pening a foot or two, and shut
it hastily.

"How dare they? You had no right to prevent me from hissing, Fred. I
should like to fling something at them too. It's an outrage making you
look like that, and--and in the soup, too."

Not all the enthusiasm generated by our rival procession, which took
place forty-eight hours later, nor indeed the long flattering list of
my supporters published by Nick Long in the newspaper for two days
prior to election day, sufficed entirely to obliterate from Josephine's
soul the bitterness of this insult. As she expressed it, was it not
cruel to flaunt such a thing in the faces of children who had been used
to think of their father as the most dignified of men, one with whose
personality no one would dare to tamper or trifle? It nerved her,
however, to more desperate efforts in my behalf. She ventured even on
holding up our beloved pastor, the Rev. Bradley Mason, in the street,
and capturing his signature to the list of leading citizens who
supported me. This ought, she declared, to outweigh sixty soup-tureens.

Before the votes were counted I knew well enough that I had been
defeated, but for Josephine's dear sake I allowed her to prepare a
victor's banquet, on the assumption that my friends would be pouring in
upon me with congratulations. It was she who drove me from my evening
paper, to which I was settling down like a philosopher after dinner, to
go to my headquarters and ascertain the result. She was sure I was
elected. If not (and here her voice melted) the people were not fit to
have such a pearl offered to them. I went, and it was half-past ten
when I returned. She heard my step, and rushed down to meet me at the
front door. I was calm and smiling.

"Defeated by one hundred and fourteen votes, dear. A close fight,
wasn't it?"

"Ah, Fred, defeated! You poor, poor boy."

"I can stand it if you can, Josephine," I answered, as with my arm
wound around her waist I led her into the dining-room, where the
stalled ox and truffled turkey and a glittering array of glass
confronted us.

"It was that horrid soup-tureen did it, I am convinced," she murmured,
sitting down beside me on the sofa.

"Nonsense, dear. Everyone says I got a wonderful vote against such
odds. They are talking about it down town as though I had won a
victory. Nick is called a great manager."

"But that Spinney is elected all the same," she said, dejectedly.

"Yes, he is, Josephine. We can