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 transparent, whitish-green blade out of its delicate sheath and, squinting his eyes, examined it minutely, as if it were the most engrossing object of study in the world.

"A legislature, McCray," he went on, "is the damnedest thing in the world, the rottenest, most demoralizing, hell-fire sort of institution there is. All politics is that way, no matter where you find it. Sometimes I think you can't get within forty rows o' apple trees of it without being polluted. A man, to go to a legislature and stay there any time and come out whole and safe and sound, has to be made of pure gold. Now, this young friend of mine, he was, as I've said, all right at heart, and pretty strong, too, most ways; good family, good blood and all that; and back home there, in safe surroundings, he'd 'ave got along all right till the end. But in the legislature a fellow's away from home, away from all his customary moorings, and most of the members get it into their heads that at the capital all the rules are suspended, and I reckon they are—that's about what government, as we administer it, amounts to.

"No one from home ever shows up there. The