The governor rose as they entered, and looked first at Mr. Meredith, then lowered his kind blue eyes and fixed them on Jamie. “Governor,” said Mr. Meredith, “I wish to present my little friend, Master James Horn.” The governor bowed, took Jamie’s hand in his own and said in his soft voice: “I’m very glad to meet you, Master Horn, I’m sure.” Jamie felt himself tingle all through at the governor’s words. “Master Horn, Governor,” continued Mr. Meredith, “is a page boy in the house, and to-day, when we were all caught napping, he saved the franchise bill from becoming a law.” The governor, looking a question at Mr. Meredith, said: “Ah?” “Yes,” answered Mr. Meredith, and then, when the governor had motioned them to take seats, and Jamie had worked and wiggled himself away back into a deep leather chair, with his legs and feet sticking straight out in front of him, Mr. Meredith told the governor the whole story. When he had done, the governor rose and went over to where Jamie sat in the big chair, his arms stretched along the chair’s arms. Jamie would have wriggled out of the chair, but he had not time to do so. And then, as he looked up into the grave, kind face, His Excellency, speaking very seriously, said: “My boy, you have done the people of Chicago and the people of Illinois a great service--a service you will understand some day--and now, on their behalf, I wish to thank you for it.” MACOCHEE’S FIRST CAMPAIGN FUND Squire Goddard had been renominated as mayor of Macochee for the fifth time, and for three weeks had played his customary checker games with the firemen in the town hall, serene in the conviction that he could not fail of reëlection. Then suddenly he awakened to the fact that he had been the victim of a gum-shoe campaign. Election was but a week off, and something had to be done. So they raised a campaign fund. Now, Macochee, in that day, had never had a campaign fund. The state committee never put any money into Gordon County, even in a presidential year. The Republicans didn’t have to, and the Democrats knew better. The local candidates, of course, had little expenses of their own--for cigars, for carriages when there were township meetings out in the little red school-house, for printing the tickets (in the days before we had the Australian ballot), and for Ganson’s hack to use at the polls on election day, but they were stingy in these things. Macochee and Gordon County always went right, anyhow. Joe Boyle, Captain Bishop, Major Turner, old Bill Williams and John Ernest had been parceling the fat offices in the court-house among themselves ever since the war, and all a county convention ever had to do was to renominate the old ticket, and it went through in November without a scratch. Sometimes, because of curious constitutional prejudices against a county treasurer succeeding himself, they had to run Captain Bishop for county clerk, and let old Bill Williams have