Part 73

“Going to tell all you know?” inquired the governor.

“Of course. Truth, and not poetry, will be my motto. And just for a test of how popular it will be, I'd like to ask you gents how many of you will subscribe for a volume?”

“I think this committee will take the whole edition,” said the chairman, dryly.

“Look here, Dan,” blurted the attorney-general, “you must be joking.”

“I don't know what ever gave you the impression that I'm a humorist,” returned Breed. “If there ain't going to be anything more like the old times, then what's the matter with having the story of how it was done? That book will sell like hot cakes. I'll go out and sell it--it will give me a chance to keep on mixing and messing with men.”

“Dan, if it wasn't you talking--knowing you well--I'd say this is a piece of blackmail,” declared the attorney-general. “Of course you can't put out a book of that kind in this state.”

Mr. Breed blinked angrily.

“I'll take all the cases of libel against you and won't charge my clients a cent.”

“Fill everybody else's little tin dipper, eh? Passing everybody else a bottle and a rubber nipple! Everybody getting his, and me left out! All right. If that's political gratitude in these new times, go on with you medinkculum! And last year I snapped the six up-country caucuses that gave you your plurality in joint convention!”

“We appreciate all your past services, Dan. If we didn't we wouldn't be trying so hard to place you,” said the governor. “We're taking care of all the old boys. You mustn't embarrass us. In these days it's for the good of the party to put in each office the man who is especially fitted for it. We mustn't invite criticism. A librarian needs peculiar qualifications.”

“Well, old Jaquish was liberian, wasn't he? And he wouldn't even go vote unless you went and dragged him to the polls by the scruff of his neck. What did he ever do for the party? And look at old Tomdoozle as state treasurer!”

“Jaquish was a bookman, and our state treasurer--but no matter. Now listen! I'm going to put you at the head of a new department in the State House where you won't be lonesome. More people will come there than to the library. You'll have the title of curator.”

“What's that?” asked Breed, suspiciously. “And what is the department, anyway?”

“The museum of natural history in the fish-and-game rooms. We're going to make it complete--mounted specimens of all our animals. You'll be curator--you see, you will get a title that sounds well!”

“I'm of a restless and inquiring disposition, and my special forty is politics,” stated Breed, sulking. “I don't believe I'm going to relish being ringmaster of a lot of stuffed animals, no matter what kind of a title I get. How much pay goes with the job?”

“Fifteen hundred,” said the governor.

“Well,” sighed Breed, “it will give me a chance to be around the State House during the session, and I'll take it. Then if I don't like it I can resign after the legislature adjourns.”

The Big Ones understood his frame of mind and overlooked his ingratitude.

“And so I'll bid you good day, gents,” he said, and straddled out with his hands under his coat-tails.

“So we've got him side-tracked and out of mischief,” averred the governor. “That takes care of all of 'em, and I'm relieved. It isn't stylish any more to come to town with a lot of old hounds trotting under the tail of the political cart.”

But before the end of that week the governor was obliged to call Uncle Dan to a private conference in the Executive Chamber.

“You must remember that you're a state officer,” warned his Excellency. “You're a part of the administration. But you are out talking politics all the time. I want you to stay in your department. Just remember that you're curator of our museum.”

“I don't like that blamed job,” complained Breed. “I don't care what my title is, it only means that I have to dust off that old stuffed loon, keep moths out of that loosivee, and fleas or some kind of insecks off'n that bull moose. It ain't no job for a politician. And there's a steady stream through there asking me all kinds of questions about animals. I don't know nothing about animals. I don't know whether a live moose eats hay or chopped liver. Those questions keep me all hestered up. It puts me in a wrong position before the public. I can't tell 'em which or what, and they think I'm losing my mind.”

“Post up! It will keep you busy. Get books out of the library and read. Inform yourself and have a story for the folks!”

A few days later the chairman of the state committee had an indignant report to make to the governor regarding Uncle Dan's natural-history activities.

“He has turned that museum into a circus show, your Excellency. He has named every one of those stuffed animals for somebody in politics he doesn't like, and leads a snickering mob of sight-seers around the room and lectures. When a state officer names a saucer-eyed Canadian lynx for me and then folks come up from that basement and grin at me, it's time a halt was called.”

His Excellency called for Breed and called a halt, using forceful language.

“I resign,” declared old Dan, nipping his little bunghole of a mouth under the hook of his nose. “Those animals are getting onto my nerves. The whole pack and caboodle are chasing me in a nightmare every time I go to sleep. Their condemned glass eyes are boring me worse than gimlets. I'm going on with that book of mine. I've got a new idea for it. I'm going to put in pictures of animals and name 'em for those tin-horn flukedubbles who could never get an office if it wasn't for the primaries.”