and see!"

"For God's sake, Hosie, don't fool with me!" he cried. "How did it
happen? Somebody has been at work. Who did it?"

"Eh! You really want to know that?"

"Yes, yes! Who did it?"

"It was done," said Old Hosie, looking at him very straight and
blinking his eyes, "by a party that I understand you thought couldn't
do much of anything."

"But who? Who?"

"If you really want to know, the party's name is Miss Katherine West."

Bruce's stupefaction outdid itself.

"Katherine West!" he repeated.

Old Hosie could maintain his role no longer.

"Yes, Katherine West!" he burst out in triumphant joy, his words
tumbling over one another. "She did it all--every bit of it! And that
mob out in front is there to celebrate your election. We knew how
things were going to turn out, so we were safe in getting this thing
ready in advance. And I don't mind telling you, young fellow, that
this celebration is just as much for her as it is for you. The town
has simply gone crazy about her and is looking for a chance to kiss
her feet. She said she wouldn't come to-night, but we all insisted. I
promised to bring her, and I've got to be off. So good-by!"

Bruce caught his arm.

"Wait, Hosie! Tell me what she did! Tell me the rest!"

"Read that paper I gave you! And here, I brought this for you, too."
He took from his inside pocket a copy of the extra Katherine and Billy
Harper had got out the night before. "Those two papers will tell you
all there is to tell. And now," he continued, opening a door and
pushing Bruce through it, "you just wait in there so I'll know where
to find you when I want you. I've got to hustle for a while, for I'm
master of ceremonies of this show. How's that for your old uncle? It's
the first time I've ever been connected with a popular movement in my
life except to throw bricks at it, and I ain't so sure I can stand
popularity for one whole night."

With that he was gone. Bruce recognized the room into which he had
been thrust as the court room in which he had been tried and
sentenced, in which Katherine had pleaded her father's case. Over the
judge's desk, as though in expectation of his coming, a green-shaded
drop lamp shed its cone of light. Bruce stumbled forward to the desk,
sank into the judge's chair, and began feverishly to devour the two
copies of his paper.

Billy Harper, penitently sober and sworn to sobriety for all his days,
had outdone himself on that day's issue. He told how the v