'd like to see changed. It's dangerous, I tell you."

The first man finished the discussion:

"I always liked Peter, and am sorry he's quit us. He'll have a
following, too, just because he does believe in himself."

Though the loungers at the Maple Leaf Club took the news of Peter
Neeland's secession with composure, mingled with amusement, the chief
organizer, Mr. Banks, viewed it with alarm, and voiced his fears to
the head of his department, who sat in his accustomed chair, with a
bottle of the best beside him. The Honorable member listened, but
refused to be alarmed. It was past the third hour of the afternoon,
and the rainbow haze was over everything.

"I tell you," said Mr. Banks, "something is going to break if we
can't get this thing stopped. The women are gaining every day. Their
meetings are getting bigger, and now look at Peter Neelands. This
Watson girl has got to be canned--got rid of--if we have to send her
to do immigration work in London, England."

The honorable member did his best to hold his head steady.

"Do what you like, Banks," he said thickly, "only save the country.
My country if she's right; my country if she's wrong; but always my
country! 'Lives there a man with soul so dead,' eh, Banks? That's the
dope--what? Damn the women--but save the home--we gotta' save the
home."

Oliver Banks looked at him in deep contempt, and shook his head.
"These birds make things hard for us," he murmured. "He looks like a
Minister of the Crown now, doesn't he? Lord! wouldn't he make a sight
for the women! I'd like to hear their description of him just as he
sits now."

The minister sat with his pudgy hands spread out on the arms of his
chair. His head rolled uncertainly, like a wilting sunflower on a
broken stalk. His under lip was too full to fit his face. If he had
been a teething infant one would have been justified in saying he was
drooling.

The organizer called a waiter and instructed him to phone to the
gentleman's house and speak to his chauffeur.

"Tell him to take the old man home," he said briefly, "he seems to
be--overtaken."

"Very good, sir," said the waiter, without a flicker of an eyelash.

Then the organizer went to a telephone booth and called George
Steadman, of Millford, requesting him to come at once to the city on
important business.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WOMAN OF PURPLE SPRINGS

None of us has lived long without discovering that everything he
has he pays for; that