The night of his nomination the light in Mrs. Beaver’s tiny, stuffy attic room went out early. And if you could have looked in, you would have discovered, by the starlight that the big form was lying quite still in the little bed which sagged and bulged with it. But George Helm was not asleep. He slept not a wink that whole night. And as soon as he had finished breakfast he went down to the barber shop at the corner. “Bob,” said he to the colored proprietor, “I want a clean shave.” “What’s that, Mr. Helm?” exclaimed the amazed barber. And two loungers at the table where the sporting papers were spread out sat up and stared. “A clean shave, Bob,” said Helm gravely, seating himself in the chair. Bob started a broad grin that, with the least encouragement, would have become a guffaw--and would have echoed throughout the district. But he did not get the encouragement. Instead, he saw something in the kind, deep-set gray eyes, in the strong, sad mouth and chin, that set him soberly to work. The two loungers went outside to laugh and spread the news. But when they got outside they did not laugh. Why? It is impossible to explain the psychology of man the mass. They put the astounding news into currency--but not as a joke. Helm was shaving his beard. What did it mean? “Our opponents,” said Judge Powers, “nominated a set of whiskers. The whiskers have disappeared--so there is no one running against us.” The jest, being of the species which it is conventional to utter and to laugh at on stump and after-dinner occasions, got its momentary due of cackling and braying. But the mirth did not spread. For, before noon of that first day of the campaign, it had been discovered that the Democratic machine had not nominated whiskers, but a man. We are in the habit of regarding a human being as a mere conglomerate of sundry familiar conventionalities--of dress, of manner, of thought. We have formed the habit because with an occasional rare exception a human being is simply that and nothing more. So an individuality is always a startling apparition--fascinating, perhaps, certainly terrifying. The coming of a man makes us suddenly aware how few real men there are--real live men--how most of us are simply patterns of men who once lived, or, rather, differently proportioned composites of all past men. The excitement in peaceful Harrison and its somnolent environs was almost hysterical. For, in all that region, there was not, there had not been for years--not since the stern, elemental pioneer days--a real living man. All the specimens of the genus homo were of the approved type of the past. George Helm, _man_. “George,” said Bill Desbrough, who had a law office across the hall in the same building--the Masonic Temple--“George, where’d you ever get the notion of those there whiskers you’ve just shed?” “Oh, the girls,” replied George. “When I was a boy and a youngster the girls made fun of my face. So I hid it as soon as I could--as well as I could.”