phone to call
physicians in all parts of the state--collecting independent information
in regard to the past and present prevalence of typhoid; he read certain
official reports with puckered brow and little mutters of disbelief,
and after he had read for a long time that disbelief was very frank. Mr.
Converse had rather keen vision in matters of prevarication, even when
the lying was done adroitly with figures.

He was not a pleasant companion for his office force during those days;
his irascibility seemed to increase. He knew it himself, and he felt a
gentleman's shame because of a state of mind which he could not seem to
control.

And finally, out of the complexity of his emotions, he fully realized
that he was angry at himself and that his anger at himself was growing
more acute from the fact that he realized that the anger was justified.
For he woke to the knowledge that he had allowed himself to grow
selfish. He resented the fact that anybody should expect him to meddle
with public affairs--to get into the muddle of politics. And he knew he
ought to be ashamed of such selfishness--and, therefore, he grew more
angry at himself as he continued to harbor resentment against any agency
which threatened to drag him into public life.

He knew where the shell of that selfishness had been broken--it was
cracked in the meeting where his chivalry had received its call to arms
in behalf of the helpless. Those men had gazed at him, had told their
troubles--and had left it all to his conscience! He did not believe
those men were shrewd enough to understand so exactly in what fashion he
could be snared in their affairs.

"Confound that rascal who inveigled me there!" ran his mental anathema
of the strange young man. "He must have been the devil, wearing that
frock-coat to hide his forked tail. And here I am now, fighting for
peace of mind!"

And his struggle for his peace of mind drove him, at last, to set his
hat very straight on his head and march across the street to Colonel
Symonds Dodd's office.

The Honorable Archer Converse had made up his mind that no influence
in the world could pull or push him into politics. He held firmly fixed
convictions as to what would happen to a good man in politics. To get
office this man of principle would be obliged to fight manipulators with
their own choice of weapons. And once in office, all his motives would
be mocked and his movements assailed. Converse was a keen man who had
stu