modest," said I.

"They've gone clean crazy," replied Woodruff. "And if you could have
heard them talk! It's impossible to make them see that anybody has any
rights but themselves."

"Well, let me have the details," said I. "Explain every item on this
list; tell me just what it means, and just how the lawyers propose to
disguise it so the people won't catch on."

When he finished, I divided the demands into three classes,--the
impossible, the possible, and the practicable. "Strike out all the
impossible," I directed. "Cut down the possible to the ten that are
least outrageous. Those ten and the practicable must be passed."

He read off the ten which were beyond the limits of prudence, but not
mob-and-hanging matters. "We can pass them, of course," was his comment.
"We could pass a law ordering the state house burned, but--"

"Precisely," said I. "I think the consequences will be interesting." I
cross-marked the five worst of the ten possibilities. "Save those until
the last weeks of the session."

Early in the session Woodruff began to push the five least bad of the
bad measures on to the calendar of the legislature, one by one. When the
third was introduced, Burbank took the Limited for Washington. He
arrived in time to join my wife and my little daughter Frances and me at
breakfast. He was so white and sunken-eyed and his hands were so
unsteady that Frances tried in vain to take her solemn, wondering,
pitying gaze from his face. As soon as my study door closed behind us,
he burst out, striding up and down.

"I don't know _what_ to think, Sayler," he cried, "I don't _know_ what
to think! The demands of these corporations have been growing, growing,
growing! And now--You have seen the calendar?"

"Yes," said I. "Some of the bills are pretty stiff, aren't they? But the
boys tell me they're for our best friends, and that they're all
necessary."

"No doubt, no doubt," he replied, "but it will be impossible to
reconcile the people." Suddenly he turned on me, his eyes full of fear
and suspicion. "Have _you_ laid a plot to ruin me, Sayler? It certainly
looks that way. Have you a secret ambition for the presidency--"

"Don't talk rubbish, James," I interrupted. Those few meaningless votes
in the national convention had addled his common sense. "Sit down,--calm
yourself,--tell me all about it."

He seated himself and ran his fingers up and down his temples and
through his wet hair that was being so rapidly thinned