"
"H'm," mused the senator, "so publicity's the new word, is it?"
"Yes; publicity is the word. The Gordon people say they are going to
show us up; there won't be anything to show up when the time comes. We
are going to beat them to the billboards."
The grizzled veteran of a goodly number of political battles put down
his coffee-cup; he was still old-fashioned enough to drink his coffee in
generous measure with the meat courses.
"You can't do the circus act--ride two horses at once and do the same
stunt on both, son," he remarked gravely. "If you're really going to put
the saddle and bridle on the publicity nag, you've got to turn the other
one out of the corral and let it go back to the short-grass."
"It is already turned out," asserted the young man, not affecting to
misunderstand. "We neither buy votes nor spend illegitimate money in
this campaign."
The stout assertion was good as far as it went; the new division counsel
made it and believed it. But on his way to the governor's mansion, a
little later, he could not help wondering if he had been altogether
candid in making it. The offices in the up-town sky-scraper were not
exclusively a railroad social centre where the disinterested voter could
come and have the facts ladled out to him without fear or favor on the
part of the ladler. They had come to be also a rallying-point for a
heterogeneous crowd of ward-workers, wire-pullers, and small
politicians, most of whom were anxious to be employed or retained as
henchmen.
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