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192
Cabbages and Kings

turbances of the peace and the dacint love of a clane shirt. Ye do your work, and ye swallow the kerosene ile and rubber pipestems dished up to ye by the Dago cook for food. Ye light your pipeful, and say to yoursilf, “Nixt week I’ll break away,” and ye go to sleep and call yersilf a liar, for ye know ye’ll never do it.’

“‘Who is this general man,’ asks I, ‘that calls himself De Vega?’

“‘’Tis the man,’ says Halloran, ‘who is tryin’ to complete the finishin’ of the railroad. ’Twas the project of a private corporation, but it busted, and then the government took it up. De Vegy is a big politician, and wants to be prisident. The people want the railroad completed, as they’re taxed mighty on account of it. The De Vegy man is pushin’ it along as a campaign move.’

“‘’Tis not my way,’ says I, ‘to make threats against any man, but there’s an account to be settled between the railroad man and James O’Dowd Clancy.’

“‘’Twas that way I thought, mesilf, at first,’ Halloran says, with a big sigh, ‘until I got to be a lettuce-