The plea in court must avail.

On Chicago Trio, New York Tenor, released this month on the Italian label Soul Note, his trio features two fellow fellow Chicagoans--Larry Kohut on bass, a steadying influence even during his sudden shifts to double time, and cornucopian pianist Jim Trompeter--and collectively it has the flexibility and tensile strength of metal mesh.

He did not say who “the guys” were—but Dowd knew he meant the Trump base, the crowds at his rallies, the Fox News watchers, the deplorables.

“It is seenteen hundred linen,” said the pedlar, giving a tweak to one of the shirts, in that knowing manner with which matrons and judges ascertain the texture of the loom ; “it’s seenteen hundred linen, and as strong as an it were dowlas. Nevertheless, mother, your bidding is to be done ; and I would have done Mr. Mordaunt’s bidding too,” he added, relaxing from his note of defiance, into the deferential whining tone with which he cajoled his customers, “if he hadna made use of profane oaths which made my very flesh grue, and caused me, in some sort, to forget myself.”