r responsibilities, and perhaps even I shall prove another
sort of man than I've been ticketed." His tone quickened suddenly, and
his glance fastened on the defeated anew. "I should count this honor
less had it fallen as a ripe fruit falls, the prize of the first comer.
We've had our battle; we wear our scars; no battle worth the name is
without its scars; but I assume to speak for every man present when I
say that the blows we give and take do not rankle to the prejudice of
the common cause. Our quarrels are wholly in the family, where speech
is free, for it is a fundamental article of our party creed that the
will of the majority should prevail. The will of the majority made
plain, it is our healthy custom to strip off our coats, and go to work:
The party, not the individual, is of moment;--the historic party of our
fathers, the party of the living present, the party of the future whose
bounds no man may set."

As he dropped into his seat, Shelby added a foot-note.

"If that didn't jam their duty down those soreheads' throats," he told
Bowers, "I'll take another guess."

CHAPTER II

Meanwhile the nominee's fortunes and traits of character underwent
dissection in his own town at the first autumn assembly of the Culture
Club which, as always, met with Mrs. Hilliard. There were two profound
reasons for this constancy to Mrs. Hilliard,--her house boasted the
largest double parlors in New Babylon, and her husband had a billiard
table. The intimate association of billiards with the pursuit of
sweetness and light may at first seem grotesque, but Mrs. Hilliard
proved it to be not without warrant in sound philosophy; by her simple
formula billiards stood to culture as the Salvation Army to the
decorous body of the Church Militant, both alliances resting on the
basic truth that some souls will prick ears only to the beating of
tom-toms.

Theory aside, the fact was not to be blinked that she knew how to clash
cymbals to the unregenerate and drum up in the name of culture such a
varied company as no other woman could muster short of a silver
wedding. In the winning of the cultivated, Mrs. Hilliard took no
pride. They lent their countenance to any educational project, and she
owned to herself that given a like cause any capable woman with double
parlors could have them for the asking. It was rather in the hooking
of men of the stamp of the Hon. Seneca Bowers and her own husband that
she gloried, for in their c