But amid the jokes the Rabbi is not a bit backward about hatching local empires along with this inbred Michael and this black-haired descendant of Daniel Boone. Their present campaign, which they do not conceal in its tactics from me, their “cousin,” is, of course, an effort to out-maneuver the Mayor. Kopensky wants to bring cheap unskilled labor to town, leaving out the usual University entrance-examination. His ostensible reason is that the World’s Fair buildings will not be completed August 15, the date of opening, without this aid. It is obviously but a maneuver to bring more City Hall votes to town and votes of a manageable type. And so I talk politics with these three. Boone proclaims that the presence this evening of Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Third, is an evidence that the Boones and the Michaels can pull together from time to time and the Rabbi and the lad seem completely ruled by this headlong Boone who cannot eat mackerel without glowering as though he were devouring his enemies. The other two are jollying him out of his intensity and he seems to thank them for it. He really relaxes a little toward midnight, as though, after all, this is a festive occasion of red blooded lads in a coffee house. As I think it over, walking home alone, there is an elusive impression that young Michael was being given an extra show of confidence for “reasons” by the apparently headlong older gentlemen. April 17:—I have been asking questions about Drug Store Smith. It seems this person, Smith, has aspirations, and values his exceedingly nominal place among the scientific chemists of America and will leave the town any time to attend a congress of such, where he receives due invitation:—and it is part of the tactics of Boone to lure him out when his vote will be an inconvenience. But it is not always easy to get him sufficient honors of this kind for he is not a benevolent scientist. The charm of his tonics and beverages is deemed specious, though some of them are discreetly marked: “Highly recommended by Doctor Mayo Sims.” “They say” he did some sound chemical and biological research in his youth in the Springfield University laboratories. I have been asking questions and am beginning to understand Coffee Kusuko. He has a chain of coffee houses as long as Smith’s chain of pharmacy-post-office-street-car-station-patent-medicine-confectionery- cigar-stand-and-soda-fountain establishments. Kusuko has made the black demi-tasse the special Springfield vice and there are no deeper addicts than those who fight him politically.