rhaps he will come to see that woman's housekeeping
instinct and newly awakened civic sense, added to a revival of public
honesty among men, might well combine to make a model city.

If "it is not good for man to live alone," perhaps it is not well for
him to manage his City Hall alone. After all, is it "chimerical?"

H. M. W.
Cambridge, Mass.
May, 1909.

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A WOMAN FOR MAYOR

CHAPTER I

An Unprecedented Proposal

"Well, why shouldn't we change it?" asked Mrs. Bateman, as she scooped
out the grape-fruit that formed the first course at the P. W.'s regular
monthly luncheon.

"Change it? Change what?--How?" asked several voices at once.

"The state of affairs in this city," pursued Mrs. Bateman calmly. "I
have been thinking things over since I got home this fall. Everybody
agrees that our little city is going to the dogs; that municipal affairs
were never so muddled as now. And now, here is Barnaby Burke running
for mayor, with a ravenous pack of demagogues behind him."

"Yes, and not a decent man to run against him," added Cornelia Jewett.

"I don't see why," began the fluffy little woman in light blue, "I don't
see why no genuine, honest, upright gentleman will allow his name to be
used. Rudolph says it has got so that nobody but a politician will
consent to be mayor of Roma."

"They're all afraid of the demagogues," put in another. "There's Albert
Turner; he ought to stand as a candidate. But I suppose he wouldn't?"
She turned to a large fair lady across the table who was placidly
consuming her soup.

"My husband isn't interested in politics," was the reply. "His business
affairs are too pressing."

"That's the trouble with most of the men," commented another. "They are
too much absorbed in their own affairs to care much what happens to the
community. We need a little more of the socialistic spirit."

"Oh, dreadful!" muttered another. "We shall be preaching anarchy next."

"And Granville Mason--or Geoffrey Bateman," added the fluffy lady in
blue.

"My husband said last night that politics had sunk to such a pass in
this town that no decent man would touch the City Hall with a pair of
tongs," said Mrs. Mason. "That's the answer he gave a couple of men who
came from Headquarters to ask him to stand. And he said that whatever
decent man accepted the nomination was s