"I beg your pardon, father. Almost from the beginning, some thirty years ago, this party stood as it does now. The trouble with you is, if I may be allowed to say it, you know nothing of the party I have discovered. Let me read you its platform." And from a small, green book Jean began her reading, while Judge Thorn listened attentively. But before she had finished James appeared with the evening paper, and almost unconsciously he opened it. As he cast his eyes on the page a smile overspread his face, and the words of the reading were lost. Jean finished presently, and frowned a little, when she saw her father so deeply engrossed in his paper. Presently he looked up, the broad smile still upon his face. "Jean, my girl, listen!" and he read an account of the dramatic passage of the anti-canteen law by Congress. Judge Thorn had been deeply interested in the canteen question. He had known a boy, the son of a professional friend, who had been most carefully and prayerfully reared at home in fear of the inheritance of an appetite for liquor, but who had gone at his country's call to uphold her honor, and had become a drunkard through the regimental canteen. He himself had seen the fifty law-breaking canteens in Camp Thomas at Chickamauga, with their daily sales amounting to hundreds of dollars. He had seen something of the same evil at the little army post near their own city; and a young man who had been his confidential clerk before the war, and who was now with one of the volunteer regiments at Manila, had written to him of the canteen: "It has been the curse of this army, and has caused more deaths than the Mauser bullets. It is a recognized fact that in regiments where canteens are established drinking is not restrained, rather encouraged, and numerous sprees are started that are finished in the saloons just outside. Six cases of delirium tremens have resulted from the establishment of the regimental groggery. Our army is in danger a thousand times greater than any foreign foe may ever bring against us. When will the government take action?" The lawyer's clear mind had seen where the responsibility for the whole system lay, and, sorely tried by the President's inaction, partly to lift from his party the odium of the canteen disgrace and partly as a matter of real heart choice, he had worked with more than his usual vigor to help bring to bear a pressure in Washington great enough to abolish the army saloon. "Cheer, Jean!" he said. "Cheer for the party in power. The bill has passed." "Was it your party or public sentiment in spite of your party that brought about the passage of the bill?" asked Jean. "Sentiment, my dear girl," said the judge, dogmatically, "without machinery back of it, is good for nothing."