ion. He
stalked through the house wonderingly, back to the kitchen, which
looked out upon a green back-yard where they had erected a tent, and
had there had dinners and inhaled the odor of the grass. He found in
the kitchen the two girls, who were all delight, and exhibited but
slight awe at his presence. He recognized that all was well, and
looked out through the descending sheets of water.

There, beside the quaint tent set upon the green-sward, were two
people. One was a graceful woman, one a sturdy, shouting child.
Neither was garbed save in the simplest way. She wore a wrap of some
sort, a careless thing, the boy a night-gown, and they were moving
about in the warm rain and bathing in nature's way, and particularly
happy.

The man was righteously indignant at all desertion of him. He shouted
manfully, and at last attracted the attention of the pair. He told
them to come in to him. As well have talked to the wild winds. He
looked from the porch upon the riant, dissipated two, and commanded and
cajoled and made tremendous threats, but to no purpose. He reproached
his wife with unwifely disobedience, and with the crime of turning her
own offspring against his father, and the two but mocked him! Then he
disappeared, and appeared five minutes later in a frayed old swimming
suit, and there was terror in the camp of the foe! He made a charge
through sheets of rain, and a fair woman was, in most unmanly way, laid
in a puddle, and her son set aloft in pride upon his prostrate and
laughing mother. And high jinks ensued. So did these two conduct
themselves!

But an hour later, when guests came to the dinner, the Ape had gone to
his nursery without a whimper, and no more grave and courteous man or
more stately and gracious dame sat down at table that evening in all
the city of a million people.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE FIRST DISTRICT.

The trouble with us in the First Congressional District was that we
could not carry the Ninth Ward. But for this weak point we would have
felt assured at any time. With the Ninth Ward eliminated we could
control the district barely. With the Ninth Ward for us it would be a
walk-over. But the ward belonged to Gunderson.

Gunderson employed three thousand men. He was not a party man, but he
was a partisan; that is, he would get interested sometimes in a
campaign, and when he did, each workman in his big manufactory must
vote as indicated or go. And Gunderson did not