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 "Why, John," said Major Turner, "you don't mean to say you'd buy votes?"

"Didn't say I would, did I?" snapped the old man, wriggling uneasily in his Delaware chair. "I meant that the money ought to be used so as to produce votes."

"Exactly," assented Bassett.

"And if it don't do that," the judge went on, "why we'd ought to give it back to them as contributed." The judge offered this solution with a new hope dawning in his heart, for he had mourned over the ten dollars he had invested in the fund. A murmur of approval ran around the ring, and the old squire, fearing the dissolution of the fund, was the only one in the room whose face did not glow.

"I'll tell you, boys," said Joe Bogle, "we might whack her up among the crowd and everybody do the best they can with their share."

"That's what I call a grand su'gestion," said Judge Ernest, shaking his head approvingly.

But Bassett shook his head the other way. "No," he said, "that won't do, we want some system in this thing. It ought to be changed into dollar bills and then given to the central committeemen to use in