Brass Band fell lustily upon a popular two-step at this
moment, and an usher thrust a bundle of campaign leaflets into Graves's
hands. One of these pamphlets contained a half-tone portrait of
Shelby, with an account of his career and a few phrases from the more
noteworthy of his public addresses. Graves gave these latter a caustic
scrutiny, and read aloud one of the italicized quotations.

"'It has been said, that Egypt is the gift of the Nile; Tuscarora
County is no less the gift of the Erie Canal!' Now what can you say of
a man who couples those two ideas with a sober face? He is
aesthetically dead."

"At least, he's enthusiastic," smiled Ruth, "which is refreshing
nowadays. The canal is his master hobby, the poetry of his prosaic
existence. Mr. Shelby is nothing if not practical."

"Offensively practical."

"Practicality achieves."

Graves thought he detected an implication levelled at himself, and
laughingly accused her.

Ruth made no denial.

"The world weighs achievement," she returned, "not barren cleverness."

Outwardly serene, the young man was inwardly ruffled. It was no new
thing for her to reproach him with napkined talents, and he was wont to
count it as an earnest of her liking. The novelty of this situation
lay in her presenting Shelby as a pattern of fruitfulness, and it irked
him. The agile leap of the brass band from the half-finished two-step
to "Hail to the Chief," suddenly put this out of mind, and he watched
the speakers of the evening file up the judge's staircase to the
rostrum. With the subsidence of the musicians the Hon. Seneca Bowers
aligned himself with the water-pitcher.

"How much he looks like Grant!" exclaimed Mrs. Hilliard, with
originality.

With soldierly calm Bowers waited for the applause to cease, and
submitted a slated list of officers for the meeting. It was
straightway manifest that he had made good his promise to take care of
Dr. Crandall. Speech-making was the breath of the worthy, if pompous,
physician's nostrils, and Bowers had shrewdly judged that to offer him
the chairmanship would clinch his wavering allegiance. The crowd which
always relished his grandiloquence, voted him into office with a shout,
and cheered his soaring periods to their peroration. A quartet of
young voters now proceeded in catchy doggerel to laud the virtues of
the party and the commanding genius of its candidates, thereby giving
the blown doctor a much-needed respite. He c