--Well, if ever you do, you'll see something like a politician trying to butt against the "party," _alias_ the "machine." Then is the great bootist afraid of the "machine?" --I don't think he's afraid of anything. But he knows there's no use kicking against _that_. By the way, you said Hayes had been put into office without being elected, had Conkling anything to do with that? --No. He's too proud a man to stoop to any dirty work. He has held Hayes' administration at arm's length, and never gone near them except when he was on the "kick." Then who did put Hayes into office? --There were a good many in the job. Thirty-three in Florida and seventy-two in Louisiana; Garfield and John Sherman, chief "engineers." Do you mean to say that the man nominated by the Republicans for President, and the Secretary of the Treasury countenanced the men who forced Hayes on the country? --If not, why were rewards promised the rascals for doing it? When the job was done, and Hayes inaugurated, every one of the scoundrels was "provided for." Didn't the other party protest? --Of course they did. But it was the old story of the fly and spider. In what way? --The 'Pubs got the 'Crats to consent to have the difficulty settled by an Electoral Commission and then euchred them. How? --Simple enough. There were eight 'Pubs on the Commission and seven 'Crats. They met. Up gets old Evarts. Says he to the Commissioners: "Boys"--I mean--"Gentlemen! The first duty of a Judge, if he wants very badly to find the 'cat in the bag,' is to look up the chimney." Here he winked at the Judges on Joe Bradley's side. They say he looked very much like Beecher, when he proved his innocence in Brooklyn. "Therefore," says he, "if the involutionary concatenation of a political residuum approximates to the concordant volitions of a Republican effervescence, it is extra self-evident that judicial investigation into supernumerary circumstantial totality, is beyond the hypodermic flexal radiation of your illustrations." The argument was short, but it settled the case! But I don't understand a word of it. --What does that matter? He didn't himself. But they voted on the question all the same. How did the vote go? --Well, that _is_ a simple question! Why eight to seven, to be sure! What he said was supposed to mean they had no right to take evidence. The 'Pubs agreed with him. They said they were there to do nothing, and intended to do it, and pay attention to it. They were eight. And they voted eight--eight, eight, eight, eight--every time. Well, but what had Garfield particularly to do with this?