The
Handy boom for Congress was rolling over the district, and the
_Statesman_ italics were becoming worn, and its exclamation points
battered in the service, when one day Handy stalked up to Hedrick's
office, imperiously beckoned Hedrick into the private room, and blurted
out:

"Charley, I got to have some more money--need it in my business. Can't
you touch old John Markley for me again--say for about five hundred on
that hitching rack case? Sister Worthington is kind of wanting me to get
action on her case."

Hedrick was dumb with rage, but Handy thought it was acquiescence. He
went on:

"You just step down to the bank and say: 'John, I've noticed Ab Handy
actin' kind of queer about that hitching rack case.' That's all you need
say, and pretty soon I'll step in and say: 'John, I don't see how I can
help doin' something for Aunt Julia Worthington.' And I believe I can
tap him for five hundred more easy enough. I got an idea he is mightily
in earnest about beating her in that suit."

When Hedrick got his breath, which was churning and wheezing in his
throat, he cut Handy's sentence off with:

"You human razor-back shoat--you swill-barrel gladiator,
why--why--I--I----" And Hedrick sparred for wind and went on before
Handy realised the situation. "Ab Handy, I spat on the dust and breathed
into the chaff that made you, and put you on the mud-sills of hell to
dry, and I've got a right to turn you back into fertiliser, and I'm
going to do it. Git out of here--git out of this office, or I----"

And the hulking form of Hedrick fell on the bag of shaking bones that
was Handy and battered him through the latched door into the crowded
outer office; and Handy picked himself up and ran like a wolf, turning
at the door to show his teeth before he scampered through the hall and
scurried down the stairs. As Hedrick came puffing out of the broken door
his coat snagged on a splinter. He grinned as he unfastened himself:

"Well, the snail seems to be on the thorn; the lark certainly is on the
wing.

"_God's in his heaven.
All's right with the world!_"

And he batted his eyes at the group of loafing local statesmen in his
office as he viewed the wreckage, and went to the telephone and ordered
a carpenter, without wasting any words on the crowd.

We decided long ago that the source of Hedrick's power in politics was
what we called his "do it now" policy. All politicians have schemes.
Hedrick puts his through before