Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 151, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1916 — Taking Him Down a Peg. [ARTICLE]

Taking Him Down a Peg.

“There is no one,” remarked a politician who has been a candidate for governor of Missouri, “who can take the wind out of a fellow’s sails so effectually as an oldtime, leisurely Missourian. For example: “After a twelve years’ absence, during which I had graduated at the university, got my name in the paper a. few times and bought a new suit of clothes, I went back to the little old country town where I had been a ‘poor but ambitious youth.’ “I expected a reception committee to meet me, but it did not. However, seeing the grandeur of my new clothes and stiff hat, my old acquaintances came round and shook hands cordially—all except old Bill McClanahan, who kept the general store. Old Bill sat at the back of the stove, handy to the sawdust box. He never noticed me; didn’t even glance my way. “I was piqued, angry, in fact. I walked back to the stove and got right in front of my old friend, so that he had to look upon me in all my glory. “Slowly, casually, he looked up from under the flap of his old white hat and remarked: “ ‘Arthur, you have been away somewhere, haven’t you ?’ ”