If it is the Republican, and not the Dimicrat, Jobe will ketch it. If it is the Dimicrat, and not a Republican, I expect Ile have to lay low. But let it be Republican or Dimicrat, either or both, it seems to me that a man must have a big head for bizness that is able to be the buyer and seller of a thing at the same time. It seems to me he would git “mixed in the deal.” As county commissioner he takes an oath to buy the things for the county as cheap as he can git them. As agent of the bridge company he would want to sell a bridge for as high price as possible, so that his commission would be big. Wouldent you like to see him a argyin with himself, fust as buyer, then as salesman? But then, Jobe says, “they work the office for all there is in it.” Now, if Mistur Republican or Dimicrat, as the case may be, as county commissioner, gits his salary from the taxpayers, whether he buys a bridge at a high figger or a low figger, dont you suppose he lets himself, as bridge agent, work himself, as county commissioner, for a little bigger price for a bridge than he would let himself, as county commissioner, be worked for if somebody else was bridge agent, especially when the pay for sellin bridges depends on the price you sell them for? I cant see what Jobe and his likes expect to git out of that way of runnin bizness. But then there are the spittoons. [Illustration: “It wasent anything onusual for a county officer to make all he could.”] CHAPTER XX. “BONDS SELL WELL.” JOBE haint got that tax money yit. Times seem awful hard. But Jobe says they jist seem that way; they haint hard at all. “Times are never hard under a gold basis,” Jobe says. Jobe was a argyin last nite that “times is better than they was jist arter the war.” [Illustration: “‘Hadent we all ort to be satisfied so long as bonds sells well?’”] Says he: “Hadent we all ort to be satisfied so long as bonds sells well?” Now, I dont know. Maybe we had. [Illustration: “‘Times are never hard under a gold basis,’ Jobe says.”] But Jobe and me have been a keepin house for nigh onto thirty-six years, and of all the crops we have raised to try to make a livin at, Ive never seen Jobe plant a single government bond at seed-time nor harvest one at harvest time; so whether government bonds bring high prices or low, good prices or bad, I cant see what benefit it is to Jobe and his likes so long as they haint got any to sell. And if government bonds are like bridge bonds, I think the lower they are, and the fewer of them that are sold, the better it will be for him and his likes. I guess it is really so that them iron tubes under the Dover bridge cost the taxpayers of this county jist what stone butments would a cost.