practicable. It's the
ode that makes you available and enables you to do things, and there
can be no question of dividing your personality as King Louis
something-or-other tried to do. You have placed yourself in my hands.
Very good. I assure you that I can nominate you. You should therefore
defer to my judgment. You owe me that."

"Of course."

"Yes; well, then. Congressman Graves that is to be, here is the
situation in a nutshell: In Tuscarora Shelby has gained ground because
of the Kiska affair. Little Poland has his lithograph in every window.
Elsewhere in the Demijohn I've reason to know that he's in exceedingly
bad odor, and that a third ticket would draw no end of support from
thinking voters who like Shelby little, but the other party less. At
present, you see, it's frying-pan or fire for them." The editor paused
to charge a discolored corn-cob pipe. "Now your coming changes all
that," he continued, tilting back in the wreathing smoke. "I tell you
it warms my heart to think of you opposing Shelby; it's a draught of
Falernian, no less. It's logically, it's romantically, fitting that
you who unmasked his plagiarism should battle with him at the polls.
Moreover, your discovery puts such a feather in your cap at the outset.
You've proved your political acuteness; you've won your spurs. It's
town talk that the credit is yours,--I acknowledge it whenever
asked,--and now that you are to enter the field, I'll blazon it to the
four winds."

"If the world takes it as placidly as New Babylon, it will do us little
good."

"Ah, but the world isn't so stupid," retorted Sprague, beginning to
rummage his chaotic desk. "There, sir," he went on, dragging a bundle
of newspaper clippings to the surface, "there is the world's opinion of
the exposure. Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, Utica, Syracuse,
Troy--you'll find the comments of every important city in the state
voiced by reputable journals; New York--why, New York gave it three
editorials, not one of them less than two sticks. No utterance of the
_Whig_ ever attracted such attention. I tell you, man, that, your poem
aside, your advent in politics with this thing to your credit makes you
a figure of state importance; with the ode--gad, sir, your canvass is
of national concern."

"It sounds like a dream of Colonel Mulberry Sellers's," laughed Graves,
but he warmed to the editor's mood. "You're sure I can have the
nomination? We're flying in the face of the Bo