ur editorial on the prospects of the
corn crop and I got so worked up as to how it was coming out that
I forgot all about that wooden-headed nigger. I tell you, Arn, that
editorial was one of the most exciting, stirring, nerve-racking,
hair-breadth----"

"Come, get along with you!" Bruce interrupted impatiently. "I want to
talk some business with Miss West!"

Old Hosie rose.

"You see how he treats me," he said plaintively to Katherine. "I
haven't had one kind word from that young pup since, when he was in
high-school, he got so stuck on himself because he imagined every girl
in town was in love with him."

Bruce took Old Hosie's silk hat from the piano and held it out to him.

"You certainly won't get a kind word from me to-night if that steak is
burnt!"

Katherine followed Hosie out upon the porch.

"He's a great boy," whispered the old man proudly--"if only I can
lick his infernal conceit out of him!" He gripped her hand. "Good-by,
and luck with you!"

She watched the bent, spare figure down the walk, then went in to
Bruce. The editor was standing stiffly in the middle of the parlour.

"I trust that my call is not inopportune?"

"I'm glad to see you, but it does so happen that I promised father to
call at five o'clock. And it's now twenty minutes to."

"Perhaps you will allow me to walk there with you?"

"But wouldn't that be, ah--a little dangerous?"

"Dangerous?"

"Yes. Perhaps you forget that Westville disapproves of me. It might
not be a very politic thing for a candidate for mayor to be seen upon
the street with so unpopular a person. It might cost votes, you know."

He flushed.

"If the people in this town don't like what I do, they can vote for
Harrison Blake!" He swung open the door. "If you want to get there on
time, we must start at once."

Two minutes later they were out in the street together. People whom
they passed paused and stared back at them; groups of young men and
women, courting collectively on front lawns, ceased their flirtatious
chaffing and their bombardments with handfuls of loose grass, and
nudged one another and sat with eyes fixed on the passing pair; and
many a solid burgher, out on his piazza, waking from his devotional
and digestive nap, blinked his eyes unbelievingly at the sight of a
candidate for mayor walking along the street with that discredited
lady lawyer who had fled the town in chagrin after losing her first
case.

At the start Katherine kept the conv