e The Gore dam'll bust, an' the boulders lay round too
thick for the land, an' the mud'll spile our medders, an' the lake show
rily so's the cattle won't drink--an' we'll find out thet in this great
free home of our'n, thet's lent us for a while, thet there's room 'nough
for all, an', in the end--not in my time, but in your'n--our Land, like
the medders, is goin' to be the better for it."

"Well put, well put, Quimber," said the Colonel who had been showing
signs of restlessness under the unusual and protracted eloquence of the
old pound-master. "We're making the experiment that every other nation
has had to make some time or other. Take old Rome, now--what was it
started the decay, eh?"

As no one present dared to cope with the decline of so large a subject,
the Colonel had the floor. He looked at each man in turn; then waved the
hand that held his cigar airily towards the ceiling. "Just inbreeding,
sir, inbreeding. That's what did it. We Americans, are profiting by the
experience of the centuries and are going to take in fresh blood just as
fast as it can attain to an arterial circulation in the body politic,
sir; an arterial circulation, I say--" the Colonel was apt to roll a
fine phrase more than once under his tongue when the sound thereof
pleased him,--"and in the course of nature--I agree perfectly with the
late Judge Champney and our friend, Quimber--there may be, during the
process, a surcharge of blood to the head or stomach of the body politic
that will cause a slight attack of governmental vertigo or national
indigestion. But it will pass, gentlemen, it will pass; and I assure you
the health of the Republic will be kept at the normal, with nothing more
than passing attacks of racial hysteria which, however undignified they
may appear in the eyes of all right-minded citizens, must ever remain
the transient phenomena of a great nation in the making."

The Colonel, having finished his peroration with another wave of his
cigar towards the ceiling, lowered his feet from their elevated position
on the counter, glanced anxiously at the clock, which indicated a
quarter of nine, and remarked casually that, as Mrs. Caukins was
indisposed, he felt under obligations to be at home by half-past nine.

Joel Quimber, whom such outbursts of eloquence on the Colonel's part in
the usual town-meeting left in a generally dazed condition of mind and
politics, remarked that he heard the whistle of the evening train about
fiftee