ernor Abbott had smiled pleasantly upon him, and then
quietly shifted the conversation into other channels, with an air of
selecting a topic more suited to his companion's comprehension.
Finally, on one occasion, when Barclay had voiced his opinion with an
energy which savored of rebuke, the Governor had gone further, and had
asked calmly--"And what were you proposing to do about it?" After that
Barclay had relinquished the unequal struggle, and resigned himself to
the unavoidable conclusion of his impotency.

It is a situation which tries men's souls, this of utter helplessness in
the face of plain duty. He could have no hope of making his position
clear to the constituency to which he was responsible. Debarred on the
one side from taking an active part in the administration of state
affairs, and bitterly arraigned on the other on the grounds of
inefficiency, laxity, and indifference to duty, the second month of
office found John Barclay in a fair way to be ground to powder between
the millstones of impuissance and hostile criticism. The men of his
party who had, both in private conviction and public statement, based
their hopes of political reform upon the frankly avowed platform of his
principles, now passed him coldly, with a bare nod, sometimes with none
whatever; the labor element jeered joyously at his attitude; the
"machine" pointed to him as proof of the fallacy of the reform creed. It
is easy to expect great performances from great promises, easier still
to outline the duties and condemn the delinquencies of another, and not
even Barclay's knowledge of his own good faith was sufficient
compensation for the sneers of press and public which fell to his share.
As he surveyed the dispiriting prospect from his office window, on that
late February afternoon, he was near to resigning his position, and with
it all further pretension to political prominence.

In the opinion of those competent to judge, the state of Alleghenia was
going to the dogs. A press distinguished alike for the amplitude of its
headlines and the pitiable paucity of its principles; a legislature of
which practically every member had, not only a price, but such a price
as the advertisements describe as being "within the reach of all;" a
Governor who avowedly stood ready to sanction the most extreme
pretensions of the notoriously corrupt party which had secured him his
election,--here, surely, were good and sufficient reasons for the
generously bes