You certainly are a green one. Why,
it's an organization, a lot of people who stick together, don't you
know."
She talked on, and the upshot was that I formed a conception of
political parties as of a kind of competing business companies
whose specialty it was to make millions by ruling some big city,
levying tribute on fallen women, thieves, and liquor-dealers, doing
favors to friends and meting out punishment to foes. I learned also
that District-Leader Leary owed his surname to a celebrated pair
of diamond cuff-buttons, said to have cost him fifteen thousand
dollars, from which he never was separated, and by the blaze of
which he could be recognized at a distance. "Well, shall I speak to
him about you?" she asked. I gave her an evasive answer
"Why, don't you want to have favors from a girl like me?" she
laughed
I colored, whereupon she remarked, reflectively: "I don't blame
you, either."
She never tired talking of our birthplace.
"Aren't you homesick?" she once demanded
"Not a bit," I answered, with bravado
"Then you have no heart.
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