t just for the sake
of fighting--not claim it's all for morality's sake!"

"Then what are you?" blurted Presson, but checked himself in evident
confusion.

"Eh?" inquired General Waymouth, mildly.

"I--I don't know what it was I had in my mind--guess I was thinking
about something else."

But the General smiled as though he understood. Then he went into the
inner room, explaining that he wished to make himself presentable to the
ladies.

The chairman took a crafty survey of Harlan.

"Between you and me, my boy," he said, getting back upon his old-time
footing with Thornton's grandson, "the General has got both of my eyes
put out, so far's his politics go. Did you hear him just rip into those
ramrodders? And yet he's been stiffer and straighter than the worst of
'em since he struck this city. I'd like to know who in thunder he _is_
playing with, anyway! What does he say to you, on the side?"

"You'd better get General Waymouth's plans from himself, Mr. Presson."

"I'm not asking you to betray anything. But he's got a policy, of
course. I only want to know it, so that I can grab in with him. But I
can't figure anything, so far."

"I thought he made himself pretty plain last night."

"He made himself plain, I'll admit that. Plain that he's against
everything that the party management stands for. But now he turns around
and kicks out the other crowd! He's got to pick his gait and take a
position somewhere!"

"That's something I know nothing about, sir."

The chairman grew testy. He felt that he was being played with.

"Seeing that you're in close to the Amalgamated Order of Angels, you'd
better drop him a hint that running a political campaign isn't like
stampeding a convention. The State Committee stands ready to help, and
before he gets much further along he'll find he needs the help. You'd
better make that plain to him."

His guest of honor reappeared then, and the chairman led the way. Harlan
had been included in his invitation, and attended his chief.

With old-fashioned gallantry, General Waymouth made his compliments to
the ladies whom Mrs. Presson had assembled to grace the occasion. Her
little crust of social earth had been tossed alarmingly by the political
earthquake, but she felt that now she was finding safe footing once
more.

Thelismer Thornton was there, so were Senator Pownal and the secretary
of the State Committee, and a few other favored ones whom the hostess
had sought as being clos