Then the procession, debouching into the Square, was swallowed up by the crowd; nothing remained of it but extinguished reeking torches scattered here and there among the thousands of restless heads. George wriggled his way up to the festooned band stand, he saw the pale speakers and the countless vice-presidents--his father was one of the vice-presidents--and he listened to the inspiring song of the Glee Club: “Dinna ye hear the slogan, Jimmy Blaine and Johnny Logan? The plumed knight and warrior bold Are bound to gain the day. The golden gates are creaking While the Yankee boys are speaking, And the Johnnies are retreating, For we’re bound to gain the day.” His eyes had been blurred by the tears, his heart had ached with the secret pain of patriotism. He had registered sweet vows; he never could forget--and yet, now, just as his education was complete and he was ready to enter upon his career, just as the new sign of the new firm of Halliday and Halliday, attorneys-at-law, was swinging at the foot of the stairs in the People’s National Bank block, he had turned Democrat. It was a sore subject at home. He and his father no longer discussed the tariff question. Mrs. Halliday said it made her nervous, as it might anybody. That winter Halliday did nothing more serious than to attend a Catholic fair in Father Hennessey’s church, and make a speech awarding the prize some one had won in the raffle. But in the spring, Hank Defrees, loafing around among the boys, told them the thing to do was to nominate George for mayor on the Democratic ticket, and it was done. When old Horace Goddard heard of the nomination, he chuckled until his great belly shook, and actually invited Captain Bishop and the rest of the boys, who had gathered at the post-office to wait for the seven o’clock mail, around to Cramer’s drug store to have a drink. The cronies all laughed as they drank--though they said, with soberness, that they felt sorry for old Judge Halliday himself. It was a cruel thing to do, and it was young Halliday’s idea alone. He was a youth with aspirations, and he saw in the nomination something more than the mere compliment Hank Defrees had intended. Therefore Squire Goddard’s checker game was interrupted by a black-coated delegation of Protestant clergymen. It was a Monday morning, and they must have come straight from preachers’ meeting with their impudent questions. They wanted to know whether or not it was true that the liquor laws had not been enforced, and how he stood on the saloon question generally. The old squire puffed profusely and made promises. The next day a committee of saloon-keepers was called. The old man blew out his varicose cheeks and sputtered: “I’ve ran for mayor o’ this ’ere town now goin’ on five times, and I’m dog _damned_ if I ever heerd such a lot o’ fool questions before!”