They were all eager to please him—too eager. It made him ask, disgustedly:
"Don't you fellows care who is boss?"
"Naw! Don't we have to have one, anyhow?"
"Yes. But to have one crammed down your throats—"
"The beer helps the swallowing, boss," said the hatter with conviction—and a fresh hope!
"There doesn't seem to be a man among the whole lot of you," said Hendrik.
A young fellow of about twenty-eight, very pale, wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, spoke back, "If you'd starved for three weeks and two days, and on top of it been kicked and cheated and held up, there wouldn't be a hell of a lot of fight in you, my wise gazabo."
"That's exactly what would make me fight," retorted Hendrik, angrily. "Each of you has a vote; each of you, therefore, has as much to say as to how this country should be run as any millionaire. Don't you know what to do with your vote?"
"You're lucky to get a quarter and two nights' lodging nowadays," said the old man with waiter's foot. "The time we elected Gilroy I made fifteen bones and was soused for a mont'. Shorty McFadden made thirty-five dollars—"
"Any of you Republicans?"