ll part of a lifetime. He
reflected that to any prisoner, the last few days before release, and
freedom, are probably the hardest.

"How could I, my dear?"

"No, you must have thought I'd want you to traipse off on some
perfectly aimless, nonsensical trip like a pair of sentimental
idiots."

"Oh, you know me better than that," he murmured.

"Yes, but I didn't know how well you knew _me_. Sometimes I've been
afraid you think I'm too--gushing."

"Oh, Mirabelle!"

"Just because I chatter along to you as any innocent young girl
might--"

She continued to chatter for some minutes, but Mr. Mix was absent-minded.
He had chewed the cud of his own virtue for too long a time, and it had
given him a sour stomach. He was thinking that if her gift to him were
in money (and from her hints he rather expected it) he might even manage
to find, in Chicago, a type of unascetic diversion which would remove the
taste of the convention from his spirit. But it was better to be safe
than sorry, and therefore Mr. Mix decided to make a flying trip to New
York, for his bachelor celebration.

To Mirabelle he said that he was going to confer with his friend, the
head of the Watch-and-Ward Society. Mirabelle promptly volunteered to
go along too, but Mr. Mix told her, as delicately as he could, that it
wouldn't look proper, and Mirabelle, who worshipped propriety as all
gods in one, withdrew the suggestion.

"But before you go," she said, "You've _got_ to do something about the
state-wide campaign. You've got to write the literature, anyway."

Mr. Mix felt that he was protected by the calendar, and promised.

* * * * *

Before he went to New York, he wrote three pamphlets which were
marvels of circumlocution, as far as reform was concerned, and
masterpieces of political writing, as far as his own interests were
concerned. He had borrowed freely, and without credit, from the
speeches of every orator from Everett to Choate, and when he delivered
the manuscripts to Mirabelle, and went off on his solitary junket, he
was convinced that he had helped his own personal cause, and satisfied
the League, without risking the smallest part of his reputation.

On his return, he stopped first at the Citizens Club, and when he came
into the great living-room he was aware that several members looked
up at him and smiled. Over in a corner, Henry Devereux and Judge
Barklay had been conversing in undertones; but