other, and when he had customers waiting he always
had a seat to give them. He and the whole city council could hold a
caucus in the car, and all have seats, and in the evenings he could take
a stool out on his front or back porch and smoke a pipe in peace. His
car stood side by side with the round topped wagon of the traveling
photographer, who had not traveled since his felloes gave out on that
very lot six years before.

The city officers of the Citizens' Party, being of an independent
part, were so independent that they were worried and chafed by their
independence. No one but a man in office knows the real blessedness of
having the set beliefs and an traditions of a regular party to fall
back upon. The independence of the independents made their work more
difficult; it compelled them to decide things for themselves, and then
everybody complained of what they did. No independent is ever satisfied
with what another independent does, and they lost even the satisfaction
of knowing that they were pleasing their own part, which a properly
service Democrat or Republican is rather apt to be sure of. In this
state of things the six councilmen had thrown their burdens of decision
to Stitz. They cast the whole burden on him, saying, "Ask Stitz. He's
mayor. What he says, we'll do." And Stitz never would say.

As the Colonel entered the mayor's shoe shop Stitz was reading a
magazine, which he laid beside him on the car seat while he listened
to the Colonel. A pile of similar magazines lay beside him on the seat.
They were the missionary offerings of Doc Weaver, who was interested
in whatever was latest in religion, government or popular science. They
were magazines telling of the municipal corruption of "New York, The
Vile," "Philadelphia, Defiled but Happy," "Chicago, the Base," and "St.
Louis, the Decayed." Doc Weaver had given them to Mayor Stitz to show
him the evil of graft, and to keep his administration clean and pure.

When the Colonel had laid before the mayor his request for an ordinance
compelling all opera house owners in Kilo to install and maintain four
nickel-plated fire-extinguishers in each opera house, the mayor beamed
on him through his iron-rimmed spectacles.

"Ho! Ho-o!" he exclaimed, "it is to make Mister Skinner buy some
fire-extinguishers, yes? So shall my city council pass an ordinance,
yes? Um!"

He smiled broadly at the Colonel, and then nodded.

"For how much you graft me?" he asked blandly.