mon good, when Sid
dexterously presented himself as an offering ahead of them all, and said:
"Well, if nobody wants it, as I don't like to see an office go a-beggin',
I'll--I'll take it!"

"Three cheers for our president!" said Charlie, magnanimously, and the
three were given, though it must be confessed that several disappointed
souls cheered faintly.

"We ought to have a governor," said Charlie.

"What! besides a president?" inquired Sid, a slight sneer noticeable in
his tones.

"Don't they have a governor in Massachusetts?" inquired Charlie,
triumphantly.

"Well, ye--ye--yes."

That settled it, for Massachusetts custom was plainly authority in this
matter.

Rick Grimes was made governor.

"Treasurer now!" called out Sid.

"Charlie, would you like to be that?" he whispered. Charlie was about to
say "Yes," when the fruit hanging before his thirsty lips was suddenly
snatched away.

"I'd like that," piped a voice. It was Pip Peckham.

"Ahem!" said the president, "I think the office ought to be given to
experience," and here he looked in the direction of Charlie.

"Who's he?" inquired Billy. "Who's Sperience?"

"Silence!" ordered the president. "Little boys must speak only when they
are spoken to."

Billy pouted.

"Why couldn't we have two treasuries?" inquired Gov. Grimes, putting the
thing for its keeper. This happy solution of a difficult problem was at
once accepted. Charlie was named as the first official of this grade, and
Pip as the second.

"We ought to have a keeper of the great seal," said the president.

"What is that?" asked the inquisitive Billy. The president was puzzled to
say just what it did mean, "But," he affirmed, "I think we ought to have
it. It is something, I know, and they put it on things."

"I know what it is," said Gov. Grimes, eagerly. "My uncle has two down on
the wharf, in a tank, a great one and a little one, and I guess we could
have the great one up here, and some one be keeper of it."

The contempt of the president was undisguised. "That isn't it! If I could
only think, but there is so much noise! Order, gentlemen!"

Whatever noise had been made, the president was the author of the most of
it, though he did not seem to know it.

"Perhaps we'd better 'journ that," said Gov. Grimes. "That's what they do
to things in meetings, when they want to put them off, my father says."

"Well, we can do that, only I think we'd better have a--"

"I will!" shouted Wort, fea