r. "We
beg your pardon. You did perfectly right. Thank you for doing your
duty. Can we go on, now?"

The man scratched his head, perplexedly.

"What are you tryin' to do--kid me? Sure; go ahead. Show that summons
to anybody else that stops you."

In the two miles to the hill, they were stopped seven times, and when
they arrived at the house, Mirabelle was almost hysterical with
triumph. Without delaying to remove her hat, she sent a telegram to
the national president, and she also telephoned to a few of her League
cronies, to bid them to a supper in celebration. Mr. Mix made three
separate essays to escape, but after the third and last trial was
made to appear in its proper light as a subterfuge, he lapsed into
heavy infestivity; and he spent the evening drinking weak lemonade,
and trying to pretend that it belonged to the Collins family. And
while his wife (still wearing her insignia) and his guests were
talking in a steady stream, Mr. Mix was telling himself that if
Ordinance 147 was going to prevent so innocent an occupation as riding
in a car on Sunday, he was very much afraid that life in this
community was going to be too rich for his blood. That is, unless he
were elected to be chief of the community. And in this case, he would
see that he wasn't personally inconvenienced.

* * * * *

At half past seven in the morning, Mirabelle was already at the
breakfast table, and semi-audibly rating Mr. Mix for his slothfulness,
when he came in with an odd knitting of his forehead and an unsteady
compression of his mouth. To add to the effect, he placed his feet
with studied clumsiness, and as he gave the _Herald_ into Mirabelle's
hands, he uttered a sound which annoyed her.

"For the cat's sake, Theodore, what are you groaning about?"

"Groan yourself," said Mr. Mix, and put a trembling finger on the
headline. As he removed the finger, it automatically ceased to
tremble. Mr. Mix didn't care two cents for what was in the _Herald_,
but he knew that to Mirabelle it would be a tragedy, and that he was
cast for the part of chief mourner.

"Well, what's _that_ to groan about? I'd call it a smashing
victory--just as I did last night. And _our_ being caught only
shows--"

"Rave on," said Mr. Mix lugubriously, and stood with his hands in his
pockets, jingling his keys.

"Certainly! It shows they meant business. It shows _we_ did. We'll
take our own medicine. And the amendment--