“Haven’t you got your orders from the crowd that’s behind both of you?” inquired Helm.
“Yes--to let him alone--to let up on him.”
“I suppose so,” Branagan reluctantly admitted. “I wisht I was as young as you, George--and had my old-time nerve--and didn’t have an expensive family. I’d take a chance.”
“Of being able to stay in now that you’re in?”
“That’s it. Damn it, I sometimes believe we could.”
Helm shook his head. “The district is normally seven thousand Republicans out of a total vote of eighteen thousand. It’d take ten years of hard work--and _honest_ politics--to change that round to a small _steady_ Democratic plurality.”
“They won’t reëlect me,” said Helm. “Next time they’ll be back in the harness.”
“For a youngster you take a mighty gloomy view of things.”
“I don’t delude myself. I don’t dare. I’ve been making my own living since I was ten and I’ve got to go on making it till I die.”
“Yes, the people are mutts,” said Branagan. “They were born to be trimmed..... So--if you was in my place you’d fix up a peace with Reichman?”
“No,” said Helm. “_I_ shouldn’t. But _you_ ought to do it. You don’t want to make a losing fight for ten years--do you? You don’t want to drop politics as a business, do you?”
“It’s a business or it’s nothing,” replied Branagan.
“For all of them that’s in it--except here and there a crank.”
“Except here and there a crank,” assented Helm.
“Republicans and Democrats--they all belong one way or another to this interest or that. What’s the use of fighting the crowd that’s got the money? No use--not here in this town--not up to the State Capitol, where you’re going--not on to Washington where I reckon you calculate to go some day. Not nowhere, George!”
“Not nowhere,” said George. “It takes two negatives to give that affirmative its full strength.”
“Not nowhere on earth,” repeated Branagan. “Fight the money crowd, and sooner or later they’ll get you down. Bluff at fightin’ ’em. They don’t mind that. They understand you’ve got to keep in with the people, and they want you to, so as you’ll be useful. But don’t _do_ nothing. Look at any of the big politicians that the people think so well of. What have they _done_? Nothing. They’ve bluffed--and talked--and roared. Maybe they cut off a measly little grafter here or there. But when it came to a show-down, they gave the crowd with the cash what they wanted. Eh?”