Politics and government, one perceives, had nothing to do with religion, nor education with any of these. A secularized and disjointed world! Our leading citizens, learned in the classics though some of them might be, paid no heed to the dictum of the Greek idealist, who was more practical than they would have supposed. “The man who does not carry his city within his heart is a spiritual starveling.” One evening, a year or two after that tariff campaign, I was pretending to study my lessons under the student lamp in the sitting-room while my mother sewed and my father wrote at his desk, when there was a ring at the door-bell. I welcomed any interruption, even though the visitor proved to be only the druggist's boy; and there was always the possibility of a telegram announcing, for instance, the death of a relative. Such had once been the case when my Uncle Avery Paret had died in New York, and I was taken out of school for a blissful four days for the funeral. I went tiptoeing into the hall and peeped over the banisters while Ella opened the door. I heard a voice which I recognized as that of Perry Blackwood's father asking for Mr. Paret; and then to my astonishment, I saw filing after him into the parlour some ten or twelve persons. With the exception of Mr. Ogilvy, who belonged to one of our old families, and Mr. Watling, a lawyer who had married the youngest of Gene Hollister's aunts, the visitors entered stealthily, after the manner of burglars; some of these were heavy-jowled, and all had an air of mystery that raised my curiosity and excitement to the highest pitch. I caught hold of Ella as she came up the stairs, but she tore herself free, and announced to my father that Mr. Josiah Blackwood and other gentlemen had asked to see him. My father seemed puzzled as he went downstairs.... A long interval elapsed, during which I did not make even a pretence of looking at my arithmetic. At times the low hum of voices rose to what was almost an uproar, and on occasions I distinguished a marked Irish brogue. “I wonder what they want?” said my mother, nervously. At last we heard the front door shut behind them, and my father came upstairs, his usually serene face wearing a disturbed expression. “Who in the world was it, Mr. Paret?” asked my mother. My father sat down in the arm-chair. He was clearly making an effort for self-control. “Blackwood and Ogilvy and Watling and some city politicians,” he exclaimed. “Politicians!” she repeated. “What did they want? That is, if it's anything you can tell me,” she added apologetically. “They wished me to be the Republican candidate for the mayor of this city.” This tremendous news took me off my feet. My father mayor! “Of course you didn't consider it, Mr. Paret,” my mother was saying. “Consider it!” he echoed reprovingly. “I can't imagine what Ogilvy and Watling and Josiah Blackwood were thinking of! They are out of their heads. I as much as told them so.”