the ground. But when he went to the meeting of
the state committee and the Big Boys with his news their reception of
him hinted that they suspected he was making up a political bugaboo
in order to get a job. He was even told that his services as field man
would not be needed in that campaign. And it may be imagined what effect
that news had on old Daniel Breed, who had been a trusted pussy-footer
and caucus manipulator for a quarter of a century.

"You don't mean to tell me that you're trying to slam me onto the
scrap-heap, do you?" he demanded. "I'll scrap before I'll be scrapped."

"Look here, Dan, it's the colonel's orders," explained the chairman. "It
has been decided to play politics a little more smoothly. There is too
much jaw-gab going among the cranks. If there is any outside work done
at all it will be put over by new chaps who are not so well advertised
as you old bucks. We want to hide the machinery this year."

"That's a jobeefed nice thing to say to me, a man that would go up in a
balloon and troll for hen-hawks, asking no questions, provided the state
committee told me it would help in carrying a caucus."

"But we're taking care of the old boys all right, Dan. Vose is in the
pension-office; Ambrose and Sturdivant are in the adjutant-general's
office patching up the Civil War rolls, with orders to take their time
about it. And you'll be used well."

"I want to be in the field," insisted Breed, 'sipping' his lips
importantly. "Those fellows are old fuddy-duddies. I'm a natural
politician."

He was an interesting figure, this Honorable Daniel Breed. He was
entitled to the "Honorable." He had been a state senator from his
county. With his slow, side-wheel gait, head too little for his body,
nose like a beak, sunken mouth, cavernous eyes, and a light hat perched
on the back of his narrow head he suggested a languid, tame, bald-headed
eagle. And his voice was a dry, nasal, querulous squawk--a sound more
avian than human.

"I tell ye there's yeast a-stirring," he told the state committee.
"There's a fellow come up out of the Eleventh Ward in Marion that's
some punkins in organizing. He pretends to be a law student in Arch
Converse's law-office. He ain't a native. I don't know where he hails
from. He ain't a registered voter as yet. But he's a man who needs to be
trailed."

"Squire Converse isn't in politics, Dan. You're getting notional in your
old age," said the committeeman from Breed's county.

"Bu