On this present evening Caleb had just received Shevlin’s report of the Standish tour. He was full of the theme and strove to interest his three hearers in it. In Anice he found, as ever, an eager listener. But Gerald yawned in very apparent boredom, while Mrs. Conover shed a few delightfully easy, but irritating tears at the account of the opera house fight. Caleb had silently resented these moist signs of interest, and his glare had called forth an unusual protest from his weak little spouse. “I’m sure,” she went on, nervously taking advantage of the rare fit of courage that possessed her, “I’m _quite_ sure somebody else must have put this Governorship idea into poor Clive’s head. He’d never have thought of such a rash thing by himself. I don’t believe that at heart he really wants to be Governor at all. He——” “If he don’t,” remarked Conover, “I guess that makes it unanimous. I wish that idiot Shevlin hadn’t given him the chance to play to the gallery, though, in a fist fight. It’ll mean votes for him. Folks have a sort of liking for a man who can scrap. By the way, Jerry, if you go around to Headquarters to-night, tell Bourke I want him to run to Matawan for me to-morrow on that floater business. He——” “I don’t believe they can spare Bourke at Headquarters just now,” began Gerald, with a faint show of interest. “You see——” “If he was the sort of man they could spare, he wouldn’t be the sort of man I’d want to send on a ticklish job like this. Has Brayle showed up at any of our rallies yet?” “No. And I don’t believe he will. He’s done with politics, Shevlin tells me. Got religion, Billy says, and——” “If Pete Brayle’s got religion, you can gamble he’s got it in his wife’s name, like every other asset of his. ‘Done with politics,’ eh? Well, politics ain’t done with him. I’ll see Shevlin about it in the morning.” “I thought Mr. Brayle was an atheist,” put in Letty. “It’s an awful thing to be. How do you suppose he ever became one?” “By thinking too hard with a mind that was too small; same as most atheists do,” suggested Caleb. “Say, Jerry,” he added, “it won’t do you no harm to know I’m rather tickled at the way you’ve took hold at Headquarters this past week or so. You won’t lose by it.” “She wrote me to,” answered Gerald, flushing. “You owe it to _her_. Not to me.” “She?” “Yes. My——” “Ugh! I might ’a’ known it! Well, so long as you do your work I don’t care where the inspiration comes from. I ain’t too finicky to hit a straight blow with a crooked stick. Why’d she tell you to hustle?” “She said she ‘hoped it would touch your hard heart.’ Wait, and I’ll read you what she——” “No, you won’t. My hardness of heart isn’t a patch on my hardness of hearing when it comes to listening to that sort of pink paper drivel. I——” “Now, father,” whined Mrs. Conover, persuasively, “why be so hard on the poor boy? Perhaps——”