"Not for two or three weeks yet. But I've an intuition, dear--" "Sure. So have I. A year from now we'll be eating our golden pheasants off our golden plates with our gold teeth. But in the meantime, you better keep your eye on the butcher's bill.... They tell me hash is a great nerve-food." CHAPTER VIII In years the Mayor was no chicken, but in politics he had hardly chipped his shell, so that he was still susceptible to delegations, and sets of resolutions, and references to his solemn oath of office. Furthermore, he had been secretly awed by Mr. Mix's eloquence; for Mr. Mix, as spokesman of the committee, had delivered a speech which was a brief history of both common and statutory law from the time of Solon and Draco up to the most recent meeting of the City Council. Then, in addition, the Mayor had been mightily impressed by the personnel of that committee--chiefly old men, to be sure, but men of immense dignity and considerable weight in local finance; and also, for a counterpoise, there was Miss Starkweather. He hadn't liked the way Miss Starkweather looked at him. She had looked at him with the same rigid intensity with which his wife looked at a fly in the dining-room. As the door closed behind the last of the committee, the Mayor drew a prodigious breath, and walked over to the window, where for several minutes he remained in deep thought. He tried to remember Mr. Mix's peroration: "Thousands of years ago, Mr. Mayor, when the race of man was still dressed in skins, and domiciled in caves, and settling its differences with clubs and brickbats, there was no institution of law,--there was no written language. But as civilization advanced, men found the necessity of communicating their ideas; so that they devised a form of speech which would enable them to exchange these ideas--such as they were--about life, and law. And later on, it was plain that in order to perpetuate these ideas and pass them to posterity, it was necessary to write them down; and so there was developed a written language, and by this method civilized men through all the ages have written down the laws under which they are willing to live. It would be impractical for all of us to meet together to pass our laws, and therefore we elect representatives who make our laws for us. These laws are binding upon all of us until they are set aside by still other legislators, still acting for the whole people, who have chosen them as their legislative representatives. The duty of the executive branch of our government is to enforce those laws, whether made yesterday, or made fifty years ago, or five hundred years ago, and written down in our law-books.... This is our third conference with you, Mr. Mayor, in regard to one of those laws. I therefore have to inform you, in behalf of our committee and our League, and our whole city (whose representatives in City Council passed that law for our common good) that you stand today at the parting of the ways.