ut yer 'lection an' th' drowndin' accident!"

"Drowning accident!" Shelby started and seized a paper. "Who is
drowned?"

The lad did not know. He had not read beyond the headline which seemed
to promise salability. But in the obscurity of the landing Shelby came
upon the particulars swiftly enough. Skimming the brief despatch, here
a sentence, there a sentence seared itself into his memory.

"Missed his train at Centreport--conscientious citizen, valuing his
vote--hired a naphtha launch--collision--hampered by clothing--leaves a
sorrowing widow--"

"Th' extry 'dition is two cents," reminded the urchin.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

The executive mansion was strewn with the wreckage of the inaugural
reception. A musky odor blent of plant life and massed humanity hung
thickly throughout the spacious rooms and corridors; the bower of palms
and flowery brightness at the foot of the great staircase, which had
fended the orchestra, and incidentally barred an intrusive if sovereign
people from the private apartments, was jostled and awry, its blossoms
half despoiled; here lay a trampled glove, there a shining shred of
braid, beyond an embarrassed cigar stump--dumb emblems of social
Albany, gold-laced officialdom, and the unaristocratic unofficial ruck,
whose mingled tide had beat upon the new governor's threshold in the
late hours of the afternoon. A clock somewhere about the scene of
devastation chimed midnight, and a man with attractive black eyes, who
had been monopolizing his hostess upward of two hours, outstaying all
other guests save one, now took his belated leave.

"Yes; I prophesy a brilliant season, Mrs. Shelby," he said. "With a
woman of your talents in this house, Albany must at last awake."

Cora Shelby returned to one of the smaller reception rooms, where an
open fire wrought changing shadows in the face of the Hon. Seneca
Bowers.

"I think ex-Senator Ludlow is perfectly fascinating," she exclaimed.
"Have you known him long?"

"All of ten years," returned Bowers, with a little tightening of the
lips. "Most everybody in politics knows Handsome Ludlow."

"Ah, he is handsome. And so polished, too."

Bowers found the topic difficult, and changed it.

"What's your opinion of Ross's inauguration?" he asked. "I call it an
A-1 success."

"It would have been a success," discriminated Cora, "a pronounced
success, if Ross had approached it with a tithe of the spirit I urged.
But no; sim