you know it! You are precisely the old-school Connecticut
peddler. You have gone about peddling your wooden nutmegs until you have
got yourself into Congress, and now you pull them out of your pockets
and not only want us to take them at your own price, but you lecture us
on our sins if we don't. Well! we don't mind your doing that at home.
Abuse us as much as you like to your constituents. Get as many votes as
you can. But don't electioneer here, because we know you intimately, and
we've all been a little in the wooden nutmeg business ourselves."

Senator Clinton and Senator Krebs chuckled high approval over this
punishment of poor French, which was on the level of their idea of wit.
They were all in the nutmeg business, as Ratcliffe said. The victim
tried to make head against them; he protested that his nutmegs were
genuine; he sold no goods that he did not guarantee; and that this
particular article was actually guaranteed by the national conventions
of both political parties.

"Then what you want, Mr. French, is a common school education. You
need a little study of the alphabet. Or if you won't believe me, ask my
brother senators here what chance there is for your Reforms so long
as the American citizen is what he is."

"You'll not get much comfort in my State, Mr. French," growled the
senator from Pennsylvania, with a sneer; "suppose you come and try."

"Well, well!" said the benevolent Mr. Schuyler Clinton, gleaming
benignantly through his gold spectacles; "don't be too hard on French.
He means well. Perhaps he's not very wise, but he does good. I know more
about it than any of you, and I don't deny that the thing is all bad.
Only, as Mr. Ratcliffe says, the difficulty is in the people, not in us.
Go to work on them, French, and let us alone."

French repented of his attack, and contented himself by muttering to
Carrington: "What a set of damned old reprobates they are!"

"They are right, though, in one thing," was Carrington's reply: "their
advice is good. Never ask one of them to reform anything; if you do, you
will be reformed yourself."

The dinner ended as brilliantly as it began, and Schneidekoupon was
delighted with his success. He had made himself particularly agreeable
to Sybil by confiding in her all his hopes and fears about the tariff
and the finances. When the ladies left the table, Ratcliffe could not
stay for a cigar; he must get back to his rooms, where he knew several
men were waiting for h