forgotten that he was yet able
to bring the roof and pillars tumbling about their heads.

The judge's voice shook as he pronounced sentence upon his old ally--a
year in State's prison.

Some people said it was too light, but the judge knew what it was to
wait for the sentence of doom, and he was grateful and sympathetic.

When the sheriff led Asbury away the judge hastened to have a short talk
with him.

"I'm sorry, Robinson," he said, "and I want to tell you that you were no
more guilty than the rest of us. But why did you spare me?"

"Because I knew you were my friend," answered the convict.

"I tried to be, but you were the first man that I've ever known since
I've been in politics who ever gave me any decent return for
friendship."

"I reckon you're about right, judge."

In politics, party reform usually lies in making a scapegoat of someone
who is only as criminal as the rest, but a little weaker. Asbury's
friends and enemies had succeeded in making him bear the burden of all
the party's crimes, but their reform was hardly a success, and their
protestations of a change of heart were received with doubt. Already
there were those who began to pity the victim and to say that he had
been hardly dealt with.

Mr. Bingo was not of these; but he found, strange to say, that his
opposition to the idea went but a little way, and that even with Asbury
out of his path he was a smaller man than he was before. Fate was strong
against him. His poor, prosperous humanity could not enter the lists
against a martyr. Robinson Asbury was now a martyr.

II

A year is not a long time. It was short enough to prevent people from
forgetting Robinson, and yet long enough for their pity to grow strong
as they remembered. Indeed, he was not gone a year. Good behaviour cut
two months off the time of his sentence, and by the time people had come
around to the notion that he was really the greatest and smartest man in
Cadgers he was at home again.

He came back with no flourish of trumpets, but quietly, humbly. He went
back again into the heart of the black district. His business had
deteriorated during his absence, but he put new blood and new life into
it. He did not go to work in the shop himself, but, taking down the
shingle that had swung idly before his office door during his
imprisonment, he opened the little room as a news- and cigar-stand.

Here anxious, pitying custom came to him and he prospered again. He was
very qui