Tammany Land, you can not with immunity give free and honest expression to your thoughts?
Now, were you not summoned to the Shamrag’s presence to answer for the crime of lèse-majesté? And were you not, for your audacity, left to brood ten days and nights in gaol?
And what tedium we have in Shakib’s History about the charge on which he was arrested. It is unconscionable that Khalid should misappropriate Party funds. Indeed, he never even touched or saw any of it, excepting, of course, that check which he returned.
But the Boss was still in power. And what could Shakib do to exonerate his friend? He did much, and he tells as much about it. With check-boot in his pocket, he makes his way through aldermen, placemen, henchmen, and other questionable political species of humanity, up to the Seat of Justice—but such detail, though of the veracity of the writer nothing doubting, we gladly set aside, since we believe with Khalid that his ten days in gaol were akin to the Boots and the Dowry in their motive and effect.