cret
governments of imperial municipalities which the average American
citizen, voting free as a king at the polls, fondly thinks he manages;
things which are, on rare occasion, partly unburied and promptly reburied
in the tomes of reports of Lexow Committees and Federal Commissions.

* * * * *

And Walter Merritt Emory won his desire of Michael against Doctor
Masters; had his wife dine with him at Jules' that evening and took her
to see Margaret Anglin in celebration of the victory; returned home at
one in the morning, in his pyjamas went out to take a last look at
Michael, and found no Michael.

* * * * *

The pest-house of San Francisco, as is naturally the case with
pest-houses in all American cities, was situated on the bleakest,
remotest, forlornest, cheapest space of land owned by the city. Poorly
protected from the Pacific Ocean, chill winds and dense fog-banks
whistled and swirled sadly across the sand-dunes. Picnicking parties
never came there, nor did small boys hunting birds' nests or playing at
being wild Indians. The only class of frequenters was the suicides, who,
sad of life, sought the saddest landscape as a fitting scene in which to
end. And, because they so ended, they never repeated their visits.

The outlook from the windows was not inspiriting. A quarter of a mile in
either direction, looking out along the shallow canyon of the sand-hills,
Dag Daughtry could see the sentry-boxes of the guards, themselves armed
and more prone to kill than to lay hands on any escaping pest-man, much
less persuavively discuss with him the advisability of his return to the
prison house.

On the opposing sides of the prospect from the windows of the four walls
of the pest-house were trees. Eucalyptus they were, but not the royal
monarchs that their brothers are in native habitats. Poorly planted, by
politics, illy attended, by politics, decimated and many times repeatedly
decimated by the hostile forces of their environment, a straggling
corporal's guard of survivors, they thrust their branches, twisted and
distorted, as if writhing in agony, into the air. Scrub of growth they
were, expending the major portion of their meagre nourishment in their
roots that crawled seaward through the insufficient sand for anchorage
against the prevailing gales.

Not even so far as the sentry-boxes were Daughtry and Kwaque permitted to
stroll. A hundred yards inside was the dead-line. Here, the guards came
hastily to