"He wants the judge and the professor at our supper next week," added Slater.

"I've sent 'em invitations," said Alvord. "Anything to please the patient. I could tell you a good deal about this, fellows; but 'Gene and I are brothers and closer than brothers; and F. D. and B. goes with me; but it won't hurt anything for you to know that he's got carloads of trouble, and you haven't any of you come within a mile of the mark. He told me all about it the night he got back from New York. I think it will blow over if things can be kept from blowing up instead, for a few days—slumbering volcano—woman scorned—hell's fury, you know; don't ask me any more. But this hiding out won't do."

"Well, I should think not," said Slater. "We've got to get him going about as usual or there'll be questions asked and publicity—those red-headed women are pretty vivacious conversationalists when they get mad, and you can't tell what may be pulled off, even if he acts as natural as life."

"This supper ought to help some," said Edgington.

"It will," said Alvord. "We must make it a hum-dinger. And we must see that he shows himself of tenor at the club and lodge meetings and hops. Why, it's shameful, the way we've let him drop out."

And men being above gossip, at this point the meeting dissolved.

At the hotel, conference after conference had taken place in the parlor of Professor Blatherwick, and Blodgett and Blatherwick's Notes had been studied out most assiduously. Judge Blodgett and Florian Amidon had spent their days at the counting-house, and an increased force of clerks worked ceaselessly in making up statements and balances showing the condition of the business. Amidon could now draw checks in the name of Brassfield with no more than a dim sense of committing forgery. The banks, however, refused to honor them at first, and the tellers noted the fact that after his return from New York Mr. Brassfield adopted a new style of signature, and wondered at it. Some noticed a change in all his handwriting, but in these days of the typewriter such a thing makes little difference. His abstention from bowling (to the playing of which Brassfield had been devoted), and his absolute failure at billiards, were discussed in sporting circles, and accounted for on the theory that he had "gone stale" since this love-affair had become the absorbing business of his life. No one understood, however, his sudden interest in photography, and his marvelous skill in it. He seemed to be altogether a transformed man.

"I am beginning to see through this," said Amidon, referring to the business.

"Yes," said the judge, "this side of the affair is assuming a pretty satisfactory aspect. But your reputation is suffering by the sort of constraint you've been under. These things are important. A man's behavior is worth money to him. Many a man gets credit at the bank on the strength of the safe and conservative vices he practises. Business requires you to act more like Brassfield. A man who uses a good deal of money must be like other people who use a good deal of money. He mustn't have isms, and he mustn't be for any reforms except impractical ones, and he mustn't have the reputation of being 'queer.' Isn't that so, Professor?"

"Kvite uncontrofertible," said the professor. "You must minkle up vit more beople."

"And in other matters besides business," said the judge; "boxes of flowers every few minutes are all right, but some things require personal attention."

Amidon blushed.

"You see," said he, "if every one were not so strange; if part of the people were as familiar to me as I am to them, it wouldn't be so trying. I suppose these receptions, and other functions to follow, I must attend alone. But you two are going to that banquet with me?"

"Oh, certainly," said the judge. "I want to see just what sort of a gang you've been forgathering with here. The folks at Hazelhurst——"

"Must never know, Judge! And you, Professor?"

"I shall be more tan bleaced. Supliminally gonsidered, I rekard it as te shance of a lifetime."

"Well," said Amidon, "you are very good, and I am glad that's settled. Now I want you to grant me another favor—or Clara, rather. I should be more than glad if she would ask Brassfield about some things that there's no need for you people to hear. It's nothing about the business. Won't you see if she will give me a—a—demonstration?"

The judge and the professor disappeared, and soon word came that Madame le Claire would give him audience. Amidon's heart beat stiflingly as he came into her presence. For this man's conscience was a most insubordinate conscience, and held as wrong the things felt and thought, as well as things said and done; and his remorse was as that of an abandoned but repentant jilt. But when he saw how cheerfully she smiled, he grew easier in his mind. The women always have such a matter fully under control—I mean the other party's mind.

"Well?" said she interrogatively—"at last? I have been wondering why I was brought down here?"

"It must have been very dull and lonesome——"

"Oh, no!" she answered. "I am a business woman, you know, and I haven't been idle. And now, there is something you need, my friend? Let us begin at once."

There were definite repudiation of claims to tenderness, clear denial of resentment, in her tone. Amidon brightened and reddened. He stammered like a boy teased by reference to his first love-affair.

"You are wonderfully kind," he said. "I wanted to ask you to have this Brassfield tell you all he will about the wedding—the date, and everything you can get out of the fellow. And have him act as naturally as you can, so as to see more clearly how he carries himself. You see what I want, don't you?"

"I think so," she returned. "Conversation must be a little difficult, isn't it? You remembered some of the things I told you about?"

"Difficult?" he exclaimed. "Oh, Clara, it's impossible! It's so much so, that I hardly dare go back any more. I'm sending flowers and notes and doing the best I can; but it won't do at all: I must call oftener—must! And I'm afraid I have spoiled everything."

"Then you find the lady quite—quite endurable?"

"She's adorable," went on Florian, with the gush which comes at the first opportunity to discuss the dear one with a sympathetic third party. "She's perfectly exquisite! I have thought of nothing, dreamed of nothing, since I left her, except, except——"

"Ah!" said Clara, "the situation must be perfectly lovely—for you—both—— And I'm sure you got along nicely."

"No, no! I spoiled everything, I know I did. But bring this fellow up and ask him those things, please; and also about a Miss Scarlett—— No, leave that out. Just about the wedding, and about—I was going to ask about our house; but the judge found that out, where it is, and all. Just about the—the things between her and me, a little more, you know!"

The hypnotic subject yields to control more and more readily by repeated surrender. So there was little of gazing into the party-colored eyes now.

"You will soon sleep," said Madame le Claire, in that dominating way of hers; "and when you wake you will be Eugene Brassfield just as he used to be, and the room and all the surroundings, and myself—all will seem familiar, and you will be quite at home with me. Sleep, sleep!"

Her hand swept down and closed his eyes, and he lay back in his chair entranced. Madame le Claire sat long and looked at him yearningly. She smoothed back the hair from his brow with many soft touches, and stooped and softly kissed his forehead. Then she lightly tapped his wrist, and sharply said, "Wake!"

Eugene Brassfield opened his eyes with a smile. There was something still faintly suggestive of tenderness in the look with which Madame le Claire regarded him, and he returned it with the air of a man to whom such looks are neither unusual nor repugnant.

"We were just talking," said she, with the air of reminding him of a topic from which he had wandered, "about your wedding. When is it to be?"

"The appointed date," said he, "is April the fifth; but, of course, I shall move for an earlier one if possible."

"I should think," remarked Madame le Claire, "that the date fixed would give Miss Waldron all too short a time for preparation."

"From a woman's standpoint," said Mr. Brassfield, "it probably seems so. But you and I can surely find matters of more mutual interest to talk about, can't we?"

"Perhaps," said the girl, "but I don't think of anything just now. Do you?"

"Well, for one thing," said he, "I have just found out what makes your eyes so beautiful."

"Wouldn't it be just as well to cease discovering things of that kind? It's so short a time to the fifth of April, you know."

"I've made all my money," said Brassfield, "by never quitting discovering. I like it. And this last find especially."

"I think there are other lines of investigation," said she, "which demand your time and attention."

"Oh, pshaw!" said he. "Don't be so prudish. You know that your eyes are beautiful, and you are not really offended when I tell you so. Such eyes are the books in which I like to read—I can understand them better than Browning, or the old Persian soak. It's not unpleasant to get a volume you understand—at times."

"Why, Mr. Amidon—Brassfield, I mean—aren't you ashamed of yourself!"

"A little," said he; "not much, though. And who is this 'Mr. Amman,' or whatever the name is, that is so much in your mind that you call me by his name when you speak without thinking?"

"A dear friend of mine!"

"Well, now, if you should happen to see something agreeable in me, and should let me know about it, I shouldn't throw your Mr. Amden, or Amidon, at your head. Why not forget about the rest of the world for a while? We can be in only one place at a time, and so, really, our whole world just now has only us two. You oughtn't to repel the only person in the wide, wide world; you won't, will you?"

"Don't be foolish!"

"Don't be wasteful! This may be the only world of this kind we shall be allowed to have. Come over and sit by me and be nice to me, won't you?"

"I certainly shall do nothing of the kind!"

"No? Ah, how wasteful of opportunity! Well, then, I shall have to come to you!"

Oh, the depravity of society in these days, and oh, the unpleasantness of setting these things down! But, on the other hand, what a comfort it is to think that men as base as Brassfield are so rare that you and I, my boy, have probably never met a specimen. And if you ever find, my love, that any person in whom you have any tender interest has ever behaved in a way similar to the conduct of Brassfield, you should give the prisoner the benefit of every doubt, and accord full weight to the precedent contained in this history, and to the fact that it was Brassfield and not Amidon who did this. A man can not be blamed for lapsing into the Brassfield state. A man should be acquitted—eh? Defending some one? Why, certainly not! And how long this paragraph is growing! Yes, I feel sure Clara Blatherwick repulsed these advances as she should, and that Brassfield, being fully under "control," did not—why, of course not, as you say!

But I am going no further with the matter now; except to say that in something like an hour Mr. Amidon departed much perturbed by the prospect of the nearness of his happiness, fully convinced of his unworthiness, and quakingly uncertain as to many things, but most of all, just then, as to his clothes!

"This man Brassfield," said he to himself, "seems to have been a good deal of a dude, and Elizabeth—the darling!—will expect me to be fully up to vogue in this regard—as she will be in all things. And I don't believe a thing has been done about clothes."

Meantime, Madame le Claire walked up and down in a locked chamber, struggling with her grief.

"Oh, it is hopeless, hopeless!" said the poor girl to herself, over and over again. "Florian, my darling Florian, whom I found blind and wandering in the wilderness, and took by the hand and guided to the light—Florian has gone from me! She has taken him, just as she took him before. But the man she thinks loves her—her Eugene—I'm sure he's coming to love me; and to be tired of her! And I could keep him Brassfield, if I chose—if I chose! I wonder—I wonder if it would be wrong? What would she do if she had my power? Twice I had to try, before I could restore him. I could! I could!"

Small wonder, therefore, that Madame le Claire sat wild-eyed and excited, and flew fearfully to Judge Blodgett and the professor, when Mr. Brassfield went free, with Alderson at heel. And all the time, as the crew of a ship carry on the routine of drill while the torpedo is speeding for her hull, these social amenities went on all unconscious of the explosion now imminent.



XV

THE TURPITUDE OF BRASSFIELD

Man to black Misfortune beckons When upon himself he reckons, Marshals Faith among his assets, Blinks his nature's many facets. This dull gem is an ascetic, Bloodless, pulseless, apathetic: Shift the light—a trifling matter— Fra Anselmo turns a satyr! —The Kaleidoscope.

Airily, Mr. Brassfield preceded his clerk down the stairway, and out into the street. There, something in the air—the balm of advancing spring; a faint chill, the Parthian shot of retreating winter; some psychic apprehension of the rising sap; the slight northing of the sun; or some subconscious clutch at knowledge of minute alterations in the landscape—apprised Mr. Brassfield's strangely circumscribed mind of the maladjustment with time resulting from the reign of Amidon. But however bewildered Florian's mentality might become at such things, it was different with Brassfield. The plane of consciousness in which he had so long moved, with a memory running back five years and there ending in a blank wall of nescience, had made him cunning and shifty—necessarily so. The struggle for existence had had its inevitable effect—the faculty paralyzed had been compensated for by the development of others. So he was not at all at a loss now, when this little hiatus in time struck on his mind in the form of a suspicion. He turned to Alderson with a smile.

"Do you remember what date this is, my boy?" he inquired.

Alderson named the date. Brassfield nodded, as if he were pleased to find Alderson correct in his exercises.

"Of course you know what we've arranged for to-day, don't you?" he went on.

"The deferred annual meeting of the Construction Company?" asked Alderson. "If that's it, it's all attended to. I took the proxies to Mr. Smith yesterday."

"Good!" was Brassfield's hearty response. "You'll do for an animated 'office tickler' if you continue to improve. You used to forget all these things."

They had now come to a certain turning, down which Brassfield gazed, to a place where the highway was torn up and excavated. A center line of bowed backs, fringed by flying dirt. Indicated that the work was still in progress.

"You may go on to the office," said Brassfield, "and I'll be up immediately. I'm going down to see Barney Conlon a moment."

He walked down among the men, nodding to the busy ones, and stopping for a handshake or a joke with others.

"Hello, Barney," he shouted to the man who seemed to be in charge. "How long are you going to keep people jumping sideways to prevent themselves from being buried alive? You old Fenian!"

Conlon looked at him for a moment with an air of distinct disfavor.

"Look out there!" he shouted to a teamster who was unloading pipe. "D'ye want to kill the min in the trinch? Ah, is thot you, Mr. Brassfield?"

"What's left of me," replied Brassfield, quickly aware of the coolness of the reception—the politician's sensitiveness to danger. "By the way, Conlon, can't you come up to the office soon? I've got some specifications I want you to see. Pipe-line. Can you do that sort of work?"

"Do it!" gushed Conlon, thawing. "Do it! Ah, Mr. Brassfield, d'ye ask me thot, whin ye mind 'twas me thot done the Rogers job!"

"Oh, yes, I remember now, you did have that," said Brassfield. "Well, that was fairly well done. Come up and figure with me, and I believe we can make a deal."

"Thank ye kindly, Mr. Brassfield," said Conlon, all his obsequiousness returning. "Thank ye! Annything new in politics, Mr. Brassfield?"

"I don't know a thing," said Brassfield. "I'm so busy with other things, you know——"

"It'll be a great honor," said Conlon, "or so I should take it, to be the mare of the city, an' the master of the fine new house an' all that'll be in it, all this same spring!"

"Yes, Conlon, yes—but as to the office—I don't know about that."

"They can't bate you," asseverated Conlon promptly.

"Oh, I don't know," demurred Brassfield. "You can't always tell."

"We're wid ye, to a man," asserted Conlon unhesitatingly, growing warmer. "The common people are wid ye!"

"I'm glad to hear that," said Brassfield, "very glad. But business first; and this pipe-line is business. Of course, if the people demand it——"

"They will!"

"—why, I may—— I'll see, Conlon. Anyhow, I appreciate your friendship. Come up and see me."

And the candidate for mayor walked away, wondering how he could have offended Conlon, and rejoiced that he had "fixed" him in time.

"Where's the telegram?" he asked, as he entered his private office. "Why, Stevens might have attended to this. Where's Mr. Stevens? Miss Strong, send Mr. Stevens in!"

"Mr. Stevens!" gasped Miss Strong. "Mr. Stevens—why——"

"Oh, I mean where does he live now? I heard he was moving. And by sending him in, I mean, if you happen to meet him," hastily amended Mr. Brassfield, noting some error. "I want to see him. And show me his account, please; and kindly ring for a boy to take this message."

The books showed the discharge of Mr. Stevens, and the closing of his account. Brassfield frowned over it, but resumed his smile at Miss Strong's re-entrance.

"Let's see," said he. "What have we for this afternoon? These unanswered—Why, Miss Strong, these must be attended to at once! Please take some letters for me."

He had dropped into his rut. For an hour or more Miss Strong's fingers flew as she noted down his dictation, and at the end of that time the letters were answered, and the communications which had so perplexed Amidon were filed away among other things done. The office force breathed freely once more, with the freedom of returning efficiency in management.

The man who had brought this relief to his employees now looked at his watch, rose, went out, and walking briskly down the main street, nodding to an acquaintance here, and speaking to another there, made his way out among the homes of the town.

Here his brisk walk gradually slowed down to a saunter. He was strolling toward the house with the white columns. Suddenly coming into view, as she turned a corner and walked on before him, appeared a young lady. Not much ability in the detective line would be necessary for the recognition of her by any of this girl's acquaintances, within any ordinary range of vision. If there were no certain revelation in the short, smartly-attired, quick-moving figure, there could be no mistake concerning the vividly brilliant hair, which glowed under the saucily-turned fabric of felt, feathers and velvet which crowned it, like a brilliant cloud display over a red sunset. Mr. Brassfield seemed to recognize her, for he quickened his pace so as to overtake her before she could come to a gateway, into which her glance and movements indicated that she was about to turn. He walked up by her side, and manifested to her his presence by falling into step and lightly pinching her shapely elbow.

"How-de-do, Daisy-daise!" said he, with the utmost assurance. "When did you bring the town the blessing of your presence?"

The lady gave a little scream.

"'Gene Brassfield!" she ejaculated; and then, with a little quivering emphasis, "You! How you frightened me!"

"I know, I know!" replied Brassfield, peeping under the big hat into her eyes. "Almost scared to death, as is quite proper. But, to my question: how long, how long hast been here?"

"Oh, several days—before you came back. Aunty wanted me to be here when her sister, my Aunt Hunter from Hazelhurst—that's up in Wisconsin—visits her. There's to be a reception. Of course you'll be there, and——"

"Of course," responded Brassfield. "Did I ever absent myself from any social affair in which your charming aunt, Mrs. Pumphrey, is interested? Nay, nay; but don't dodge. Why this throw-down? Why didn't you let me know——"

"'Gene," said the girl, "you can't deceive me. I'm ashamed that I wrote the note, and your telling a fib about getting it won't make it any better. But it was wicked of you not to answer. I only wanted you to come to me and—and talk it all over, and say good-by for ever. It wasn't necessary to——"

"I have never received any note," said Brassfield, totally unconscious of the missive which Amidon had promptly waste-basketed. "What was it?"

"Really? Didn't you?" she queried, pouting her red lips most kissably. "A little note, unsigned, with some—some verses? No? Then I'll forgive you—for that. But—go on, 'Gene, up to the house yonder—go on!"

"You oughtn't to be permitted to run at large," said he, "with that hat, and those lips. I wonder if any one's looking?"

"You mustn't talk that way," she said, "nor look at me like that! Go on, or I shall cry—or something quite as bad! Or, maybe you'll come in? Billy Cox is in there waiting for me, and watching, I dare say."

"Some other time," replied Brassfield, "I shall be delighted. But Miss Waldron has just been driven out into the street, and if she comes this way, I must exhibit myself to her, and maybe she'll pick me up. She's turning this way—— Billy, eh? Happy Billy; nice boy, too, since he stopped drinking. By-by, Daisy-daise!"

Elizabeth came driving down the road, and walking up it came Aaron, sable messenger of the anxious Madame le Claire, who had enlisted Aaron in her service to bring Brassfield again within her magic realm. He reached the object of his search before the carriage passed, and delivered a note.

"Tell Madame le Claire," said Brassfield, whose ideas with reference to that person must have been very hazy, "that such an invitation is a command. I'll be with her immediately."

He stood smiling, hat in hand, at the crossing, as Elizabeth drove by. She halted, and looked questioningly at him. This smile, this confident aspect—all these were so different from his recent bearing that she was surprised, and not more than half pleased. The element of assurance in his attitude toward the other girl was not seen in his treatment of Elizabeth, to whom it would have been offensive. Perhaps the cunning of the consciously abnormal intellect was the cause of this; or it may have been some emanation of dignity from the woman herself acting on a mind in a state chronically hypnotic. Be the cause what it may, to Elizabeth, with all his confidence and ardor, he was most deferential and correct in manners, and, to her, these manners had undergone no change. Confidently, as if no shadow had ever come over their relations, he put his foot upon the step of the carriage.

"Won't you give me a lift," said he, "and put me down at my home?"

She made room for him with scarcely more than a word. "To the Bellevale House," said she to the coachman.

Brassfield looked at her, so grave, so distinguee, so coolly sweet, and forgot apparently that there was any one else in the world. He slipped his hand under the lap-robe, and gave hers a gentle pressure.

"Dearest!" he half-whispered, caring very little whether he was overheard or not.

She returned the caress by the slightest possible compression, and put her hand outside the robe. Whether the one action was incited by a desire to avoid complete unresponsiveness, and from a sense of duty only, the other left undecided.

The circumscribed mind of Brassfield which, with the intensity of observation rendered necessary and inevitable by its narrow field, had noted, as he stepped out in the street, the intangible shifting of relations in his surroundings incident to the mere passage of time in the few days of his obliteration, now felt, as a blind man feels the mountain in his approach, or as the steersman in a Newfoundland fog apprehends the nearing of the iceberg, some subtle alteration in the attitude toward him of the young woman by his side. Instantly he was on guard and keenly alert.

"This is a case," said he, "of the prophet coming to the mountain. I was on my way to you, and lo, I met you coming my way—let me hope coming to me—after seeing me!"

"The mountain is at liberty to draw his own conclusions," said Miss Waldron. "One may be reasonably charged with the design of meeting every one in Bellevale when one goes out."

"The mountain, then," said he, "must be content with its place as a portion of the landscape—happy if it pleases the prophet's eye."

"The prophet did not foresee—but let's have mercy on the poor hunted figure. I was about to say that your occupation—or preoccupation—as I drove down the street brought to my attention a new phase of our scenery—a brilliant one. Is this the girl I used to know as Daisy Scarlett?"

"It must be," said Brassfield, "and it surprises me that you speak of knowing her as of the past. How does it happen?"

"The exile of school," she answered, "and the fact that her visits to Bellevale have not been during such vacations as the girls would let me spend with Auntie. It's my loss—I have lived too tame a life."

"I, too; let's take the trail for sensations."

"Let me begin with a mild one," said Elizabeth. "Estelle writes me that she has been away from New York for the past month. So you are not a convicted criminal, at least."

Brassfield scanned her face to get the revelation of every turn of expression, as an aid to this mysterious reference to Estelle as related to his visit to New York.

"That's good," said he promptly, and with marvelous luck, "even a verdict of 'not proven' is a glad surprise on returning from New York. By the way, Bessie dear, won't you drive over by that gang of men? The foreman seems to want to speak to me."

Entirely oblivious of this dexterous turn, Miss Waldron complied, and drew up to the place where Barney Conlon's gang still labored in the trench.

"What is it, Conlon?" asked Brassfield.

"I was wonderin', sir," said Conlon, hat in hand, "if I could see you at your office in a half-hour or so. I'd not ask it, sir, if it wasn't important. It's about the business you was speakin' to me about this marnin'."

"Ah, yes: the pipe-line," said Brassfield. "Be at the office in half an hour, Conlon. Drive to the top of the hill, William. So goes our search for new thrills—road runs slap into pipe-lines and business, dearie."

"Well, we mustn't find fault with it for that," said she. "I've wanted to say to you—since the other evening—that I can see widening vistas showing oceans of good things I never reckoned on in the least. And when I get unreasonable and generally brutal and abusive, I am not really and fundamentally so any more than I am now!"

"I know, dearest; I know, Bessie. And, now, don't give yourself a minute's uneasiness about anything that took place. I apologize for everything out of the proper which I said——"

"Which you said?"

"Yes—yes! You were quite right, and I never loved you more than then—except now. Let's not allude to it again, but just go on as before."

"Not quite as before," said she. "I'll not ask you why you kept back so many of your—your my—qualities from me—must you get down here at this old counting-room?—and I'll only ask you two questions—cramp the carriage a little more, William! One is, where can I get a copy of the first edition of Child's Scottish Ballads—wasn't that the name of the 'Dark Tower' book?"

"You may search me, Bessie," said he, standing by the curb in front of his office. "Don't think I ever heard of it."

"Oh, Eugene!" cried Elizabeth, "don't take that attitude again! But bring it up to me when you come to begin our readings in Pippa Passes!"

"Ah! Now you are joking! Good-by, Bess. Unless I'm run over between now and eight-thirty, you may look for me. By-by!"

Not quite so fortunate, this last five minutes of conversation. But all unaware of that fact, Brassfield went back into the private office, and found Conlon awaiting him. Brassfield opened a drawer and drew out a roll of drawings and typewritten specifications.

"Now as to this contract, Conlon——" he began.

"Ixcuse me, Misther Brassfield," interrupted Conlon, "but the contract may wait: some things won't. What's the matther with Edgington?"

"Edgington? The matter? What do you mean?"

Conlon leaned over the shelf of the roll-top desk, and pressed upon a paper-weight with his knobby thumb.

"Thin ye don't know," said he impressively, "that he's out pluggin' up a dale to bate you an' nominate McCorkle!"

Brassfield faced him smilingly.

"Oh, that notion of Edgington's!" said he. "That amounts to nothing! If you and my other strong friends stay by me, there's nothing to fear. I'm glad you know of that little whim of Edgington's. But about this contract. Now, I usually look after these things myself, and do them by days' work. But if I am forced to take this office of mayor, I sha'n't be able to do this—won't have the time; and I'll want you to do it. Perhaps I'd better give you a check on account now—say on the terms of the Rogers' job? All right, there's five hundred. That settles the contract. Now with that off our minds, let's talk of the political situation. You can see that, being forced into this, I don't want to be skinned. Now, what can you do, Conlon?"

"Do?" said Conlon. "Ask anny of the byes that've got things in the past! Wait till the carkuses an' ye'll see. But mind, Misther Brassfield, don't be too unconscious. Edgington an' McCorkle, startin' in on the run the day of carkuses, may have good cards. Watch thim!"



XVI

THE OFFICE GOES IN QUEST OF THE MAN

Victory brings peace without; Amity conquers within. How can my thought hide a doubt? Doubt in the mighty is sin! Yet, as I watch from my height, Rearing his spears like a wood, On swarms the dun Muscovite— Slavish, inebriate, rude! Dim-seen, within the profound, Shapeless, insensate, malign, Fold within dragon-fold wound, Opes the dread Mongol his eyne! One waking, one in the field— Foe after foe still I see. Last of them all, half-revealed Prophecy's eye rests on—Me! —A Racial Reverie.

Mr. Brassfield sat alone, listening to Barney Conlon's retreating footsteps. A few years ago I could have described the solitude of the deserted counting-house, and made a really effective scene of it. Now, however, telephones exist to deny us the boon. No sooner do we find ourselves a moment alone, than we think of some one to whom we imagine we have something to say, and call him up over the wire; or, conversely, he thinks of us with like results. Conlon's back was scarcely turned before Brassfield took down the receiver and asked for Alvord's residence.

"Jim," said he, "I've just found out that Sheol is popping about town. . . . Yes, it's Edgington. Conlon tells me he's out for McCorkle and against me. . . . Well, maybe not, but Conlon generally knows. You must go out and run it down. We can't have McCorkle nominated—you can see why. . . . All right. I'll wait for you somewhere out of sight. . . . In the Turkish room at Tony's? . . . Very well: I had another engagement, but I must call that off. Thanks, old man. I shall rely on you! Good-by!"

Up went the receiver, and then, almost at once was lifted to Brassfield's ear again as he sent in a call for Miss Waldron's residence.

"Is this 758? Is Miss Waldron at home? . . . Yes, if you please. . . . This you, Bess? Well, I'm in the hardest of hard luck. Things have come up which will keep me cooped up all the evening. . . . You're awfully good to say so! Good night, dearest!"

The lock clicked behind him, and he was out on the street once more. Came into view a figure which was clearly that of a stranger to Bellevale, and yet had an oddly familiar air to Brassfield, as it moved uncertainly along the darkening highway. It came to the point of meeting and halted, facing Brassfield squarely.

"I peg bardon," it said, "but haf I the honor of attressing Herr Brassfield, or Herr Amidon?"

"My name is Brassfield," was the reply. "What can I do for you?"

"I am stopping at the Bellevale House," said the professor. "Blatherwick is my name. I hat hoped that you might rekonice me, as——"

"I am sorry to dispel your hope," said Brassfield. "What do you want with me?"

"I should pe klad to haf you aggompany me to my rooms," said the professor, "vere I shouldt esdeem it a brifiliche to bresent you to my daughter, and show you some dests in occult phenomena. As the shief citizen of the city——"

"My good man," said Brassfield, "whatever would be my attitude ordinarily toward your very kind, if rather unlooked-for, invitation, permit me now to decline on account of pressure of business. Ordinarily I should be curious to know just what kind of game you've got, as I haven't enough in my pockets to be worth your while to flimflam me. Pardon me, if I seem abrupt."

And he hurried down the street, leaving the professor drifting aimlessly in his wake, vibrating between anger and perplexity.

"I wonder where I've seen that man?" thought Brassfield. Dim reminiscences of such a figure sitting in shadowy background, while a glorious tigrine woman ruled over some realm only half-cognized, vexed the crepuscular and terror-breeding reaches of his mind. He met a policeman, who respectfully saluted him. Brassfield stopped as if for a chat with the officer.

"A fine evening, Mallory," said he.

"Fine, indeed, sir," said the officer.

"Who is the old gentleman whom you just passed?" asked Brassfield. "The one with the glasses."

"That?" asked the policeman. "Why, didn't you recognize him? That's your friend the hypnotist, up at the hotel—Professor Blatherwick."

"Oh," said Brassfield as he walked on, "I didn't know him in the dusk. We'll have to have better street lighting, eh, Mallory?"

"No bad idea!" said Mallory. "Well, it'll be for you to say, I'm thinking."

"You don't think there's anything in this new movement, do you?" asked Brassfield.

"Oh, no, sir," said the officer. "And yet, in politics you never know. But I feel sure it'll be all right. They can't do much this evening and to-morrow. Time's too short."

Brassfield hurried on with an air of anxiety. The policeman's words were not reassuring. He turned down a side street and entered a restaurant, the proprietor of which at once placed himself and his establishment at Mr. Brassfield's command.

"Give me the Turkish room, Tony," said Brassfield.

"Yes, sir, the Turkish room: and Charles to wait?"

"Yes," said Brassfield. "Cook me a tenderloin; and don't let any one come into the room."

"Certainly, Mr. Brassfield! The Turkish room, and a steak, and no one admitted——"

"Except such people as Mr. Alvord may bring. We shall want some good cigars, and a few bottles of that blue seal."

"Yes, sir," said Tony. "Will you speak to this gentleman before you go up, sir?"

Brassfield turned and confronted an elderly man of florid countenance, whose white mustache and frock-coat presented a most respectable appearance. Mr. Brassfield bent on him a piercing look, and strove mentally to account for the impression that he had met this man before, wondering again at that hazy association with the mystical, dreamy region of the woman in yellow and black. It was as if he saw everything that evening through some medium capable of imparting this mystic coloring. The stranger faced him steadily.

"I presume you remember me, Mr. Brassfield," said he. "Blodgett of Hazelhurst."

"Of course it's unpardonable in me," said Brassfield, "but I don't remember you, and I fear I've never heard of the place."

"Well," said Judge Blodgett, "it's entirely immaterial. I merely wanted to say that I've some matters of very great importance to communicate to you, if you'll just step up to my rooms at the Bellevale House."

"I can hardly conceive of anything you may have to say," said Brassfield guardedly, "which can not be as well said here. We are quite alone."

"I—the fact is," said the judge, floundering, "what I have to say must be communicated in the presence of a person who is there, a person——"

"May I ask whom?"

"A lady—Madame—Miss Blatherwick."

The cunning of mental limitation again served Brassfield. He recognized the name as the one mentioned by the professor on the street. Why this conspiracy to bring him to this strange woman at the hotel? Was it a plot? Was it blackmail or political trickery, or what?

"I am very much engaged to-night," said he. "Whatever you have to say, say here, and at once."

The judge felt like seizing his man forcibly, and taking him to Madame le Claire for restoration. The Brassfield cunning was an impenetrable defense. Bellevale's chief business man seemed to be himself again, a keen, cool man of affairs, to whom Judge Blodgett, Professor Blatherwick and Clara were, except for the brief and troubled intervals during which the Amidon personality had been brought uppermost, strangers,—until she could once more bring him within the magic ring of her occult power. Brought within it he must be, but how? The judge felt beaten and baffled. Yet he would try one more device.

"The matter can hardly be discussed here," said he, "but I may say that it relates to the evidence you lack in the Bunn's Ferry well cases. I happen to know of your desire for proof of certain facts in the spring of 1896, and——"

Mr. Brassfield started and changed color.

"You know—this woman knows," he said, "something to my advantage in the matter?"

Judge Blodgett nodded. Brassfield looked at his watch, paced back and forth, and made as if to follow Blodgett to the door. Blodgett's heart beat stiflingly.

"You are coming?" said he.

Something in the tone betrayed his anxiety. Again suspicion rose to dominance in the mind of Brassfield; and entering at the door came Jim Alvord, and one or two hulking, mustachioed citizens of the ward-heeler type. He turned on the judge.

"No," said he, "it is impossible for me to go now. But I am much interested in what you say, and to-morrow—— No, not to-morrow, for I shall be very busy; but the day after we will take it up with you, if quite convenient to you. In the meantime, if you will be so kind as to call on my lawyer, Mr. Edgington, I shall be very glad. He is authorized to make terms—anything reasonable, you know. Good night, Mr. Blodgett. I hope we shall meet again!"

"Your old friend Blodgett seems agitated to-night," said Alvord, as they sat alone in the Turkish room. "He's got to be quite a fellow here on the strength of your friendship. Wish he was a voter. We could use him. Maybe he can help in a quiet, way. Anything wrong with him? Seemed worked up."

Smilingly, as if Alvord's remarks had been as plain to him as they were charged with mystery, Brassfield replied that so far as he knew Blodgett was all right, and that he might be of use further along in the campaign.

"And now," said he, "tell me what on earth has sent Edgington off on this tangent. He's the man who first suggested to me that I ought to run. It was his scheme. He's my lawyer and my friend. What does it mean?"

"Well, I saw Edge, and he's got a list of reasons longer'n an anaconda's dream. He says that since your return from your New York trip you've seemed different. I don't mind saying that there's others say the same thing."

"Different?" said Brassfield, in an anxiety rendered painful by the missing time and these strangers whom he was accused of knowing, but who behaved as strangers to him. "How?"

"Well," said Alvord, "kind of not the same in manner—offish with the gang, an' sort of addicted to the professor and the hypnotist—no kick from me, old chap, you understand, but I'm filing a kind of bill of exceptions, an' these things go in."

"I see," said Brassfield. "Go on!"

"Then you'll have to own you've done some funny stunts," continued Alvord. "You've fired old Stevens, and you've been going over your books with this man Blodgett, and talking of selling him an interest——"

"Talking of what?" exclaimed Brassfield.

"Oh, it's your own business, you know, but a sort of shock to the feelings and finances of the community all the same. Not that it affects me, or that many know of it, but the inner circle is disturbed—and, mind, I'm leading up to Edgington's flop."

"I see," said Brassfield. "Go on!"

"Well," said Alvord, "the mystery comes in right here. He says he went up to see you and you flew up and took a high moral attitude and said it was a dirty mess, and you wouldn't touch it. He thought it was some of Bess's isms that she brought home from college—civic purity, and all that impractical rot that these intellectual women get, and he says he began hunting for some one to run in to fill the vacancy caused by the declination of E. Brassfield. He was knocked numb when he found out that you were out for the place. You must have said something to him, you know. Now what in the name of Dodd was it?"

Brassfield walked up and down the room for a few moments, wringing his hands and alternately hardening and relaxing the muscles of his arms as if engaged in some physical culture exercise, but saying never a word. This blank Cimmeria of his past, into which he had stared vainly for five years, seemed about to deliver up its secret, or a part of it. Already, it was clear, it had disgorged this man Blodgett, and these other questionable characters at the inn. But they would find him ready for them. This man that was looking over his books would discover that what Eugene Brassfield wanted he took, and what he took he held. They were after his money, no doubt. Well, he would see. And in the meantime, Edgington's defection should not be allowed to disarrange matters. The business interests involved were too great. When he turned to answer Alvord, he was pale as death, but calm as ever.

"Oh, Edgington misconstrued entirely what I said," he answered. "I can't just repeat it—we had some talk along the lines he mentioned, but I never said anything that he ought to have understood in that way. Is he on the square, do you think?"

"On the dead square," said Alvord. "I'll stake my life on that."

"Well, what has he done?"

"He's got McCorkle out for the nomination."

"To stay?" asked Brassfield. "Can't we give Mac something else, later?"

"No, Edgington says not: you see, the colonel has wanted to be mayor a long time. Edgington can't pull him off, and as long as he sticks, Edge's got to stick by him. Edgington's for you as hard as ever after the caucuses—if you win."

"Yes," said Brassfield, "most everybody will be. You've run your eye over the line-up: can we win?"

"It depends," said Alvord, "on the two men down in the restaurant—Sheehan and Zalinsky. You know their following, and what they want. Our crowd stands in with the better element. McCorkle can't hold more than half his own church, and we're as strong as horseradish with the other gospel plants. The A. O. C. M. gang Edgington won't try to split, but will leave to us, and through them we'll get the liberal element in line—the saloons, and the seamy side generally, I mean, of course. The labor vote we need help with, and I've brought in Sheehan and Zalinsky to sort of arrange a line of policy that'll round 'em up. With their help we'll control the caucuses. After the caucuses, it's plain sailing."

Brassfield made a few figures on a card, and handed it to Alvord, who looked at it attentively and nodded approvingly.

"That ought to be an elegant sufficiency," said he.

"All right," said Brassfield, "you handle that end of it, and I'll discuss the interests of labor. We'll show Colonel McCorkle what a fight without interests means in this town. Are the wine and cigars here? Then go down and bring the patriots up, Jim."



XVII

THE HONOR NEARS ITS QUARRY

And every man, and woman, too, was forged at Birmingham, And mounted all in batteries, each on a separate cam; And when one showed, in love or war or politics or fever, A sign of maladjustment, why you just pulled on his lever, And upside down and inside out and front side back he stood; And the Inspector saw which one was evil, which was good.

Chorus:

On the other side! On the other side! Oh, you must somehow see the other side! If you'd repair or clean This delicate old machine, You must have a way to see the other side! —The Inventor's Song in, "Bedlam."

Messrs. Sheehan and Zalinsky, before being ushered into the Turkish room where Mr. Brassfield sat awaiting them, were told by Mr. Alvord that, should Mr. Brassfield's position on the labor question be found satisfactory to them, he would like to have their good offices in the matter of getting a fair attendance at the caucuses the next evening. As this is always an expensive thing for the patriot who engages to do it, he, Mr. Alvord, would beg to place at their disposal funds in an amount named by him, for use in the transportation of distant and enfeebled voters and for such refreshment as might be thought necessary.

"Weh-ull," said Sheehan, "Fr th' carkuses only it may do. What say, Zalinsky?"

Mr. Zalinsky, his eyes gleaming with gratification, thought the sum named might possibly suffice.

"Good!" said Alvord. "And now come up and see the next mayor."

"What's de use?" asked Zalinsky. "Don't we know him all right? Ain't it all fixed? I want to git busy wit me end of deliverin' de goods."

"Mr. Brassfield's views on labor——" began Alvord, but Sheehan interrupted him.

"Your word goes wid us!" said he. "Ye've convinced us Brassfield's the laborin' man's frind. What say, Zalinsky?"

"So!" said Zalinsky. "Ve better git to work over in de fourt' ward."

"They didn't come up," said Alvord, returning to the Turkish room. "The figures on that card seemed to convince 'em. Now for the saloons and their end of the vote."

"What do they want?" asked Brassfield.

"Why," said Alvord, "it's the policy of the office more'n anything else they want assurances on. I've sent for Fatty Pierson and his fellow members of the retail liquor dealers' association, and they'll be here by the time we dispose of this steak. I must be counted in on the dinner—I forgot mine."

While Alvord, greatly rejoiced at the sudden restoration of his friend to the possession of those qualities which made him so useful and reliable in all business projects, and promised so well for the future of Bellevale under his wise, conservative and liberal administration as mayor, was cozily discussing the dinner in the Turkish room at Tony's, awaiting the arrival of Mr. Fatty Pierson and his committee, there was a council of the hypnotic board of strategy at the Bellevale House. The board consisted of Judge Blodgett, Professor Blatherwick, and Madame le Claire. The matter under consideration was how to return Brassfield to his much-to-be-desired nihility: how to recover Amidon from his relapse into occultation.

"I can never forgive myself for allowing it!" cried Madame le Claire. "And yet, how could I help it? His clerk came running in with a telegram, or something of the sort, and Mr. Amidon rushed away with him. What would this man have thought and said, if I had subjected his employer to the treatment necessary to restore him—put him into the cataleptic state, and then into the normal, by passes and manipulations!"

"Just now," answered the judge, "when he seems to be doing the meteor act in local politics, such an occurrence in public might be misconstrued in non-hypnotic circles, and commented on. Passes and manipulations are not thoroughly understood in politics—except in a different sense! I guess you had to let him go. How to get him back, is the question. He's certainly off the map as Amidon: turned me down when I tried to get him up here, with the air of a bank president dealing with a check-raiser; and yet, the way he rose to the lure of getting evidence in this lawsuit of his shows that he's as sharp as ever in business. What's likely to be the result if he's allowed to go in this way, Professor?"

"Nopody gan say," said the professor. "He may go on as Brassfield for anodder fife years or more. He may vake up as Amidon to-morrow morning. Propoply he vill geep on intefinitely, aggumulating spondulix, and smashing hearts, unless ve gan pinch him some vay."

"Oh, we must get him back!" said Madame le Claire. "We must!"

"In te interests off science," said the professor, "id vould pe tesiraple to allow him to go on as Brassfield ant note results. Ve haf alreaty optained some faluaple data in the fact of his attempt to buy the destimony of our frient the chutche, and his gontemptuous treatment of me as a con man. He didn't seem to remember us at all. Should ve not allow de gase to go on a vile? Supliminally gonsidered, it vill be great stuff!"

"No!" exclaimed the judge. "It ain't safe. He'll be running for mayor, and doing a lot of things to make him trouble when he does come to. We've got to surround him somehow; and he's a wary bird."

"Anyway," said the professor, "I should like to opsairve the result of a meeting with Clara. In his short Brassfield states he saw her, ant her only. Vill he remember her clearly, or how? How vill dis mind of his coordinate te tisgonnected views of her, with te rest of his vorld? It ought to pe vorked out."

"Well," said the judge, "I don't owe science much. I'm against any experiments. Can't some one suggest something to do? Is it feasible to kidnap him?"

"Let me suggest something," said Madame le Claire hesitatingly. "In his Brassfield state he seemed to—to like me very much. In affairs concerning—that is, affairs relating to women—he seems less wary, to use Judge Blodgett's word, than he is on other lines. Maybe I could—could induce him to come. It seems a sort of—of questionable thing to do; but——"

"Questionable!" cried the judge, "questionable! Why, not at all. We must try it. I'll risk it!"

"If ve are to gif up te itea of vorking out the gase," acquiesced the professor, "vy I agree vith the chutche."

"That is," said the girl, "like the judge, you'll 'risk it.' Very brave of you both to 'risk' so much! As for me, I must ask for time to think over my own proposal, before I undertake to entrap this prominent business man at my apartments. I'm not so sure that I'll 'risk' it. And yet it seems the only way!"

Speaking of traps: The emissaries of the retail liquor dealers' association were engaged in a trapping enterprise of their own in the Turkish room at Tony's, at this very crucial moment. Fatty Pierson, and two fellow retailers, gentlemen of smooth-shaven face, ample girth, and that peculiar physiognomy which seems fitted to no artistic setting except a background of mirrors and glasses, and a plain foreground of polished wood, were arranging for a police policy to their liking, during the Brassfield administration.

"Colonel McCorkle," said Fatty, "is a mighty good man, and, while a church member, seems to be liberal. On the other hand, you're well known to be broad in your views, and you do things"—here Fatty's arm took in the bottles and the cigars with a sweeping gesture—"that he don't. You've got property rented for saloon purposes. We know you're a good man, Mr. Brassfield, but in such matters we saloon men have learned to be careful. A police force can make our business profitable or put us all dead losers, just as they're steered by the mayor. Now, what would be your policy?"

"I should expect," said Mr. Brassfield, "to give the city a good, conservative, business administration, and to make my oath of office my guide."

"Good!" said Fatty. "But we've all heard that before. Colonel McCorkle, or the Reverend Absalom McCosh, would say that."

"Well," said Brassfield, "now, definitely, what do you want? Anything reasonable and not contrary to law, you have only to ask for."

I wonder if burglars, in arranging their business, stipulate that nothing "contrary to law" is to be done!

"Exactly," replied Fatty. "But now as to reasonableness: when the hour for closing comes, our customers bein' gathered for social purposes, it seems abrupt to fire 'em all out when the clock strikes. Now, when a policeman comes along after hours an' finds one of us with a roomful of customers discussin' public questions, we don't want to turn up in court next morning. See?"

"I see," said Brassfield. "My view of the function of the saloon is that it is a sort of club for those too poor to belong to the more exclusive organizations. As long as they are performing these functions in an orderly way, why inquire as to the hour?"

"That seems reasonable," said Fatty. "And about how long ought a man to have to slow up an' stop performin' functions, do you think?"

"Well," said Mr. Brassfield, "there isn't much doing in the way of business, say from two to five A. M., is there?"

"No," said Mr. Pierson, "not much. But on special occasions——?"

"I shall do the right thing," said Brassfield.

"An' you wouldn't feel obliged," queried Pierson, "to start any detectives out spyin' upon the uses we put our second stories to, or the kind of tenants we have?"

"Not at all," said Brassfield. "I shan't disturb things. Alvord can tell you that. What I want is the policy that is best for the property owners; and things as they are are good enough for me. Is that satisfactory?"

"Well, I should smile!" said Mr. Pierson. "And now, gentlemen, before we go an' begin work for the caucuses to-morrow, in the interests of our friend here, I propose a toast to Mr. Eugene Brassfield, who will be the best mayor Bellevale ever had!"

"You've got to give me a bed to-night," said Brassfield, as the last of the delegations Alvord had brought to the Turkish room retired in apparent satisfaction. "I don't care to go to my rooms—there are too many folks up there at the hotel who seem anxious to see me. And I want to be where I can talk the situation over with you."

"Glad to have you," said Alvord. "Come on, and we'll turn in. As for the situation, how can you improve it? If Conlon and Sheehan and Zalinsky can't control these caucuses, I'm mistaken. Put them along with the saloons and the others that depend on police permission for existence, and you've got a dead open-and-shut."

As they walked along the street they noticed a motley crowd emerging from a public house and moving in a body to another, seemingly under the leadership of a little man with Jewish features. Alvord took Brassfield's arm and hurried him on.

"You see what Edgington's up to?" asked Brassfield. "He's got Abe Meyer out taking the crowd down the line in McCorkle's interest. I wonder if they won't turn things over somewhat."

"Turn nothing!" said Alvord. "They'll make the noise to-night; we'll have the votes to-morrow night. The boys'll rake in McCorkle's money now, and in the morning the word will be passed that the best interests of the town require every one to boost for you. They won't know what hit 'em!"

"I hope you're right," answered Brassfield, "but Edgington's no fool. I wouldn't have him for my lawyer if he was."

"Of course he's no fool," was Alvord's reply, "but he's handicapped by the personality of his man. Edge's doing pretty well, considering. He probably is wise to the situation. He didn't expect anything like a contest, you know, owing to that confounded blunder one of you two made. Now he's doing the best he can; but his man's been too strong in the God-and-morality way in years gone by to wipe out the stain by one evening of free booze. On the other hand, your life has been perfect—always careful and sound in business, no isms or reform sentiments on any line, a free spender, a paying attendant of the richest church, but not a member, and no wife full of wild ideas for the uplifting of folks that don't want to be uplifted. Why, Mrs. McCorkle's advanced ideas alone are enough to make him lose out."

"I don't know about that," said Brassfield. "McCorkle and his wife are not the same in these affairs."

"Well, don't you fall down and forget it," said Alvord, "that the fellows on the seamy side won't see it your way. They've got good imaginations, and they can see the colonel on one side of the table and his wife, the president of the Social Purity League, pouring tea on the other, and they can see the position it would put the mayor in to do the right thing along liberal lines—and he sort of strict in habits himself. No, sir, my boy, you go to bed and sleep sweetly. You are about to reap the reward of living the right kind of a life."

And sweetly Mr. Brassfield slept, with none of the anxiety felt by Judge Blodgett as to whether he would awake as Brassfield or Amidon.



XVIII

A GLORIOUS VICTORY

Narcissus saw his image, and fell in love with it, But jilted pretty Echo, who wailed and never quit. This beauteous youth was far less kind than I, my friend, or you: For we adore our own good looks and love our echoes, too. —Adventures in Egoism.

I really shrink from giving an account of the result of the Bellevale caucuses next evening, for fear of imparting to the general reader—who is, of course, a violent patriot—the idea that I am narrating facts showing an exceptionally bad condition in municipal affairs, in the triumph of one or the other of two bad men. This impression I should be loath to give. Colonel McCorkle, whom we know by hearsay only, seems to be so good a citizen that his belated attempt to be "broad" and "liberal" excites laughter in some quarters. As for Mr. Brassfield, there are at least nine chances in ten that he is the man who would have received the support of the gentle reader had it been his own city's campaign.

In fact, Mr. Brassfield is psychologically incapable of deviating much from the course marked out by the average ethics of his surroundings. This subconscious mind which—as Professor Blatherwick so clearly explained to us—normally operates below the plane of consciousness, happens, in his case, to be abnormally acting consciously; but it is still controlled by suggestion. The money-making mania being in all minds, he becomes a money-maker. The usual attitude of society toward all things—including, let us say, women, poetry, politics and public duty—is the one into which the Brassfield mind inevitably fell. The men on whom any age bestows the accolade of greatness, are those who embody the qualities—virtues and vices—of that age. Your popular statesman and hero is merely the incarnate Now. Every president is to his supporters "fit to rank with Washington and Lincoln." Future ages may accord to him only respectable mediocrity; but the generation which sees itself reflected in him, sees beauty and greatness in the reflection. Bellevale was psychically reflected in Brassfield. Therefore Bellevale raised him on the shield of popularity. One may see this reflected in the conversation of Major Pumphrey, one of Bellevale's solid citizens, with Mr. Smith, who owned the department store, on the morning after the caucuses.

"Rather lively times, I hear," said Major Pumphrey, catching step with Mr. Smith on their walk down town. "Rather lively times at the caucuses last evening."

"Really," answered Mr. Smith, "I don't know. I never attend caucuses. Every one has his friends, you know, and by not taking sides one saves many enmities."

"I don't agree with you," said the major. "Every one should attend his party primaries, as a matter of duty."

"You were out last night?" said the merchant interrogatively.

"Why, no," said the major, "not last night. The fact is, Colonel McCorkle and I served in the same regiment, and belong to the post here, and he expected me to support him. At the same time, the nomination of Mr. Brassfield appeared to be the only right thing from the standpoint of party expediency or business wisdom. Brassfield can be elected. He is strong in business circles. His integrity is unquestioned, and there'll be no graft or shady deals under him. He stands well in society, too. I just saw Doctor Bulkon, who expressed himself as thoroughly delighted with the nomination of so good a man as Brassfield, and intends to preach next Sunday on 'The Christian's Vote,' handling the subject in such a way as to point to Brassfield as the right man. I couldn't consistently oppose Brassfield, and so I stayed at home."

"Oh, you're quite right!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. "My attendance would not have made any difference in the result. Colonel McCorkle is a good man, but after Mr. Brassfield made us a present of the money to pay off our church debt recently none of us could decently have gone out and worked against him even for the colonel. They say that McCorkle is a good deal chagrined by the small showing he made—claims that the saloons and the lower classes ran the caucuses, and that the decent element stayed away altogether."

"Pooh!" scoffed Mr. Pumphrey. "A little sore is all—soon get over it. I only hope Brassfield will be able to get us that trolley line he promises. That would bring Bellevale abreast of the times."

"That's certainly true," was Mr. Smith's answer. "Mr. Brassfield is an enterprising citizen, broad and liberal, safe and sane, and fully in touch with the great business interests of the country. His nomination will reflect credit on Bellevale."

Inasmuch as such citizens as Conlon, Pierson, Sheehan and Zalinsky were equally well contented, no one, it would seem, ought to have been dissatisfied. The fact that Mr. Brassfield's success meant the giving away of Bellevale's streets to Brassfield's interurban trolley line must be considered in connection with the fact that Bellevale seemed only too anxious to give them away.

One must look at such things from all sides, if one is to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Miss Waldron, having a keenly personal interest in the matter, and being a member of the cultured and leisure class, endeavored to do this. Her conclusions, both personal and political, seem to be fully set forth in a letter which she wrote to her friend Estelle in New York.

"You know I always was a queer little beast," said this letter, after a few pages in which such words as "chiffon," "corsage," "lingerie," "full ritual," and similar expressions occur with some frequency, but the contents of which are quite obscure in their bearing on the course of this history—"and was ever finding happiness where others saw misery, and vice versa. Well, I am doing something of the same sort now in turning over and over in my mind the question as to whether I should ever marry any one or not. I know perfectly well that no one can ever be the One for me if Eugene is not—but is there a One? Don't say that I am a little—goose, but listen and ponder.

"You remember the sort of literary friendship I had with George L——? Well, of course George was a veritable Miss Nancy, and perfectly absurd, but there was something basically likeable about him. Now, I always have thought that if one could grind George and Eugene to a pulp and mix them, the compromise would be my ideal. I like men who do things, and Eugene is the most forceful man I ever knew. Owing to your absence when he was in New York you missed seeing him, but his pictures must have shown you how handsome and strong and masterly he is. Well, this phase of a man must please any girl.

"Is it possible for such qualities to subsist in the same personality with those I loved (there's no use denying it—in a platonic sense) in George? In other words, can one reasonably expect to find a man who can win battles in the world's life of this twentieth century, who will not stare at one in utter lack of comprehension when he finds one dropping tears on the pages of Charmides, or McAndrew's Prayer, or Omar, and perhaps try to comfort one—at the moment when the divine despair wrought by poignant beauty fills one with divine happiness? It's horribly clumsy as I put it; but you'll know.

"He's just as good and kind and considerate as a man can be, and as little spoiled by the fierce battles which he has fought—and won!—as could possibly be expected—in fact, not at all spoiled. Even this suspicion of a lack of the gift of seeing that the violet 'neath a mossy stone is a good deal more than that—the chief good quality George had—around which I have been writing in these pages, seems to be more a suspicion than a reality; for recently he has once or twice ventured on discussions of such matters with a confidence and an insight which put me—me, who have plumed myself on my mental St. Simeon's tower, like a detestable intellectual cockatoo (you must untwist the metaphors!)—at his feet in the attitude of a humble learner. It took some of the conceit out of me; and yet, with true Elizabethan inconsistency I turned this new view of his character against him, and because he—well, it doesn't matter what—I gave him a pre-nuptial instalment of 'cruel and inhuman treatment.'

"Then he became timid and over-respectful, and not at all like himself, and I all the time just longing to make up to him all the arrears of kindness which were due. It seemed as if I had a new lover, one who needed encouragement, one who made a goddess of me, in the place of the almost too bold gallant who had been mine; and lo! when he suddenly comes on me with all his pristine assurance and seeming contempt for the weepful things I mentioned above, I don't like it at all. I feel as if two men in the same mask are courting me, and I without discernment enough to tell one from the other.

"Now, if I am so shilly-shallying as this before marriage, what shall I be after? Can I go on with so much of doubt in my own mind?

"Oh, if I could only be sure of the Eugene I think I sometimes see, strong to do, tender to feel, and with the uplift of insight——

"To show how thoroughly insane my state of mind is, I have only to say to you that by the exercise of the most tremendous pressure on the part of our very best men, Eugene, much against his will, has been put in nomination for mayor. He will purify the civic life of our town, and, I am assured, will, if he will enter public life to that extent, be sent to Washington.

"I have always thought that I'd like Washington society——"

Here Elizabeth's letter came to an end. She read it over carefully, tore it up, threw the fragments in the grate, and wrote her friend another and maybe a wiser one. Then she wrote to Mr. Brassfield a note which Mr. Amidon found in his room when he returned to being.

One can easily see from that which has gone before, what happened to Colonel McCorkle. Edgington and Alvord and Brassfield talked it over in the Turkish room at Tony's after the caucuses.

"Of course you've made an ass of yourself, Edgington," said Mr. Brassfield, "but you've gone through with it consistently, and it's all right. I could have explained all that idiotic talk of mine about not running—but why go over that now? Fill your glasses, and let's forget it!"

"That's the talk!" said Alvord. "Forget it and all pull together in this campaign you've made me the manager of."

"Well, as for forgetting it and pulling together," said Edgington, "I, as the originator of the Brassfield idea, am not likely to hang back in the harness. So, here's to success! But——"

"There's no 'but' in this," said Alvord. "The 'buts' are postponed until after election."

"There's nothing to the election," said Edgington. "You have things lined up——"

"We have things lined up——" suggested Alvord.

"Yes, that's right," acquiesced Edgington. "It's 'we,' with all my heart since the decision. I was saying that the way you have the different interests working together is perfectly ideal, the wets and the drys, the wide-opens and the closed-lids, the saloons and the dives and the churches—all shouting for Brassfield; and each class thinks he's for its policy. The other man has about as much show—well, the next is on me. Would you mind pressing the button, Jim?"

The waiter came, bringing a penciled note to Mr. Brassfield.

"One of your constituents," it read, "would like a moment's conversation with you in the lobby."

Brassfield drew the waiter aside.

"Who is this, George?" asked he, tapping the note. "A woman?"

"A young lady, suh," was the answer. "A mahty hahnsome young lady, suh."

"Bright auburn hair?" asked Brassfield, "and short?"

"Er—no, suh," answered the waiter, "sutn'y not that kin' o' haiah; an' tall, suh."

"Make mine the same," said Brassfield, "and excuse me a moment, boys. I'll be right back."

The note had said in the lobby, but the waiter guided him to a private room. Brassfield, cautious as usual, by a gesture commanded the waiter to precede him into the room, and himself halted at the entrance, looking about the room for the young woman. She sat near the window, and rose to greet him as he entered—a tall and graceful girl with wonderful eyes and variegated hair.

"I could not wait to give you my congratulations," said she, offering him her hand, "until you came home. We at the hotel are wondering why we have lost you. Let me rejoice with you in your great triumph."

Brassfield's eyes sought hers. His soul recognized this as the queen of those hazy recollections which he could scarcely believe more than dreams, and felt her dominance.

"Thank you, ever so much," said he. "I was just coming up to see you."

"How nice of you," said she. "And in that case, why not go up with me and join me at my supper, which will be served in ten minutes?"

"Why not, indeed!" said Brassfield. "George, tell Mr. Alvord and Mr. Edgington that I'll see them in the morning!"



XIX

THE ENTRAPPING OF MR. BRASSFIELD

Ol' Mistah Wolf is a smaht ol' man, An' a raght smaht man is he; He take all the meat fum the trap an' he eat Not a mossel dat poisoned be! He laff at the snaiah, an' he nevah caiah When de niggah wake fum his nap; But he foller the trail o' little Miss Wolf Raght inter the jaws o' the trap! But he foller the scent o' little Miss Wolf Kerslap in the deadfall trap! —"Hidin'-Out" Songs.

From a room adjoining that in which Madame le Claire had won her seeming victory over Mr. Brassfield's caution, emerged hastily that young woman's accomplices—her father and Judge Blodgett—who had shamelessly listened to the whole conversation. With more of haste than seemliness they sped before Le Claire and her captive, and by vigorous expletives put the patient Aaron into unwonted motion in the procuring of the "little supper" which they had heard Clara promise to the candidate for mayor. Then, in a chamber farthest from the door, and well sheltered by draperies, they sat them down and waited for their prey.

"He's hooked!" said the judge, "hooked well; and I'll gamble she lands him. She's a brick, Professor."

"So!" answered the other. "Ant now, if she vill only—what you call: reel him, blay him—until ve can get the data ve vant——"

"To blazes with the data!" exclaimed the judge. "I'm for getting him back into the Amidon state and respectability, data or no data, before some one else tolls him off into the poisonous swamp of popularity. Why, I tell you, Professor—hark! There they come! Lay low, now!"

The professor grasped his note-book, the judge the arms of his chair, as the door opened, and in the front room they heard Madame le Claire's voice joining in companionable chat with that of Brassfield.

"Oh, how slow Aaron is!" she said. "And I'm so hungry. Aren't you?"

"Not so much so as I was," said he. "Sweets take away the appetite. I'd rather call the supper off, and exclude Abraham—or whatever his name is: much rather."

"Selfish!" she reproved very severely. "And I just in from a two hours' walk. I haven't eaten any sweets——"

"Nor I," said he. "May I have just a little taste?"

"Mr. Brassfield! Don't make me sorry I invited you here! Aaron's likely to come in at any moment. Do you know when you were here last?"

Brassfield's brow wrinkled, as he looked about him.

"Ye-e-es," said he slowly, as if in doubt; and then in his ordinary manner: "Well, I should think I did. The day that donkey, Alderson, came with the telegram. My faith, and so much has happened in the two or three days since! But to suggest that I could forget!"

"Why not?" said she, slipping close to him as he sat in a broad-armed easy chair. "I'll wager anything you say you can't remember half the times you've been in my presence. Come now, the first time!"

"Pshaw!" said he, "I'm not going into ancient history, further than to say it was in a room with hangings like these, and a roar of traffic in the street below. Come, dear, let's not talk of that——"

Her hand, straying near his hair, he took in his, and, crushing it to his lips, kissed it passionately. She sank down on the side of his chair, and his arm crept insinuatingly about her waist. Her arms went round his neck, and she drew his head to her breast, softly, tenderly, and her lips met his—so many times that for years she blushed when the memory returned to her.

"Darling!" he whispered, "do you love me?"

"Love you?" said she. "Look in my eyes and see!"

Slowly, with her left hand in the curls on his neck, she drew her face from his, and, as if fascinated, his eyes sought hers in a long, long, hungry look.

"You do!" he began gaspingly. "Yes——"

The slender fingers moved upward over his head, the commanding eyes held his, the other hand, as if for a caress, swept his eyes shut, and he lay back in the chair, inert as a corpse. Madame le Claire untwined his arms from her waist, and knelt on the floor before him, her hands clasped on his knees, her head pillowed in his senseless lap.

Their unseen auditors heard no more conversation, and the judge moved softly out to a place where he could see. Clara was sobbing as she groveled at the feet of the man she had obliterated, rescued and restored, and as she sobbed she pressed his hands to her lips. Judge Blodgett went back to the window, lifted it noisily and lowered it with a crash. Then he walked into the front room, and found Madame le Claire sitting in a chair across the room from her subject, smilingly and triumphantly regarding the result of the exercise of her mystic power.

"Is he all right?" queried the judge, looking at the inert form. Madame waved her hand at their prisoner, in answer.

"Cataleptic," said the professor, peering at him through his glasses. "Bulse feeble, preath imberceptible. Yes, he is reeled in."

"Well, give him the gaff," said Blodgett. "In other words, fetch him to."

Madame le Claire stretched vibrant hands toward the entranced man, and again uttered the sharp command, "Awake!"

Amidon smilingly opened his eyes, and looked about him.

"Where are the letters?" said he, looking about for those vexing communications, to find the meaning of which had been the object of the inquiry from which Alderson had drawn him with the telegram. "Did you note on them the information we wanted? Why, is it night? How long have you had me under the influence? Is anything the matter, Clara?"

"Not now," said Le Claire.

"Now eferyding is recht," added the professor.

"But you have given us the devil's own chase," said the judge.

"It is nearly midnight," said Mr. Amidon. "Have I been out all the afternoon?"

"All the afternoon!" exclaimed Blodgett. "Yes, and all day, and all yesterday, and the day before, and other days! You've been raising merry Ned, Florian, in your Brassfield capacity. Do you want to know what you've done?"

"Do I?" he cried. "Tell me all at once!"

"Well, for one thing," said the old lawyer, "Edgington's long-incubated scheme has hatched, and you've been through a strenuous mayoralty contest with Colonel McCorkle, and have swept the board. Your friends insisted on it, you know, and you couldn't decline."

"Friends!" sneered Amidon. "I tell you, the whole thing is hypocrisy and graft. That villain Brassfield has a scheme for stealing the streets. I told Edgington I wouldn't——"

"Yes," said the judge, "and he took you at your word and trotted McCorkle out, and you trimmed them up. But it's all made up with him, now, and you and he and Alvord are as thick as thieves. You've got a jewel of a campaign manager in that man Alvord——"

"Judge," cried Amidon, "I want you to get up a letter of withdrawal—you have watched the miserable business, and know more of it than I do—one that will make me as little ridiculous as possible, you know. I don't care for the people in general, but there are some whose good opinion I prize——"

"I know, Florian," said the judge. "I know. But you can't expect to cut a very good figure, you know."

"Well, manage it as well as you can, and—I suppose you've watched me?" he continued. "Why did you let me go this way! Have I been up to Miss Waldron's?"

"Once or twice for a few minutes," answered Madame le Claire. "You have been very busy indeed; and yesterday Miss Waldron went out of town."

"I think," said Judge Blodgett, "that you will find a letter from her in your room. Alderson brought it up from the counting-house."

"Well, you must excuse me," said Mr. Amidon. "I want to talk this all over with you early in the morning; but I must go to my room now. No, thank you, Clara, I really can not stay to your supper. To-morrow you must tell me how you kidnapped me—I never can repay you for your faithful service to me. Good night!"

The discerning reader has already anticipated that Mr. Amidon went straight to the letter and opened it.

"Dearest Eugene," it said, "I want to give you a word to say that I am proud of the love and confidence which every one has for you, and to say that I do not regard the place to which you are to be elected as unimportant, or one which you should decline. Of all men you are best able to protect our town against corruption, and to lift its civic life to a higher plane. I wish I might help your fellow townsmen to confer you upon it. Maybe I can help in cheering you along the way after this is done.

"I have all sorts of pride in and ambition for you. Hitherto, you have confined yourself too closely to the practical and productively utilitarian. I shall watch with all the interest you can desire me to feel, this new career of yours, beginning so modestly and so much against your will; but reaching, I feel sure, to the state and national capitals.

"Do you know, I have always imagined myself capable of founding Primrose Leagues, and becoming a real political force? Spend the afternoon with me Sunday, and we'll talk it over—come early.

"Yours in loving partizanship,

"Elizabeth."

Florian sat for a long time pondering over this letter. It was the thing about which his thought centered the next morning. When the judge said that he was at work on the letter of withdrawal, Amidon remarked that there was no hurry, as he should not use the letter until after a conference with Miss Waldron. Then he went to spend his Sunday afternoon with his fiancee, according to her invitation.

The "dear Eugene," and the tone of co-proprietorship in this new "career" of his which seemed so deliciously intimate in her letter, faded from his memory as he faced her in her home, so stately, so kind, so far from fond. Her rebellion from those mad kisses of his on his first visit had thoroughly intimidated him. He felt, now, that he must win his way to such blisses by slow degrees, as if the Brassfield life had never been for her more than for him. So they talked over the cool and sensible things they might have discussed had she been his grandmother; among others, the campaign.

She had tremendously good ideas as to city government. Amidon had long entertained similar notions, and that their unity of sentiment might appear, each wrote answers to a list of questions which they made up, and Amidon was hugely delighted to find that they agreed precisely.

"Why not make it your platform?" she asked.

"You mean, a public manifesto?" he queried.

"Surely," said she. "The people ought to know what we represent. Print it, so all may be well informed."

"But that would be an acceptance of the nomination," said he.

"Hardly," she replied. "We have already accepted, and that's settled. But it will raise the contest to one of principle. The best elements of society are with you—Doctor Bulkon might as well have mentioned your name as he described the ideal candidate to-day—and such a noble declaration from you will fill them with joy. Oh, don't you think so?"

"Elizabeth," said he, "if I take this office, it will be for your sake. I shall withdraw, or run on your platform."

"Oh, you can't withdraw," she asseverated. "Not now!"

The adoring glances, in which she constantly surprised him, mitigated somewhat the pique which his ceremoniously respectful parting raised in her heart. She stood looking at the hand he had kissed, and wondering if this was the Eugene of days gone by, but was not quite able to think him cold to her. This was true at all events, she thought, the offensiveness—half-reserve, half-familiarity—the curious impression of strangeness which so nearly caused a breach between them on his return from New York—that was gone, at least. This new attitude of his—well, that was to be considered. In some respects, the change had its element of piquancy—like a love affair with an innocent boy where the wiles of experience had been expected.

In the meantime, Mr. Alvord was happy. He had opened "Brassfield Headquarters," over which he presided with a force of clerks who were busy with poll-books and other clerkly-looking properties. "But," said he to Slater, who called to see him about funds for putting in order the links of the Bellevale Golf and Boating Club against the coming of spring, "there's nothing to it. With the preachers exhorting for us and the wet-goods push and sports plugging enthusiastically, and not a drop of water spilling from either shoulder, the outlook couldn't be better. Of course, we have to go through the form of a contest, but there's no real fight in it."

"I don't see how there can be," said Mr. Slater. "But what's all this work for?"

"Well," said Alvord, "we've got to keep up the organization, and so we poll the town. It gives some men employment for a few days that would be sore if they didn't get it. Then we have to send out the piece de resistance for keg parties of evenings. The way the petitions come in for kegs is surprising. A man calls and says his name's Pat Burke, or Karl Schmidt, and that they've organized a club for the study of public questions, meeting every night at Jones' Coke Ovens or Webber's Chicken House, and they expect to have up the mayoralty question for debate to-night—only he generally calls it the 'morality' question—and could we send them a barrel of beer? We know that there's only a corporal's guard, mostly aliens, but we send 'em a pony. Another puts up a spiel that he's been spending his own money electioneering for Brassfield—he never had over fifty cents in the world, but he's spent forty dollars—and he can't stand the financial strain any longer. He's palpitating with love for Brassfield. He knows where there's twenty-five votes he can get, if he can have say ten dollars for booze—he'll leave it entirely to us. We know he's a fake, of course, but we give him a V. We've got to spend Brass's roll somehow."

"Where's he keeping himself?" asked Slater. "I haven't seen him since Saturday. Isn't he out shaking hands?"

"No," was the answer. "He'd rather buy what he wants, and not do any canvassing. It isn't necessary, anyhow. That supper we arranged for before he was put up will bring him into contact with some of the strongest lines of influence, and will finish the reconciliation with Edgington. Then Mrs. Pumphrey's reception and some other affairs will be all the publicity we'll need. No noise for ours, anyhow. The gum-shoe is our emblem, and we don't let our right hand know what our left wing is driving at. 'Gene leaves it all to me, and don't ever show up here. That girl business—the strawberry blonde, you know—seems all lost sight of, and there ain't a cloud in the sky."

A clerk entered and informed Alvord that a man named Amidon wanted to speak to him at the telephone.

"Another debating society wants irrigating, I s'pose," said he. "Hello! This is headquarters. . . Yes, it's Alvord speaking to you. . . . Oh, is it you, Brass? They said it was a man named Amidon. Wire's crossed, I s'pose. Worst telephone service I ever saw. All right, go ahead."

Here followed a long pause broken occasionally by "yes," and "I know," and "no," from Alvord. At last, in tones of amazement, he broke forth in a storm of protest.

"What! Publish a platform?" he shouted. "Are you crazy? No, I most emphatically don't think so. Why—now listen a moment, 'Gene,—I've got the best still hunt framed up you ever saw. We're winning in a walk. . . . Well, if you want to make your position clear, I know I can trust you to make your manifesto the right thing. But mind, I advise against it! . . . Yes, sure, as many things as you want to talk about, old man. . . . Yes, I've heard about the idea; but never saw it indorsed by any practical people. . . . Yes. . . . No. No! . . . No! . . . I tell you NO! . . . Why, you know we've spent sums that we couldn't possibly publish. What have you been drinking, 'Gene? Here, damn you, this is all a josh! Come down here and I'll buy. . . . What's that? You really want to publish a schedule of your election expenses? Well, I'll keep the schedule, and you can print 'em if you want to. Come up to headquarters, and I'll show 'em to you. Good-by!"

Alvord hung up the receiver, and went back to his inner office.

"By George, Slater," said he, "Brassfield is absolutely the most deceptive josher I ever saw. He had me going just now by pretending that he was about to publish a platform of principles, and a statement of campaign disbursements. So blooming solemn it gave me the shivers for a minute. List of disbursements: think of it, Slater! And a platform, in our kind of politics!"



XX

THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE

The year will all be summer weather When speech and action go together; When Aucassin's sage words are met In all his deeds with Nicolette; And though fair Daphne's words be free, Look not too soon her swain to be: The year will all be summer weather, When speech and action go together. —Song from The Monarch of Nil.

The reader of this history may have been conscious, from time to time, of a mysterious glow—now baleful, now rather cheerful, like the light from the tap-room of an inn—which has illuminated the horizon of the narrative. It appeared in certain allusions found in Mr. Alvord's conversation with Mr. Amidon during the episode of the Wrong House, and so terrified him as to give him thoughts of flight from Bellevale. It glared more brightly in the chat at the Club. It flamed concretely on our sight when Mr. Brassfield met its source on the street that day he made his fatal escape. Mr. Alvord slangily called it "the Strawberry Blonde." Mr. Brassfield very improperly pinched its elbow, and called it "Daise." It is high time that we put on our smoked glasses and look it in the face in such a formal introduction as will enable us to do it tardy justice—for we may have been guilty of misjudgment!

Miss Daisy Scarlett, sitting on a piano-stool, with one foot curled up under her, was entertaining Doctor Julia Brown and Miss Flossie Smith, who had called on her at the home of Major Pumphrey, her uncle. Miss Scarlett was well and shiveringly known in Bellevale, where she visited often, and was generally esteemed for her many good qualities of heart and mind, and for the infinite variety of her contributions to the sensations of a not over-turbulent social swim. Her entertainment in this instance consisted in readings from a certain book which must be regarded as an early literary imprudence of a most estimable and industrious, as well as improving writer—Poems of Passion. The particular selection rendered by Miss Scarlett was the one (unknown, I presume, to my readers—no, my dear, we haven't it) which informs us what the first person singular feminine, being invited into Paradise, would do if the third person singular masculine, down in the regions infernal, should open his beautiful arms and smile. Miss Scarlett read ill sentiments very well, and Miss Smith laid violent hands on herself and looked shocked.

"Oh, Daisy!" she exclaimed, "don't, please don't!"

"Oh, Flossie!" said Miss Daisy imitatively, "don't pretend! That poem is simply great!"

Doctor Brown laughed, quite in the manner of the bass villain in the comic opera.

"The dissecting table," said she, "brings all these beautiful arms and brows to the same dead level of tissue—unpoetical, but real."

Miss Scarlett liberated her foot, spun about, and dashed into a stormy prelude, modulating into the accompaniment to the refrain of Sullivan's Once Again, which she sang with much fervor.

She was about the height of a well-grown girl of twelve or thirteen, and had appealing eyes of delf blue, and a round face of peachy softness. Her hair was undeniably red, of a shade which put to shame such verbal mitigations as "auburn" or "golden," and was of tropic luxuriance and anarchistic disposition. It curled and uncurled and strayed all about her brow and neck like an explosion of spun lava. For the rest, had she really been a little girl of twelve, one would feel free to describe her as fat and roly-poly; but in the case of a young spinster of somewhere in her third decade, well-gowned and stayed and otherwise in physical subjection to the modiste, and singing of love like a diva, what can one say? No more than this, perhaps, that the fortunate man who carries her off the field a prize, will realize before he has got very far that he has captured something.

"Love, once again, meet me once again! Old love is waking; shall it wake in vain!"

Thus sang Miss Scarlett, ending with a fervid trill. Then she turned about, sitting with her feet very wide apart, and faced Doctor Brown.

"Dissecting table, indeed!" she burst forth. "I tell you, it's blasphemy to speak of making such use of a nice man! But, if I could pick 'em out, so as to be sure the right ones were dissected, I don't know but I'd agree."

Flossie Smith said that some of them ought to be put to some use; and Doctor Brown, having reminded the company of her profession, merely laughed again.

"Here I am down from Allentown," Miss Scarlett proceeded, "on purpose to be stayed with flagons and comforted with apples, as I have been here in the past. I wanted to have a good sort of lackadaisical time with the nice boys here, and I've had to stay—I don't know how long—on a famine diet of women and girls, with Ella Wheeler for sauce. It makes me swearing mad!"

"I like that now!" said Flossie. "I really like that!"

"Well, I don't," Miss Scarlett went on. "I'm not used to it. To be left alone—oh, of course Billy Cox has been trying to butt in, but what good is he? My Hercules, my Roman Antony, who won my trusting heart last summer, at a time when I had just got it back from what I had thought a final and total loss—I find him away, and when he gets back, because, forsooth, he happens to be newly engaged, he's so wrapped up in a little thing like that, that he might as well have stayed in New York. He doesn't respond when I ring up his office on the telephone; he doesn't see me on the street—-or, at least, only once—he seems scared. I've a good mind to give him something to be scared about!"

"Your condition," said the doctor, "is verging on the pathological."

"I don't know what path it's verging on," was the reply, "but it isn't the primrose path of dalliance. There's some mystery in it."

"Go to Madame What's-Her-Name down at the hotel," said Flossie. "She has solved almost all the mysteries we used to have—for a consideration. And she is said to have superior facilities for observing this Great Brassfield Mystery of yours."

"I must!" replied Miss Scarlett, looking out of the window. "There's Billy Cox just going into his house! What a pity for a bachelor to have such a big house all to himself—it has filled me with sighs for the past week, that thought! Oh, girls, I've an idea! Let's call him over and have him take us down to her! Central! Give me 432, please. Is that you, Billy? This is Daisy. Don't you want to do something for me?—Oh, you behave, now! We want you to take us somewhere down town, so don't take off your coat. We'll explain when you come over. Good-by!"

"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Flossie. "I don't care about Mr. Cox, nor his big house! And the doctor and I have just started——"