“You just stay here three, and then come along with the right book, as you agreed to. I’m going over with the wrong one. Where d’you sit?” “Two rows from the front in the aisle seat,” answered Donald, still bewildered. Tompkins was greatly relieved to see the door open and the twin with a blue tie walk to the seat in the second row, bearing the familiar volume of Bryce under his arm. The speaker’s argument had been planned to lead up gradually to an effective climax in a final quotation from a great authority. For this quotation Tompkins had been nervously waiting. “And now in proof of my contention that the prevailing system of choosing United States senators is a failure,” he went on confidently, “that it advances to the highest legislative position not the best and the ablest, but the richest and the trickiest, the millionaires and the political bosses, I will add that our wisest foreign critics lay especial emphasis on this perilous weakness. Let me quote in conclusion from that fair and sympathetic student of our institutions, Mr. James Bryce. On page 492 of the second volume of his ‘American Commonwealth’ he says:—” Here the orator, abandoning his notes and leaving his sentence suspended in the air, took the book from the twin’s hand and thumbed the leaves to page 492. It bore the unfamiliar heading, “State Finance.” He consulted his notes once more, then looked at pages 490, 494, and 497. There was nothing on these pages which he had ever seen before. He turned to 392 and 592, and to the end of the book to find the index. There was no index! He whipped the book over and discovered that he was using Volume I. By this time the debater’s face was crimson, the listeners were grinning broadly, and even the presiding officer, whose sense of dignity was enormous, found difficulty in controlling his countenance. “You’ve brought the wrong book,” said Tompkins, angrily, to the smiling twin. “I told you Volume II!” “You didn’t tell me anything,” replied Duncan, composedly. Tompkins glared; the audience craned their necks to get sight of Duncan and snickered aloud. “I’ve just come in,” continued the twin. At this the whole company, Tompkins excepted, burst into a roar which increased rather than diminished as the tardy Donald opened the door, walked to the front of the room, gravely placed a book on the table before the outraged debater, and took a seat near his brother. “I am sorry to say, Mr. Tompkins,” said the chairman, after he had at last brought the meeting to order, “that your time is up. Perhaps in view of the peculiar interruption, the negative may be willing to give you another minute,” he added, with a glance at Richardson, who was to open for the negative. Richardson smiled and nodded; and Tompkins read his quotation from the right book, and finished his speech with the rhetorical flourish which he had prepared. But Mr. Bryce’s opinion and Tompkins’s rhetoric both fell on unheeding ears.