because he
was cut out for a failure. You are doing it because you are cut out for a
success. It will be a good story for the reporters when the claim goes
through, my boy."

Baird perceived at once that it was a good story, even at this particular
period--a story which might be likely to arouse curiosity and interest at
a time when the awakening of such emotions was of the greatest value. He
told it at the house of a magnate of the Supreme Court, the next night.
He had a varied and useful audience of important politicians and their
wives and daughters, the latter specially fitted to act as mediums of
transmission to other audiences. He told the anecdote well. It was a good
picture, that of the room on Miss Burford's upper floor, the large
claimant smiling like a benign Jove, and the handsome youngster bending
his head to kiss the girlish hand as if he were doing homage to a queen.

"I think his feeling was that his failure to get a better thing was a
kind of indignity done her," Baird explained. "He comes of a race of men
who have worshipped women and beauty in a romantic, troubadour fashion;
only the higher professions, and those treated in a patrician, amateur
style, were possible to them as work. And yet, as he said, a better man
than himself had done this same thing. What moves one is that he has gone
out to find work as if he had been born a bricklayer. He tells me they
are reaching the end of all they depend on."

"I'll tell you what it is," said Senator Milner to his daughter, a few
days afterwards; "this is going to be a feminine claim. There was a time
when I swore I wouldn't touch it, but I foresee what is going to happen.
I'm going to give in, and the other opposers are going to give in, and in
the end the Government will give in. And it will be principally because a
force of wives and daughters has marshalled itself to march to the
rescue. No one ever realises what a power the American woman is, and how
much she is equal to accomplishing. If she took as much interest in
politics as English women do, she would elect every president and control
every party. We are a good-natured lot, and we are fond of our womenkind
and believe in them much more than other nations do. They're pretty
clever and straight, you know, as well as being attractive, and we can't
help realising that they are often worth listening to. So we listen, and
when they drive a truth home we are willing to believe in it. If the
feminine halv