Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/196



now," said His Excellency, stroking his silvered brown beard and turning upon me the raillery of his dynamic dark eyes, "it's up to you, Professor. You've been sitting here like one of Uncle Sam's 'observers' at a peace conference—a chiel a-takin' notes, an' sayin' nuthin'. Don't you know that henceforth there shall be no more neutrals? You are our only representative of the great drouthy forward-looking West. Don't you know that the business of a representative is to represent? The wife of my bosom is on the fence—a friendly noncombatant, as is proper to her sex. But Willys and I have got you backed into a corner. I've shown the economic necessity of prohibition. Willys has shown the religious necessity of drink. What is the Mid-West going to do about it? Which way are you going to break? Break, Professor! But stick, as we have done, to the necessities of the case."

"I am as much a necessitarian as you are, Excellency," I said.