s attempt
to disguise himself, by aid of a turban-swirl, an insult to womanhood the
world over.

A perfect blizzard of missiles rained on the terrified politicians; the
Secretary and the Mayor burst into a frantic canter up Thirty-fourth
Street, pursued by a thousand strikingly handsome women. The Governor ran
west.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XV

THE Governor of the great State of New York was now running up Broadway
with his borrowed sword between his legs and his borrowed uniform covered
with confetti--footing it as earnestly as though he were running behind
his ticket with New York County yet to hear from.

After him sped bricks, vegetables, spot-eggs, and several exceedingly
fashionable suffragettes, their perfectly gloved hands full of
horsewhips, banners, and farm produce.

But his excellency was now running strongly; one by one his eager and
beautiful pursuers gave up the chase and fell out, panting and flushed
from the exciting and exhilarating sport, until, at Forty-second Street,
only one fleet-footed young girl remained at his heels.

The order of precedence then shifted as follows: First, the young and
handsome Governor running like a lost dog at a fair and clutching the
draft of the obnoxious bill to his gold-laced bosom; second, one
distractingly lovely young girl, big, wholesome-looking, athletic, and
pink of cheeks, swinging a ci-devant cat by the tail as menacingly as
David balanced the loaded sling; third, several agitated policemen
whistling and rapping for assistance; fourth, the hoi polloi of the Via
Blanca; fifth, a small polychromatic dog; sixth, the idle wind toying
carelessly with the dust and refuse and hats and skirts of all Broadway.

[Illustration: "Only one fleet-footed young girl remained at his
heels."]

This municipal dust storm, mingling with the brooding metropolitan
gasoline fog, produced a sirocco of which no Libyan desert needed to be
ashamed; and it alternately blotted out and revealed the interesting
Marathonian procession, until one capricious and suffocating flurry,
full of whirling newspapers and derbies, completely blotted out the
Governor and the young lady at his heels.

And when, a moment later, the miniature tornado had subsided into a
series of playful sidewalk eddys, only the policemen, the hoi polloi, and
the dog were still going; the Governor and the beautiful suffragette had
completely disappeared.

They had, it is true, chosen a very go