hat the Maxwell political type
dominated thousands of voters, men who resent any act in politics which
threatens to disarrange the smooth running of the machine. In politics
it is almost as easy to raise a howl against reform as it is to raise a
cry for it. There are thousands of party men in this republic who as
long as they can make their bread and butter out of machine politics
don't care what price the people have to pay for their bread and butter.

When Paul went home that night he did what he had done for twenty-one
years. The minute he was in the hall, he said, "Esther?" with an
interrogation point after the name.

Esther was upstairs in the upper hall. She replied in a subdued tone,
"Yes, here I am," and Paul ran up three steps at a time to greet her.
Marriage may be a failure with some people, but it certainly was not
with Paul and Esther who had remained lovers all these years, simply
because they had made their married life a joyful, sacred and deeply
Christian compact, a genuine union of heart and head and soul. Paul
wrote love letters to his wife, sent her flowers and in general courted
her in much the same fashion Esther had known when Paul was a struggling
reporter. And Esther kept herself bonny for his sake, entered in
whole-souled fashion into his ambitions and was not afraid to debate
politics with him and keep womanly. One great secret of their joyful
married life was found in the perfect frankness each showed the other,
and also in the blessed fact that each of them had almost a perfect
physical constitution, not frayed nor tortured with nerves and
sensitiveness.

The minute Paul saw Esther he knew some unusual event had occurred. Paul
was quick to detect the presence of any new thing because Esther's
expressive face could never hide a great secret. Paul was on the point
of asking what it was when his eye was attracted by a commotion going on
behind the door of a cedar linen closet at the end of the hall. There
was a sudden wrenching and tearing of cloth, then a great Jovian sized
laugh, the door burst open and a huge figure stepped out into the hall
where Esther stood laughing hard.

"George Randall!" cried Paul, and the next minute he and his old pupil
were in each other's arms.

"As big as ever," cried Paul, as he stepped back to look at his
unexpected visitor.

"Bigger," said George, grinning. "Mrs. Douglas, if you'll get a needle
and thread I'll mend my coat. You see, I just stepped in th