r influence among your people. This is no mean position, mind
you. And if you will come up to the Wigwam to-morrow, I'll give
you a few suggestions on the business of manipulating votes.

"Yours truly,
"PATRICK HOOLIHAN."

And the said Mr. Hoolihan, the letter shows, is Secretary to
Mr. O'Donohue, who is first henchman to the Boss. Such a letter,
if luckily misunderstood, will fire for a while the youthful
imagination. No; not his Shamrag Majesty's Tammany Agent to
Syria, this Canvassership, you poor phantom-like zany! A high
post, indeed, you fond and pitiful dreamer, on which you must
hang the higher aspirations of your soul, together with your
theory of immanent morality. You would not know this at first. You
would still kiss the official notification of Mr. Hoolihan, and
hug it fondly to your breast. Very well. At last--and the gods
will not damn thee for musing--you will stand in the band-wagon
before the corner groggery and be the object of the admiration of
your fellow citizens--perhaps of missiles, too. Very well, Khalid;
but you must shear that noddle of thine, and straightway, for the
poets are potted in Tammany Land. We say this for your sake.

The orator-dream of youth, ye gods, shall it be realised in this
heaven of a dray-cart with its kerosene torch and its drum, smelling
and sounding rather of Juhannam? Surely, from the Table of Bohemia to
the Stump in Tammany Land, is a far cry. But believe us, O Khalid, you
will wish you were again in the gardens of Proserpine, when the
silence and darkness extinguish the torch and the drum and the echoes
of the shouting crowds. The headaches are certain to follow this
inebriation. You did not believe Shakib; you would not be admonished;
you would go to the Wigwam for your portfolio. "_High post_,"
"_political canvasser_," "_manipulation of votes_," you will know the
exact meaning of these esoteric terms, when, alas, you meet Mr.
Hoolihan. For you must know that not every one you meet in Bohemia is
not a Philistine. Indeed, many helots are there, who come from
Philistia to spy out the Land.

We read in the _Histoire Intime_ of Shakib that Khalid did become a
Tammany citizen, that is to say, a Tammany dray-horse; that he was
much esteemed by the Honourable Henchmen, and once in the Wigwam he
was particularly noticed by his Shamrag Majesty Boss O'Graft; that he
was Tammany's Agent to the Edito