Gryce. "Much honored by the
call, of course. Can't pretend to congratulate you on entering the
contest, I'm afraid; you won't expect that. Here we've been keeping
the old flag flying for freedom and reform, and you come in and
break the battle line."
For Mr. Elijah Gryce abounded in military metaphors and in
denunciations of militarism. He was a square-jawed, blunt-featured
man with a pugnacious cock of the eyebrow. He had been pickled in
the politics of that countryside from boyhood, he knew everybody's
secrets, and electioneering was the romance of his life.
"I suppose you think I'm devoured with ambition," said Horne Fisher,
in his rather listless voice, "aiming at a dictatorship and all
that. Well, I think I can clear myself of the charge of mere selfish
ambition. I only want certain things done. I don't want to do them.
I very seldom want to do anything. And I've come here to say that
I'm quite willing to retire from the contest if you can convince me
that we really want to do the same thing."
The agent of the Reform party looked at him with an odd and slightly
puzzled expression, and before he could reply, Fisher went on in the
same level tones:
"You'd hardly believe it, but I keep a conscience concealed about
me; and I am in doubt about several things.
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