Once the _Post_, in an article inspired by
West, had referred to Plonny as "this notorious grafter." Plonny could
hardly have considered this courteous; but he was a man who never
remembered a grudge, until ready to pay it back with compound interest.
West's adolescent passion for the immediate reform of politics had long
since softened, and nowadays when the whirligig of affairs threw the two
men together, as it did not infrequently, they met on the easiest and
friendliest terms. West liked Plonny, as everybody did, and of Plonny's
sincere liking for him he never had the slightest doubt.
In fact, Mr. Neal's present call was to report that the manner in which
a lady brushes a midge from her summering brow was no simpler than the
wiping of James E. Winter off the board of Blaines College.
That topic being disposed of, West introduced another.
"Noticed the way the _Chronicle_ is jumping on me with all four feet,
Plonny?" he asked, with rather a forced laugh. "Why can't those fellows
forget it and leave me alone?"
By a slow facial manoeuvre, Mr. Neal contrived to make his cigar look
out upon the world with contemptuousness unbearable.
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