re nearly perfect because the lady
and Gaston were going to the only other Duggan meeting together, and he
would be able to worship her, and listen in ecstasy to her singing, and
afterwards hear one of Tony Gaston's fiery orations.

"Gee!" said William to himself: "ain't this the great luck?" and then,
with an admiring glance at Flo, "and ain't she a pippin?"

Of course, Jimmy Duggan won. Even the present generation of hustling
Canadians know that, though many of them could not tell an inquirer,
off-hand, the name of the Canadian Prime Minister who preceded Sir
Wilfrid Laurier. Of course he won--by a bare 3000 majority--that's
all. Mid-Toronto shouted itself black in the face that night, and went
about its own business for the next seven days in a manner that one
eminent alienist would have described--had he been giving expert
evidence for the defence at fifty dollars per hour--as "between a state
of hysterical mania and senile decay, but not close enough to the one
to necessitate confinement in an asylum, or to the other as to require
the attention of a trained nurse." Jimmy Duggan was the least affected
of any of the People's Party. He made fifty-five brief speeches of
thanks in various sections of Mid-Toronto, and made his last to Tommy
Watson, Tony Gaston, and Pa Turnpike, who escorted him to his home.

"I owe most to you three," he said earnestly, "and you'll have to help
me think up some kind of legislation to press for. There's one thing
we have to be glad about though," he added.

"What's that?" asked Tommy.

"Well--I ain't a government man, so it's no good anybody coming to me
to worry me to death trying to get a government job for them."

CHAPTER XVIII

"What are you going to do about William?" That was the question Flo
Dearmore asked of Tommy Watson one afternoon when Tommy should have
been attending strictly to his business as an auctioneer, but was
neglecting it for the business of courtship, which, he declared for the
one hundred and ninety-ninth time, had more charms for him than the
most exciting sale he had ever conducted.

"Well, what about him?" was Tommy's answer.

"Isn't that Scottish though?" said Flo: "question for question."

"You know the old proverb," Tommy said, smilingly, "'don't answer too
quickly, or you'll put your foot in it.'"

"I never heard of it before," she said, "and I don't believe there is
such a proverb."

"It's something like that, anyway," retorted To