ued and urged that, since the
city's new water-works promised to be such a great success, Westville
should not halt with this one municipal enterprise, but should refuse
the new franchise the street railway company is going to apply for,
take over the railway, run it as a municipal----"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Bruce impatiently. "But who's dead? Who wants
the line of march changed to go by his grocery store?"

"What I was saying was merely to recall how very important the
water-works has been to us," the prosecutor returned, with increased
solemnity. He paused, and having gained that heightened stage effect
of a well-managed silence, he continued: "Mr. Bruce, something very
serious has occurred."

For all its ostentation the prosecutor's manner was genuinely
impressive. Bruce looked quickly at the other two men. The agent was
ill at ease, the minister pale and agitated.

"Come," cried Bruce, "out with what you've got to tell me!"

"It is a matter of the very first importance," returned the
prosecutor, who was posing for a prominent place in the _Express's_
account of this affair--for however much the public men of Westville
affected to look down upon the _Express_, they secretly preferred its
superior presentment of their doings. "Doctor Sherman, in his
capacity of president of the Voters' Union, has just brought before me
some most distressing, most astounding evidence. It is evidence upon
which I must act both as a public official and as a member of the
Arrangements Committee, and evidence which concerns you both as a
committeeman and as an editor. It is painful to me to break----"

"Let's have it from first hands," interrupted Bruce, irritated by the
verbal excelsior which the prosecutor so deliberately unwrapped from
about his fact.

He turned to the minister, a slender man of hardly more than thirty,
with a high brow, the wide, sensitive mouth of the born orator,
fervently bright eyes, and the pallor of the devoted student--a face
that instantly explained why, though so young, he was Westville's most
popular divine.

"What's it about, Doctor Sherman?" the editor asked. "Who's the man?"

There was no posing here for Bruce's typewriter. The minister's
concern was deep and sincere.

"About the water-works, as Mr. Kennedy has said," he answered in a
voice that trembled with agitation. "There has been some--some crooked
work."

"Crooked work?" ejaculated the editor, staring at the minister.
"Crooked work