"It's a beautiful game, hey, my boy?" remarked the Duke, at last. "I see
that some of the country papers have already begun to talk of you for
Governor of the State. The editors haven't seen you, but from what
they've heard they probably think you're a hundred years old and have
grown to enormous size!"
"Don't make game of me, grandfather," said Harlan, coloring.
"Oh, I'm only expressing a wicked hope. There are some men in this State
that I'd like to see punished to that extent." He chuckled. "Put me down
for fifty thousand dollars, first subscriber to your campaign fund."
"I can appreciate the humor of that joke," said Harlan. "For I've had a
liberal education in the past year--I've found out just how little I
know." He added wearily, "And I've found out how hard it is to be what
you want to be."
His grandfather tipped his head back into his clasped hands, his
characteristic attitude. He squinted out across the hills.
"Bub," he said, "I had the first real blow of my life the other day. A
man pointed me out on the train and told another man, loud enough so
that I overheard him, that I was Harlan Thornton's grandfather--'and I
forget his first name,' he said, 'it begins with T.
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