seemed to
suit him where the conventional code would have made him seem cheap.
"I didn't mean to look after your political welfare, too," said he.
"But I'll make no charge for that."

"Oh, I like to hear you young fellows talk," said Martin. "You'll sing
a different song when you're as old as I am and have found out what a
lot of damn fools the human race is."

"As I told you before," said Charlton, "it's conditions that make the
human animal whatever it is. It's in the harness of conditions--the
treadmill of conditions--the straight jacket of conditions. Change the
conditions and you change the animal."

When he was swinging his big powerful form across the lawns toward the
fringe of woods, Jane and her father looking after him, Jane said:

"He's wonderfully clever, isn't he?"

"A dreamer--a crank," replied the old man.

"But what he says sounds reasonable," suggested the daughter.

"It SOUNDS sensible," admitted the old man peevishly. "But it ain't
what _I_ was brought up to call sensible. Don't you get none of those
fool ideas into your head. They're all very well for men that haven't
got any property or any responsibilities--for flighty fellows like
Charlton and that there Victor Dorn. But as soon as anybody gets
property and has interests to look after, he drops that kind of talk."

"Do you mean that property makes a man too blind or too cowardly to
speak the truth?" asked Jane with an air of great innocence.

The old man either did not hear or had no answer ready. He said:

"You heard him say that Davy Hull was going to win?"

"Why, he said Victor Dorn was going to win," said Jane, still simple
and guileless.

Hastings frowned impatiently. "That was just loose talk. He admitted
Davy was to be the next mayor. If he is--and I expect Charlton was
about right--if Davy is elected, I shouldn't be surprised to see him
nominated for governor next year. He's a sensible, knowing fellow.
He'll make a good mayor, and he'll be elected governor on his record."

"And on what you and the other men who run things will do for him,"
suggested Jane slyly.

Her father grinned expressively. "I like to see a sensible, ambitious
young fellow from my town get on," said he. "And I'd like to see my
girl married to a fellow of that sort, and settled."

"I think more could be done with a man like Victor Dorn," said Jane.
"It seems to me the Davy Hull sort of politics is--is about played out.
Don't you think so?