Now, your Civil Service Reform is just such
another Yankee notion; it's a wooden nutmeg; it's a clock with a
show case and sham works. And you know it! You are precisely
the old-school Connecticut peddler. You have gone about peddling
your wooden nutmegs until you have got yourself into Congress,
and now you pull them out of your pockets and not only want us to
take them at your own price, but you lecture us on our sins if we
don't.
Well! we don't mind your doing that at home. Abuse us as much as
you like to your constituents. Get as many votes as you can. But
don't electioneer here, because we know you intimately, and we've
all been a little in the wooden nutmeg business ourselves."
Senator Clinton and Senator Krebs chuckied high approval over
this punishment of poor French, which was on the level of their
idea of wit. They were all in the nutmeg business, as Ratcliffe said.
The victim tried to make head against them; he protested that his
nutmegs were genuine; he sold no goods that he did not guarantee;
and that this particular article was actually guaranteed by the
national conventions of both political parties.
"Then what you want, Mr. French, is a common school education.
You need a little study of the alphabet. Or if you won't believe me,
ask my brother senators here what chance there is for your
Reforms so long as the American citizen is what he "You'll not get
much comfort in my State, Mr. French," growled the senator from
Pennsylvania, with a sneer; "suppose you come and try.
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