base negotiations on."

"Wait and see," she cried gayly. "We'll talk it over as we go along."

Mrs. Bleak aroused her children, who had fallen asleep, and climbed
back into the wheelbarrow.

"I don't know that I approve of that scheme of making Dunraven the
Perpetual Souse," she remarked. "I can imagine what my poor mother
would say about it if she were living. She came of fine old Kentucky
stock, and it would humiliate her deeply to know to what a level we had
been reduced."

"My dear Mrs. Bleak," said Quimbleton, as he hoisted his betrothed into
the saddle and the pilgrims began to move, "I know of a great deal of
good old Kentucky stock that has had a far worse fate than that in
these tragic years."

CHAPTER VIII

WITH BENEFIT OF CLERGY

Through the sullen streets of the terrorized city Miss Chuff,
Quimbleton and Bleak proceeded toward the great building where the
Pan-Antis had their headquarters. They had left Mrs. Bleak, the
children and the horse at a quiet soda-fountain in the suburbs. After
repeated application over the wireless telephone, the terrible
Bishop--the Prohibishop, as Quimbleton called him--had agreed to grant
them an audience, and had accorded them safe-conduct through the chuff
troops. Even so, their progress was difficult. Every few hundred yards
they were halted and subjected to curt inquiry. Men and women who had
heard of their gallant struggle against fearful odds pressed forward in
an attempt to seize their hands, to embrace and applaud them, but these
evidences of enthusiasm were sternly repressed by the chuffs.

Bleak was frankly nervous as they approached the Chuff Building.

"What line of talk are we going to adopt?" he asked.

"Like any self-respecting line," replied Quimbleton, "Ours will be the
shortest distance between two points. The first point is that we want
to obtain something from Chuff. The second is that we have some
information to give him which will be of immense value to him. This we
shall hold over him as a club, to force him to concede what we want."

"And what is this club?" asked Bleak, somewhat suspicious of his
friend's sanguine disposition.

"The admirable plan," said Quimbleton, "is Theodolinda's idea. She
knows her father better than we do. She says that his passion is for
prohibiting things. He thinks he has now prohibited everything
possible. We are in a position to tell him something that still remains
unprohibited. His eagerness to know w