Jacob Wade, the new sheriff, was a cadaverous-looking countryman, with a face that indicated honesty and egotism. He had come up from a farm, and had but little knowledge of business methods in general, and no idea of how the duties of his office should be properly performed. He puffed up visibly under the bald flattery of Allen, and took it all in like a sponge. "Well," said Wade, "I suppose the boys did sort of expect me to help them over, and I guess I did. I have been getting ready to run for a long time, and I aint been doing no fool things. When the Farmers Alliance people was organizing, I just stayed close home and sawed wood, and when the county was all stirred up about that there dog tax, I kept my mouth shut, and never said nothing." "That 's what you did, Wade," continued the Colonel, rubbing his hands; "you are too smooth to get yourself mixed up with a lot of new-fangled notions that would brand you all over the whole county as a crank. What a man wants in order to run for the office of sheriff is a reputation for being a square, solid, substantial business man, and that is what you had, Wade, and besides that you were a smooth, shrewd, far-sighted, machine politician." Jacob Wade flushed and grew pompous under this eloquent recital of his alleged virtues. Allen was handling his man with skill. He was a natural judge of men, and possessed in no little degree the rare ability of knowing how to approach the individual in order to gain his confidence and goodwill. "No," he went on, "I am not partisan enough to prevent me from appreciating a good clearheaded politician, no matter what his party affiliations may be. I am as firm and true to my principles as any of those high up in the affairs of state. I have been honored by my party time and again in the history of this commonwealth, and have defended and supported her policies on the stump, and in the halls of legislation, and I know a smooth man when I see him, and I honor him, and stick to him out of pure love for his intelligence and genius." The Colonel arose. He now felt that his man was in the proper humor to give ready assent to the proposition which he had made, and he turned back to it with careless indifference.