able to Graves.
The mistake was discovered and rectified within fifteen minutes of its
commission. Shelby had carried the precinct, and with it the election
by something less than two hundred votes.

Giddy with the reaction, the Hon. Seneca Bowers gulped glass after
glass of champagne, toasting Confusion to Fusion like the veriest
roisterer.

"And we abused the Poles," he said in self-reproach. "Ross, it was the
Poles who saved the day."

Shelby was the one self-contained being in the room.

"Yes," he answered soberly, "it was the Poles."

With stern straightforwardness the _Whig_ bulletin over the way had
promptly set forth the corrected result, and the crowd, now swollen by
more deserters from the tame gatherings in the little theatre and the
court-house, was clamoring for a sight of the victor whom everybody
knew was within hearing. Shelby's jubilant companions were puzzled at
his reluctance to comply with the popular demand. He declined to show
himself, however, till the arrival of a serenading brass band compelled
an acknowledgment, when he stepped from a window to a little balcony
and spoke a few grave words: he had never doubted their support, they
had repaid his trust, he was grateful; as he had championed their
lesser interests in the smaller field, so should he strive to further
their greater concerns in the national lists to which he was to pass
their chosen knight.

Within the law office preparations were rife for adjourning to the
Tuscarora House as a less restricted arena for the celebration which
the fitness of things demanded. Shelby begged them to go before him,
promising to follow.

"I need a few minutes to myself, boys," he said. "It's been a strain,
you know."

They caroused away. Bowers the most jocund bacchanal of all; the
operator boxed over his instrument against harm and slipped out; and
Shelby was left solitary with the litter and the lees. One by one he
extinguished the lights, and in darkness, at length, halted at the
window from which he had so often marked the goings and comings of Ruth
Temple. The old house was brilliantly alight in its lower rooms; lit,
he dared hope, in honor of his triumph and his anticipated return. He
turned and left his office with elastic step.

Fumbling with the lock in the dim light of the hall, he was spied from
below by a newsboy who came bounding up the stairs.

"Extry! Extry 'dition of th' _Whig_, Mr. Shelby," he called. "Read
all abo