of disaster depicted in his expression.

"Jim," he cried, "have you seen this?"

"No," answered Alvord. "It ain't that Scarlett business? I thought
I'd got that----"

"No, no! It isn't that!" groaned Edgington. "But we're done, all the
same! Done to a finish! You might as well close the headquarters and
go home, for if we win, on this platform, we lose, and all the money
we've put in is lost! I tell you, Jim, 'Gene Brassfield is either
insane--and I believe it's that--or he's the damnedest traitor and
sneak and two-faced hound that ever stepped, and I'll have it out with
him! Some way, if I wait ten years, I'll have it out with him, if I
have to do it with a gun! His business leaves my office at once. Why,
there aren't words fit for me to use, to describe the miserable, false,
lying----"

"See here, Edge!" said Alvord. "We may be done, as you say, but Eugene
Brassfield has made you, and he's my friend, and you'd better not go on
like that, here! Let me see that paper!"

Edgington threw it to him. In heavy type he saw the fateful platform
summarized in a black-bordered panel on the first page:

BRASSFIELD'S PLATFORM

1. Strict enforcement of early closing regulations for saloons.

2. No franchises except on public bidding, and ample provision for
subsequent acquisition by the city.

3. Gambling laws to be strictly enforced.

4. Segregation of vice.

5. Vote of the people on all important measures.

6. Appointments non-partizan on the merit system.

7. Publication of all items of campaign expenses.

Alvord fell back in utter dismay. Then he read in full the manifesto
which Amidon and Elizabeth had prepared; and, folding up the paper, he
stuck it in a drawer, which he locked, as if thereby to seal up the
direful news. For a moment he felt betrayed and utterly defeated.
Then he straightened himself for a resumption of the battle.

"See here, Edge," he said insinuatingly, "this is pretty bad, I admit.
I think, myself, that Brass is off his head. He 'phoned me once about
this, but he's such a josher, and it was such wild-eyed lunacy that I
thought he was kidding. You'd have thought so, too, in my place. But
we can pull through yet. We can convince the sports that this
high-moral business is only for the church people, and the civic purity
push. Why, Brassfield himself couldn't make Fatty Pierson believe he
stands for this stuff. It's so out of reason,--the safe and sane life
he's l