first meeting was, of course, confidential. But all that it did
was presently done over again, with wonderful freshness and spontaneity
at a large public meeting open to all citizens. There was a splendid
impromptu air about everything. For instance when somebody away back in
the hall said, "I move that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe be president of the
league," Mr. Fyshe lifted his hand in unavailing protest as if this
were the newest idea he had ever heard in his life.

After all of which the Clean Government League set itself to fight the
cohorts of darkness. It was not just known where these were. But it was
understood that they were there all right, somewhere. In the platform
speeches of the epoch they figured as working underground, working in
the dark, working behind the scenes, and so forth. But the strange
thing was that nobody could state with any exactitude just who or what
it was that the league was fighting. It stood for "honesty, purity, and
integrity." That was all you could say about it.

Take, for example, the case of the press. At the inception of the
league it has been supposed that such was the venality and corruption
of the city newspapers that it would be necessary to buy one of them.
But the word "clean government" had been no sooner uttered than it
turned out that every one of the papers in the city was in favour of
it: in fact had been working for it for years.

They vied with one another now in giving publicity to the idea. The
_Plutorian Times_ printed a dotted coupon on the corner of its front
sheet with the words, "Are you in favour of Clean Government? If so,
send us ten cents with this coupon and your name and address." The
_Plutorian Citizen and Home Advocate_, went even further. It printed a
coupon which said, "Are you out for a clean city? If so send us
twenty-five cents to this office. We pledge ourselves to use it."

The newspapers did more than this. They printed from day to day such
pictures as the portrait of Mr. Fyshe with the legend below, "Mr.
Lucullus Fyshe, who says that government ought to be by the people,
from the people, for the people and to the people"; and the next day
another labelled. "Mr. P. Spillikins, who says that all men are born
free and equal"; and the next day a picture with the words, "Tract of
ground offered for cemetery by Mr. Furlong, showing rear of tanneries,
with head of Mr. Furlong inserted."

It was, of course, plain enough that certain of the aldermen of th