The loss of his wife so soon
after marriage had been followed by nearly complete indifference to
women, and he had made politics his only consolation and mistress,
harnessing her like a young mare with his old roadster of the law, and
driving them together in the slender confines of his principality, and
then locking the law up among his office students to drive politics into
the national arena at Washington.
"You require to be very neighborly, Clayton, in a small bailiwick like
this?" the Judge inquired, as they strolled along the square in the soft
evening.
"We have the best people in the world in Delaware, friend Custis: few
traders, little law, scarcely any violence, and they are easy to please;
but it is a high offence in this state not to be what is called 'a
clever man.' You must stop, whatever be your errand, and smile and
inquire of every man at his gate for every individual member of his
household. The time lost in such kind, trifling intercourse is in the
aggregate immense. But, Goy! I do love these people."
"It seems to me that you encourage that exaction."
"Well, I do. As an electioneerer, I can get away with any of 'em. Goy!
Why, Jim Whitecar, Lord bless your dear soul!"--this addressed to a
thick-set, sandy, uncertain-looking man who was about retreating into
the Capitol Tavern--"what brings you to town, Jim?"
"It's a free country, I reckon," exclaimed the suspicious-looking man.
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