huff. It was a night of uproar. A reign of terror was
freely predicted, and many prominent citizens sat up until after
midnight on the chance of discovering similar explosives concealed
about their premises.

The morning papers rallied rapidly to the cause of threatened
civilization. The Daily Circumspect declared, editorially:--

The alcoholsheviks have at last thrown down the gauntlet. The news that
the ginarchists have placed a ginfernal machine in the very shrine of
law and order is tantamount to a declaration of war upon sobriety as a
whole. A canister of forbidden design, filled with the deadliest
gingredients, was found in the corridor leading to the bureau of
marriage licenses in the City Hall. There must have been something more
than accident in its discovery just in this spot. Men of thoughtful
temper will do well to heed the symbolism of this incident. Plainly not
only the constitution of the United States is to be made a
quaffing-stock, but the very sanctity of the marriage bond is assailed.
To this form of terrorism there is but one answer.

In the meantime, Quimbleton had disappeared. The house on Caraway
Street was broken into by the police, but except for the grape arbor
and a great quantity of empty bottles in the cellar, no clue was found.
Apparently, however, the vanished ginarchist (for so Chuff called him)
had been writing poetry before his departure. The following rather
inscrutable doggerel was found scrawled on a piece of paper:--

When Death doth reap
And Chuff is sickled,
He will not keep:
He was never pickled.

For Bishop Chuff
This is ill cheer:
That Time will force him
To the bier.

And when he stands
On his last legs
Then Death will drain him
To the dregs.

So when Chuff croaks
Bury him on a high hill--
For he's a hoax
Et praeterea nihil!

But Bishop Chuff was not the man to take these insults tamely. His
first act was to call together the legislature of the State in special
session, and the following act was rushed through:

AN ACT

Severing relations with Nature, and amending the principles and
processes of the same in so far as they contravene the Constitution of
the United States and the tenets of the Pan-Antis:

WHEREAS, in accordance with the Declaration of Gindependence, it may
become necessary for a people to dissolve the alcoholic bands which
have connected them with one another and to assume am