nd pass on. Over the car floated a big banner with the words: Let
Bleak Do Your Drinking For You: He Knows How. The unhappy Purplevein,
who had to do his electioneering in a state of chill sobriety, was
aghast to see the beaming and gently flushed face of his rival
radiating cheer. At the eleventh hour he tried to change his tactics
and plastered the billboards with immense posters:

BLEAK DOESN'T NEED THE JOB--HE'S SOUSED ALREADY

This line of argument might perhaps have been powerful if adopted
earlier, but by that time the agreeable vision of Bleak's ascetic
features wreathed in a faintly spiritual benignance was already firmly
fixed in the public imagination. The little celluloid button showing
his transfigured and endearing smile was worn on millions of lapels. As
one walked down the street one met that little badge hundreds of times,
and the mere repetition of the tenderly exhilarated face seemed to many
a citizen a beautiful and significant thing. Men are altruistic at
heart. They saw that Bleak would make of this high office a richly
eloquent and appealing stewardship. They were reconciled to their own
abstinence in the thought that the dreams and desires of their own
hearts would be so nobly fulfilled by him. Alcohol was gone forever,
and perhaps it was as well. They themselves were conscious of having
abused its sacred powers. But now, in the person of this chosen
representative, all that was lovely and laughable in the old customs
would be consecrated and enshrined forever. Men who had known Bleak in
the days of his employment on the Balloon recollected that even during
the cares and efforts of his profession little incidents had occurred
that might have shown (had they been shrewd enough to notice) how
faithfully he was preparing himself for the great responsibility
destiny held concealed.

The day of the election was declared a national festival. The Chuff
government, a good deal startled by the universal seriousness and
enthusiasm shown in the enrollment at the primaries, was disposed (in
secret) to regard the office of Perpetual Souse as a helpful compromise
on a vexed question. The war against Nature had been only partially
successful: indeed the chuff chief-of-staff declared that Nature had
not learned her lesson yet, and that some irreconcilable berries and
fruits were still waging a guerilla fermentation, thus rupturing the
armistice terms. The countryside had been ravaged, all the Chautauqua
l