loons and dance halls and make
this city sadder than heaven. When they get through, it'll all be over
but the inquest."

"What did Perry do?" I asked.

"Well, he opened the meeting,--made a nice, precise, gentlemanly speech.
Greenhalge and a few young highbrows and a reformed crook named Harrod
did most of the hair-raising. They're going to nominate Greenhalge for
mayor; and he told 'em something about that little matter of the school
board, and said he would talk more later on. If one of the ablest lawyers
in the city hadn't been hired by the respectable crowd and a lot of other
queer work done, the treasurer and purchasing agent would be doing time.
They seemed to be interested, all right."

I turned over some papers on my desk, just to show Ralph that he hadn't
succeeded in disturbing me.

"Who was in the audience? anyone you ever heard of?" I asked.

"Sure thing. Your cousin Robert Breck; and that son-in-law of his--what's
his name? And some other representatives of our oldest families,--Alec
Pound. He's a reformer now, you know. They put him on the resolutions
committee. Sam Ogilvy was there, he'd be classed as respectably
conservative. And one of the Ewanses. I could name a few others, if you
pressed me. That brother of Fowndes who looks like an up-state minister.
A lot of women--Miller Gorse's sister, Mrs. Datchet, who never approved
of Miller. Quite a genteel gathering, I give you my word, and all
astonished and mad as hell when the speaking was over. Mrs. Datchet said
she had been living in a den of iniquity and vice, and didn't know it."

"It must have been amusing," I said.

"It was," said Ralph. "It'll be more amusing later on. Oh, yes, there was
another fellow who spoke I forgot to mention--that queer Dick who was in
your class, Krebs, got the school board evidence, looked as if he'd come
in by freight. He wasn't as popular as the rest, but he's got more sense
than all of them put together."

"Why wasn't he popular?"

"Well, he didn't crack up the American people,--said they deserved all
they got, that they'd have to learn to think straight and be straight
before they could expect a square deal. The truth was, they secretly
envied these rich men who were exploiting their city, and just as long as
they envied them they hadn't any right to complain of them. He was going
into this campaign to tell the truth, but to tell all sides of it, and if
they wanted reform, they'd have to reform themselves firs