human
Noticed the way the _Chronicle_ is jumping on me with all four feet, Plonny? he asked, with rather a forced laugh.
gpt
Why can't those fellows forget it and leave me alone?
human
Why, nobody pays no attention to them fellers' wind, Mr. West. You could buy them off for a hundred dollars, ten dollars down, and have them praising you three times a week for two hundred dollars, twenty-five dollars down. I only take the paper, said Mr. Neal,
gpt
I don't want to butt in, Mr. West, said he, rising,
human
What kid's-size proposition?
gpt
This little two-by-twice grammar school that tries to pass itself off for a college. And you ain't even boss of it at that! You got a gang of mossbacks sitting on your head who don't get a live idea among 'em wunst a year. Why, the archangel Gabriel wouldn't have a show with a lot of corpses like them! Of course it ain't my business to give advice to a man like you, and I'm probably offendin' you sayin' this, but someway you don't seem to see what's so plain to everybody else. It's your modesty keeps you blind, I guess. But here's what I don't see: why don't you come out of this little hole in the ground and get in line?
human
In line?
gpt
You're dead and buried here. Now you mention the _Evening Windbag_ that nobody pays no more attention to than kids yelling in the street. How about having a paper of your own some day, to express your own ideas and get things done, big things, the way you want 'em?
human
You mean the _Post?_
gpt
Well, the editor of the _Post_ certainly would be in line, whereas the president of Blaines Grammar School certainly ain't.
human
What do you mean by in line, Plonny?
gpt
I might mean one thing and I might mean another. I s'pose you never give a thought to poltix, did you?
human
Well, in a general way I have thought of it sometimes.
gpt
Think of it some more, said Mr. Neal, from the door.
human
I see a kind of shake-up comin'. People say I've got infloonce in poltix, and sort of help to run things. Of course it ain't so. I've got no more infloonce than what my ballot gives me, and my takin' an intelligent public interest in what's goin' on. But it looks to an amatoor like the people are gettin' tired of this ring-rule they been givin' us, and 're goin' to rise in their majesty pretty soon, and fill the offices with young progressive men who never heeled f'r the organization.