"Take it easy, Doc. I'm in charge here. You just sit and listen. The
point is, you three with your smart-Aleck egghead education started off
thinking Mr. Common Man, like you call me, is stupid. Well, it just so
happens I'm not. Take Pat there. She's smarter than you two, but she had
the same idea. That this here country boy isn't as smart as she is.
She's going to fox him, see? As soon as she saw the way the cards were
falling, she started buttering up to me. She even figured out that I was
probably right in this room listening to you planning how to trip me up.
So she pretended to take sides against you."
"Why, Don!" Patricia protested.
"Come off it, kid. You probably hate my guts worse than the others. You
were the one who thought this _particular_ average man was a slob. That
all common people were slobs."
Patricia's face went expressionless, but Ross, knowing her well, could
sense her dismay. Crowley was right. She had been trying to play a
careful game but their supposedly average man had seen through her.
Crowley's voice went thoughtful. "I been doing a lot of thinking this
week. A lot of it. And you want to know something? You know what I
decided? I decided that everybody talks a lot about the Common Man but
actually he's never had a chance to, like, express himself. He's never
been able to put over the things he's always wanted."
"Haven't you ever heard of democracy?" Ross said sourly. "Who do you
think elects our officials?"
"Shut up, I told you. I'm talking now. Sure, every four years the lousy
politicians come around and they stick coonskin caps on their heads or
Indian bonnets and start saying ain't when they make their speeches.
Showing they're just folks, see? They go out into the country, and stick
a straw in their mouth and talk about crops to the farmers, all that
sort of thing. But they aren't _really_ common folks. Most of them are
lawyers or bankers or something. They run those political parties and
make all the decisions themselves. The Common Man never really has
anything to say about it."
Braun said reasonably, "You have your choice. If you think one candidate
is opposed to your interests you can elect the other."
Crowley grunted his contempt. "But they're both the same. No, there
hasn't been no common man in Washington since Lincoln, and maybe he
wasn't. Well, I'll tell you something. The kind of talk I hear down in
the corner saloon from just plain people makes a lot more sense to me
than all this stuff the politicians pull."
Dr. Braun cleared his throat and stared at the seemingly empty chair
from whence came the other's belligerent voice. "Are you thinking of
entering politics, Don?"
"Maybe I am."
"Good heavens," Patricia ejaculated.
"Oh, I'm not smart enough, eh? Well, listen baby, the eggheads don't
seem to be so great in there. Maybe it's time the Common Man took over."
Dr. Braun said reasonably, "But see here, Crowley, the ability to
achieve invisibility doesn't give you any advantages in swinging
elections or...." He broke off in mid-sentence and did a mental double
take.
Crowley laughed in contempt. "The biggest thing you need to win
elections, Doc, is plenty of dough. And I'll have that. But I'll also
have the way to do more muck-raking than anybody in history. _I'll_ sit
in on every important private get-together those crook politicians have.
I'll get the details of every scheme they cook up. I'll get into any
safe or safe deposit box. I'll have the common people, you sneer so much
about, screaming for their blood."