"All right. Go to it! I’m it. I got mine. That’s what I’m there for. But--when I get mine, the guys that back me get theirs, too. My God, Doc, let’s talk business! What’s a little graft between friends?" "Duck," I said, "you own the 50th Ward. You are no fool. Why is it not possible for you to understand that some men don’t graft?" "Aw, can it!" he retorted fiercely. "What else is there to chase except graft? What else is there, I ask you? Graft! Ain’t there graft into everything God ever made? An’ don’t the smart guy get it an’ take his an’ divide the rest same as you an’ me?" "You can’t comprehend that I don’t graft, can you, Duck?" "What do you call it what you get, then? The wages of Reeform? And what do you hand out to your lootenants an’ your friends?" "Service." "Hey? Well, all right. But what’s in it for you? Where do you get yours, Doc?" "There’s nothing in it for me except to give honest service to the people who trust me." "Listen," he persisted with a sort of ferocious patience; "you ain’t on no bar’l now; an’ you ain’t calling no Ginneys and no Kikes your friends. You’re just talkin’ to me like there wasn’t nobody else onto this damn planet excep’ us two guys. Get that?" "I do." "And I’m tellin’ you that I get mine same as any one who ain’t a loonatic. Get that?" "Certainly." "All right. Now I know you ain’t no nut. Which means that you get yours, whatever you call it. And _now_ will you talk business?" "What business do you want to talk, Duck?" I added; "I should say that you already have your hands rather full of business and Lebel rifles----" "Aw’ Gawd; _this_? This ain’t business. I was a damn fool and I’m doin’ time like any souse what the bulls pinch. Only I get more than thirty days, I do. That’s what’s killin’ me, Doc!--Duck Werner in a tin lid, suckin’ soup an’ shootin’ Fritzies when I oughter be in Noo York with me fren’s lookin’ after business. Can you beat it?" he ended fiercely. He chewed hard on his quid for a few moments, staring blankly into space with the detached ferocity of a caged tiger. "What are they a-doin’ over there in the 50th?" he demanded. "How do I know whose knifin’ me with the boys? I don’t mean your party. You’re here same as I am. I mean Mike the Kike, and the regular Reepublican nomination, I do.... And, how do I know when _you_ are going back?" I was silent. "_Are_ you?" "Perhaps." "Doc, will you talk business, man to man?" "Duck, to tell you the truth, the hell that is in full blast over here--this gigantic, world-wide battle of nations--leaves me, for the time, uninterested in ward politics." "Stop your kiddin’." "Can’t you comprehend it?" "Aw, what do you care about what Kink wins? If we was Kinks, you an’ me, all right. But we ain’t Doc. We’re little fellows. Our graft ain’t big like the Dutch Emperor’s, but maybe it comes just as regular on pay day. Ich ka bibble."