d let us buy one handsome
cloisonne lamp from Tiffany's, would they?" Mrs. Perkins asked.

"A cloisonne lamp on a gate-post?" laughed Perkins.

"Of course not," rejoined the lady. "You know I didn't mean any such
thing. I saw a perfectly beautiful lamp in Tiffany's last Wednesday, and
it would go so well in the parlor--"

"That wouldn't be possible, my dear," said Thaddeus, still smiling.
"You don't quite catch the idea of those lamps. They're sort of like the
red, white, and blue lights in a drug-store window in intention. They
are put up to show the public that that is where a political
prescription for the body politic may be compounded. The public is
responsible for the bills, and the public expects to use what little
light can be extracted from them."

"Then all this generosity on the public's part is--"

"Merely that of the Indian who gives and takes back," said Thaddeus.

"And they must be out-of-doors?" asked Mrs. Perkins. "If I set the
cloisonne lamp in the window, it wouldn't do?"

"No," said Thaddeus. "They must be out-of-doors."

"Well, I hope the nasty old public will stay there too, and not come
traipsing all over my house," snapped Mrs. Perkins, indignantly.

And then for a little time the discussion of the Mayor's lamps stopped.

The campaign went on, and Thaddeus night after night was forced to go
out to speak here and there and everywhere. One night he travelled five
miles through mud and rain to address an organization of tax-payers, and
found them assembled before the long mahogany counter of a beer-saloon,
which was the "Hall" they had secured for the reception of the idol of
their hopes; and among them it is safe to say there was not one who ever
saw a tax-bill, and not many who knew more about those luxuries of life
than the delicious flunky, immortalized by Mr. Punch, who says to a
brother flunky, "I say, Tummas, wot is taxes?" And he told them his
principles and promised to do his best for them, and bade them
good-night, and went away leaving them parched and dry and downcast. And
then the other fellow came, and won their hearts and "set them up
again." Another night he attended another meeting and lost a number of
friends because he shone at both ends but not in the middle. If he had
taken a glittering coin or two from his vest-pocket on behalf of the
noble working-men there assembled in great numbers and spirituous mood,
they would have forgiven him his wit and patent-leather shoes--