“They couldn't say anything against, him, could they?” said Uncle Ike, pulling on the rubber boot. “Well, you are an amateur in politics. Do you know what they would do if Dewey were nominated? They would prove that he murdered a man in Vermont in 1852, in cold blood, and produce the corpse. They would swear that he was the inventor of the wooden nutmeg, and that he had six wives living, and that he was in cahoots with Aguinaldo, and that he didn't sink the Spanish fleet, but that it got waterlogged and went down without a shot being fired. They would claim that he was the originator of the process of boiling maple roots and putting the juice into glucose, and selling it for pure Vermont maple syrup. They would claim that the reception he received at the hands of the American people was a put-up job; that he paid all the expenses himself, out of money he stole from the government, and that all the cheering was done by hired claquers, who were all promised an office when he was elected. And then if he was elected, every man that knew him before he went to Manila would claim to have been the making of him, and want to be in the cabinet, and every man that has shook hands with him since, would expect the best office at his disposal, and if they didn't get the offices they would prove that he was responsible for the embalmed beef scandal, and that he was in partnership with Capt. Carter in robbing the government, and ought to be in jail. Oh, you can't tell me anything about politics, and if I could see Dewey I would tell him to say nothing but 'nixy' to every proposition to mix him up. Now, all you boys come in to breakfast,” and the old man tossed the boys toward the dining room door as though they were footballs. “Well, Uncle Ike, you have punctured our tire again. Every time we get a scheme to save the country, you come in with your condumed talky-talk, and throw us in the air. Guess you will have to take the nomination yourself, and run on a platform of seven words, 'Here's to the boys, God bless 'em,'” and the red-headed boy got under Uncle Ike's arm, and the gang went in to breakfast, Uncle Ike trying to argue against being nominated, and having to go to the White House with a lot of tough boys making life a burden to him, when he would have to get married, for no President is a success as a bachelor, as Cleveland found out. As Uncle Ike got the boys all around the table, he bent his head and reverently asked a blessing--something he had never done before in the presence of the red-headed boy, and when the meal was over and the boys had all gone away, except the warm-haired one, and Uncle Ike had begun to smoke again, the boy said to him: “Uncle Ike, I did not know that you belonged to any church.” “Well, I don't,” said Uncle Ike, as he got up and looked out of the window, and blew smoke at a fly that was buzzing on the glass.