Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/65

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only ones that come around come to get something for themselves, and it's always something they have no right to and oughtn't to have. They come with all kinds of plausible reasons and lies and temptations—damned sneaking, hypocritical, white-washed sepulchers! Eminent and respectable citizens, best people and all that! And unless a fellow has his eyes wide open all the time, has his principles clear and fixed and knows enough to apply 'em every minute, knows what a bunco game it all is, and is of pure gold besides—as I said—why, he gets all tangled up and lost—yes, lost. It pretty much all comes from the cities. We poor jays from the country districts don't know anything about the cities; we take what they tell us, or did in my time. We think if we just pass a few laws to make our fellow-citizens in the cities good, regulate their beer for 'em and all that, that nothing else is required of us; so these fellows come down from the city and get us to do their dirty work for them. In those days there was a fellow here, a lobbyist, a good-looking man, about the size and favor of—well, Baldwin back there—saw him talking to you this morning—same kind of a man exactly, smooth, genial,