Honest Arba.'"

The Duke stepped forward and presented his breast.

"Pin it on, Arba. When a man shifts his business and is introducing a
brand-new line of goods, different from what he ever carried before, he
needs all the advertising he can get. Pin it on!"

But Mr. Spinney did not pin it on. He had been sure that the old man
would indignantly refuse, and his discomfiture was evident.

"You're showing your regular disposition, I see," he growled. "Grabbing
everything you can get hold of. But a joke is a joke--let this one rest
right here! Thornton, I say it here to your face, where all the boys can
hear me: the people want a change in this State. I am not going behind a
door to talk with you--that's been done too much! I stand in the open
and say it! Open fighting after this--that's my code. I fight for the
people. The people shall be put wise and kept wise to all that's going
on."

"It's a good plan," counselled the Duke, unperturbed. "I see I can't
tell you anything about advertising." He tapped a badge on the breast of
a man near him.

"I'm for the people!" shouted Spinney. "The old wagon needs a new
wheel-horse. I don't insist I'm the right one--or the only one. I merely
say I'm willing to take hold and haul, if the people want me to. I offer
myself, if no better one is found."

The crowd applauded that sentiment generously.

Thornton did not lose his amiability--his tolerant yet irritating
good-humor.

"Speaking of wheel-horses, Arba--a man up my way started out to buy a
horse the other day. He found a black one that suited--but the man who
owned that horse was mighty honest, as most of my constituents are. 'You
don't want him,' he told the man. 'He's too blamed slow.' 'That doesn't
hurt him a bit for me,' said the buyer. 'I want him to mate another
black horse to haul my hearse. I'm an undertaker!' 'Then you certainly
don't want him,' insisted the fellow. 'The _living_ can _wait_, but the
_dead_ have got to be _buried_.'"

The Duke had made his way out of the crowd before the laughter ceased.

"Apply it to suit, Arba