And five minutes later, when Bailey had left for his down-town office, Gertrude was asking herself, "Why couldn't John Allingham behave as sensibly? He cannot be right and Bailey wrong. No. But I wish--" She wheeled about very decisively and went upstairs for her hat; for things must be talked over with Mrs. Bateman. CHAPTER IV Practical Politics A few nights later several gentlemen could be seen entering the Van Deusen mansion, where they were greeted by Gertrude and her cousin, Jennie Craig. With them, too, were Mrs. Bateman, Mrs. Mason, and Mrs. Stillman. They had all met to organize the Reform Club, at Bailey Armstrong's suggestion, and he had enlisted a few of the leading members of the Union Club. Miss Van Deusen's candidacy had been talked over at the clubhouse as elsewhere, and most of the members being old friends of her father or herself had agreed, more or less cautiously, to support her. John Allingham, with a few of the most conservative members, had prevented the Union Club from officially endorsing her, but he could not keep the several members from exercising their prerogative to work for whom they chose. And so while the Municipal League was holding a meeting at one end of the town to see if there were not some available candidate to defeat her, the new City Reform Club was being started at the other, to further the cause of Gertrude Van Deusen. Judge Bateman opened the meeting and was made moderator, and later, elected president of the new organization, with Bailey Armstrong as secretary. "You announce yourself here, Miss Van Deusen," asked the Judge after these preliminaries, "as candidate for mayor?" "I do," was the answer. "Then it becomes our affair to endorse you and to prepare our definite plan of work. That it is a most unusual, perhaps unheard-of thing to offer a young woman as candidate for the mayor's chair, we all know, goes without saying. But it seems to some of us sufficient reason for going down on our knees with thankfulness that a good and an able woman will consent to serve her city in such capacity. And we owe it to her, to ourselves as men, and to our city as voters and citizens, that we shall go out and work for her. Has anyone a definite plan of action?" Nearly every man in the room spoke in the same strain and before ten o'clock their campaign was planned. Then the newspapers were called up and reporters began to appear. The next morning Roma had its second sensation. A leading editorial ran thus: