ss of winter's snows and winds to hear me
expound my views, I can assure you that had it been necessary to come on
snow shoes to prevent your loyalty to me from being in vain, I should
have made the attempt, and perhaps like the youth who cried 'Excelsior,'
might last have been seen plodding through the shades of night into your
Alpine fastness, still striving to reach you."

Unwittingly he had made a flattering allusion to the locality, whose
residents firmly believed it a rival of the Alps in scenic glories and
hence he was well applauded.

"Didn't know the Judge was such a good campaigner," whispered one of the
local politicians to his neighbor.

"That's the mush for 'em," assented the other.

Mr. James Gollop, beginning to feel more thoroughly at home, was now
thinking with ease and adroitness. Needless to note that he was mentally
grinning.

"Inasmuch as I arrived so unavoidably late, and that the early darkness
of winter renders the roads so difficult for those who have long
journeys to make, I shall somewhat curtail the remarks I have in mind,"
he said, pompously, and took another long drink of water.

"The great issue before the nation to-day, my fellow citizens, is Tariff
Reform." And then he drawled and droned through a lot of stock arguments
familiar to every man, woman and child in America, but in the meantime
kept a furtive eye on the clock at the end of the court room, and
gleefully observed that the afternoon was waning, and that outside it
threatened an early twilight, intensified by a new fall of snow. He
decided that it was time to get in his precious work of assisting the
Judge's campaign with the final straws.

"Now, my friends," he said, confidentially and observing that his
audience was growing restless, "I have given you the customary platform
remarks concerning tariff and free trade; but I feel that I am in the
hands of my friends, so I shall tell you that personally it doesn't
matter a hang to me whether we have free trade or protection or tariff
reform, or any of that wash!"

A bomb shell dropped from a Zeppelin could have had but little more
effect. Everyone sat up and gasped; particularly the two or three local
politicians on the platform who half arose from their seats to protest.

"All I care about, to tell the honest truth," said the ingenious Jimmy,
"is to get elected to the fat job of governing this state. It pays well,
and I, as well as you, are aware that in addition there ar