to prove itself her last. Her exhaustion was so great on reaching the
city gates that she fell from Piebald Polly's drooping back and never
regained consciousness.

Rumour asserts that the King plunged the country in mourning for several
weeks--some say he never smiled again. Madcap Moll, Eighth Duchess of
Wapping, left behind her no children, but she left engraved upon the
hearts of all who knew her the memory of a beautiful, noble, and winsome
woman.

E. MAXWELL SNURGE

AN INTIMATE STUDY

[Illustration: E. MAXWELL SNURGE, EMINENT POLITICIAN]

I will not seek to write of E. Maxwell Snurge as his friends have
written of him, tall, courageous, and vitally intelligent. Nor as his
enemies have chronicled him, short, fat and intensely stupid. I will
endeavour with a few brief flourishes of the pen, to portray the various
intricacies of his character as I see them, clearly and dispassionately
with the eyes of a psychological observer, whose hand is uncorrupted by
the bribes of ruthless profiteers, grafters and the like.

It is my desire to convey to the reader the real E. Maxwell Snurge shorn
of tawdry trappings of party politics and the illusion and glamour of
public idolatry--a man--just a man--but _what_ a man!

To dwell on the widely circulated story of his life would be needless,
and to follow his political career, merely futile. What is there left?
you ask. And I answer you with extreme firmness, there is one aspect of
E. Maxwell Snurge which has never been seriously analysed--his soul! And
it is that and that alone which will be the foundation stone of my
structural portrayal of his character.

Why wasn't E. Maxwell Snurge president of the United States? Many have
asked that question, he frequently used to ask it himself, and his
wife--the sainted Amy Snurge of ever revered memory--would rest her
thin, ascetic hand upon his coat sleeve and answer him with yearning
sympathy but little satisfaction--Why?

Let us turn to an early episode in his career in our search for the key
to the complexities of his mind, an episode slight in itself but well
worthy of recording if only for the illumination it throws upon the much
questioned motives of his later actions. He was spending a week-end with
friends on Long Island--a fishing week-end. Mrs. Jake Van Opus (formerly
the lovely Consuelo Root) out of consideration for her eminent guest
and with great tact and charm, immediately he arrived made a point of
for