A SENATOR fell to musing¹ as follows: "With the money which I shall
get for my vote in favour of the bill to subsidise cat-ranches, I
can buy a kit² of burglar's tools and open a bank.  The profit of
that enterprise will enable me to obtain a long, low, black
schooner³, raise a death's-head flag and engage in commerce on the
high seas.  From my gains in that business I can pay for the
Presidency⁴, which at $50,000 a year will give me in four years - "
but it took him so long to make the calculation that the bill to
subsidise cat-ranches passed without his vote, and he was compelled
to return to his constituents⁵ an honest man, tormented⁶ with a clean
conscience.

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