e, if you don't mind. You just remarked I'd
find your answer in the _Sentinel_. There must 'a' been some little
slip-up somewhere. So I guess I better mention first that the _Sentinel_
has arranged to stand ready to get out an extra."

"An extra! What for?"

"Principally, George, I reckon to print those answers you just spoke
of."

George still kept that mounting something under his control. "Answers to
what?"

"Why, George," the other replied softly, persuasively. "I guess we'd
better have a little chat--as man to man--about politics. Meaning no
offense, George, stalling is all right in politics--but this time
you've carried this stalling act a little too far. As the result of your
tactics, George, why here's all this disorder in our streets--and the
afternoon before election. If you'd only really tried to stop these
messing women----"

"I didn't try to stop them by kidnapping them!" burst from George--and
Uncle Martin, his breath recovered, now sat up, clutching his homespun
cap.

"Kidnapping women?" queried the bland, bewildered voice of the party
boss. "I say, George, I don't know what you're talking about." "Why,
you--" But George caught himself. "Speak it out, Doolittle--what do you
want?"

"Since you ask it so frankly, George, I'll try to put it plain: You
been going along handing out high-sounding generalities. There's nothing
better and safer than generalities--usually. But this ain't no usual
case, George. These women, stirring everything up, have got the solid
interests so unsettled that they don't know where they're at--or where
you're at. And a lot of boys in the organization feel the same way. What
the crisis needs, George, is a plain statement of your intentions as
district attorney, which we can get into that _Sentinel_ extra and which
will reassure the public--and the organization."

"A plain statement?" There was a grim set to George's jaw.

"Oh, it needn't go into too many details. Just what you might call a
ringing declaration about this being the greatest era of prosperity
Whitewater has ever known, and that you conceive it to be the duty of
your administration to protect and stimulate this prosperity. The people
will understand, and the organization will understand. I guess you get
what I mean, George."

"Yes, I get what you mean!" exploded George, his fist crashing upon the
table. "You mean you want me to be a complacent accessory to all the
legal evasions that you and your political