"I'll tell
you the whole thing. There's no use, between gentlemen, of playing the
thing too fine." He took his knife from one pocket and from another a
twist of tobacco, and, cutting off a mouthful, began his story:
"You see, me and Bud Merritt and Joe Dorman have most generally agreed
on paternage, and that was all right. You are well fixed. You don't
want the bother of them little giblets of paternage. We've 'tended to
'em for what there was in 'em and for the good of the party. Now Bud he
wants to be auditor, and he's got Joe to go in with him, because, if he
gits there, Joe's brother-in-law, Tim Dolan, will be his debbity. Bud
is weak in the Third Ward, and he knows it, and he knows that Jake
Runckel can swing that ward like a dead cat; and so they have fixed it
all up to give the next vacancy to Jake for his sister. She's been
turned out of the school for some skylarking, and weighs pretty heavy
on Jake's hands. Very well. That's the game, and I'm a-kickin'! Do you
hear me? I'm a-kickin'!"
Pennybaker pushed up his hat and looked Farnham fairly in the face. The
assertion of his independence seemed to give him great gratification.
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