“You and I represent practically the whole of the county’s business interests. We ought to have more of a say in running things than we have. As it is now—well, we haven’t much of anything to say. Zaanan Frame says it all, and he’s a stiff-backed, hard-headed old scoundrel if there ever was one. Talk about your city political bosses! Zaanan could show them things they won’t be finding out for another twenty years.” “Pretty strong politically, is he?” “Just this strong, Mr. Ashe, that he appoints the officers in this county. Appoints ’em. Of course there are elections, but if Zaanan told these farmers and what-not to vote for his horse Tiffany for President of the United States, that horse would come close to carrying the county unanimously. That’s how strong he is. The circuit judge is his; the sheriff is his; the prosecutor is his. What chance has money in such a nest? The worst of it is, the old man’s pretty well off and you can’t reach him.” “Never can tell till you try,” said Jim. “I’m in a position to tell, all right. It’s no go. The only thing is to get rid of him. If he could be beaten out of his own job I guess he’d be done for. And I think I can manage it with your help.” “I’m not aching to meddle with politics any.” “You will be when he hands you a dose of his medicine. Look at us. Probably a dozen little suits in the justice court every week come before him. What protection have we?” Moran spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Any Tom, Dick, and Harry that wants to goes ahead and sues—and Zaanan sees to it we get the worst of it. Anywhere else we could appeal, but here the circuit court belongs to Zaanan, and it spends as much of its time playing to the gallery and coddling the poor, downtrodden working-man at my expense as Zaanan does.” “Pretty tough,” said Jim. He told himself that here was first-class evidence to support the Widow Stickney’s praise of Zaanan Frame. It was being admitted he was honest, that influence did not subvert justice. He was a boss, perhaps, but his virtues seemed to stamp themselves on the men his power put in office. Theoretically a boss is bad, Jim thought, but this case seemed to demonstrate there might be exceptions. Suppose Zaanan were absolute monarch of Diversity, what had made him so and what kept him in his place? Apparently it was the fairness, the rugged squareness, of the old man. Apparently he possessed the love and confidence of his people to the point that they were willing to delegate their powers to him in the belief that he would work better for them than they could for themselves. “You bet,” said Moran. “If we could get in a justice of the peace we could stop all these petty suits right there. Let a couple of dozen of these fellows find out they were going to get beaten, and the whole mess of them would quit. I hate to think how much money Frame costs me a year.”