e damp. I
loved it,--but, with the raven, nevermore. Connie, there is one thing
even more fatal to a minister's son than bottles of beer. That thing
is politics. If I had taken my beer straight I might have escaped.
But I tried to dilute it with politics, and behold the result. My
father walking the floor in anguish, my mother in tears, my future
blasted, my hopes shattered.'

"'Kirke, tell me the story.'

"'Matters is running for reelection. I do not approve of Matters. He
is a booze fighter and a card shark and a lot of other unscriptural
things. As a Methodist and a minister's son I felt called to battle
his return to office. So I went out electioneering for my friend and
ally, Joe Smithson. You know, Connie, that in spite of my wandering
ways, I have friends in the county and I am a born talker. I took my
faithful steed and I spent many hours, which should have been devoted
to selling furniture, decrying the vices of Matters, extolling the
virtues of Smithson. Matters got his eye on me.

"'He had the other eye on that office. He saw he must make a strong
bid for county favor. The easiest way to do that in Mount Mark is to
get after a boot-legger. There was Snippy Brown, a poor old harmless
nigger, trying to earn an honest living by selling a surreptitious
bottle from a hole in the ground to a thirsting neighbor in the dead of
night. Plainly Snippy Brown was fairly crying to be raided. Matters
raided him. And he got a couple of hundred of bottles on ice.'

"'Served him right,' I said, in a Sabbatical voice.

"'To be sure it did. And Matters put him in jail and made a great fuss
getting ready for his trial. I had a friend at court and he tipped me
off that Matters was going to disgrace the Methodist Church in general
and the Connors in particular by calling me in as a witness, making me
tell where I bought sundry bottles known to have been in my possession.
Picture it to yourself, sweet Connie,--my white-haired mother, my
sad-eyed father, the condemning deacons, the sneering Sunday-school
teachers, the prim-lipped Epworth Leaguers,--it could not be. I left
town. Matters left also,--coming my way. For two days we have been at
it, hot foot, cold foot. We have covered most of southeastern Iowa in
forty-eight hours. He has the papers to serve on me, but he's got to
go some yet.'

"Kirke stood up and peered about among the trunks. All serene.

"'I am nearly starved,' he said plaintively.