Jobe says you can find lots of fellers, jist like him, standin around the court-house nowdays, chawin terbacker and talkin polerticks, jist to git to spit in them big spittoons and to have the satisfaction of knowin that it will be cleaned out by a strait, influential, leadin Republican officeholder. Well, all Ive got to say is to let them enjoy their satisfaction while they can, for that is about all they git for the taxes they pay and the vote they vote and have been a votin for years. Ime glad they have spittoons in that court-house. If they hadent, what would Jobe and his likes git for votin the strait ticket? What would they git, I say? Susan Swaller is a goin over into Harrison County next week to visit her aunt, and Ime a goin along. While Ime over there Ime a goin to find out more about the county commissioners of our county offerin to sell that county a bridge for much less money than they charged this county for the same kind of a bridge. If what I hear is true, Ile give Jobe names and dates and prices that will make him stand clear up in bed next time, moonlite or no moonlite, shirt or no shirt. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX. A BIG-HEADED MAN. JOBE and me are livin under a flag of truce. I went down into the adjoinin county to find out which one of our county commissioners is the bridge agent, and by what I could hear it was Commissioner Westholt what was down there, but it seems they are all agents or kind a pardners in the “commission” bizness. When I got home I up and told Jobe that it was one of the Republican commissioners—givin his name. Jobe he flew up and claimed he knew better; that Commissioner Westholt is a Dimicrat, for he had been inquirin too. Jobe said that it was purty hard to find anything out about it, as all the court-house fellers thought it would be better not to let it git out. Jobe says they told him that it wasent anything onusual for a county officer to make all he could while he had a chance, and as a difference of $400 or $500 on a bridge was only a little thing to each tax-payer, they hadent ort to know much about it, as they might git to talkin about it and hurt the party. And Jobe says they told him on the quiet that the Dimicrat commissioner was the bridge agent _now_, but jist as soon as his time was out a Republican would come in, and a commissioner of his own party would git the job of lookin arter the bridge company’s interests in this county. This seemed to satisfy Jobe, so he proposed to me that if I would say nothin more about it he wouldent until they can git a full board of Republicans in. [Illustration: “Jobe he flew up.”] And as there seems to be some doubt as to which one is agent _now_, that Dimicrat or one of the Republicans, I agreed to postpone further argament on the subject until that pint was settled. I would like to know which one is _it_ now.