ndard-bearer of the
Democratic party, hopelessly.

"Or Berlin, or Peking--or even of Chicago?" she went on.

"What has that got to do with it?" retorted the worm, turning a trifle.

"You spoke of glory--the glory of being Mayor of Dumfries Corners, a
city of 30,000 inhabitants. This is going to send your name echoing from
sea to sea, reverberating through Europe, and thundering down through
the ages to come; and yet you admit that the glories of the Mayors of
London with 4,000,000 souls, of Berlin, Chicago, and Peking, with
millions more, are so slight that you can't remember their names--or
even to have heard them, for that matter. Really, Thaddeus, I am
surprised at you. What you expect to get out of this besides nervous
prostration I must confess I cannot see."

"Lamps," said Thaddeus, clutching like a drowning man at the one
emolument of the coveted office.

Mrs. Perkins gazed at her husband anxiously. The answer was so
unexpected and seemingly so absurd that she for a moment feared he had
lost his mind. The notion that two years' service in so important an
office as that of Mayor of Dumfries Corners received as its sole reward
nothing but lamps was to her mind impossible.

"Is--is there anything the matter with you, dear?" she asked, placing
her hand on his brow. "You don't seem feverish."

"Feverish?" snapped the leader of his party. "Who said anything about my
being feverish?"

"Nobody, Teddy dear; but what you said about lamps made me think--made
me think your mind was wandering a trifle."

"Oh--that!" laughed Perkins. "No, indeed--it's true. They always give
the Mayor a pair of lamps. Some of them are very swell, too. You know
those wrought-iron standards that Mr. Berkeley has in front of his
place?"

"The ones at the driveway entrance, on the bowlders?"

"Yes."

"They're beauties. I've always admired those lamps very much."

"Well--they are the rewards of Mr. Berkeley's political virtue. I paid
for them, and so did all the rest of the tax-payers. They are his
Mayor's lamps, and if I'm elected I'll have a pair just like them, if I
want them like that."

"Oh, I do hope you'll get in, Teddy," said the little woman, anxiously,
after a reflective pause. "They'd look stunning on our gate-posts."

"I don't think I shall have them there," said Thaddeus. "Jiggers has the
right idea, seems to me--he's put 'em on the newel-posts of his front
porch steps."

"I don't suppose they'd give us the money an