oderating his
stride to that of the other.

"Can't understand it," resumed the gloomy uncle. "I sent him word in
time; sent it from your office by messenger. It was plain enough. I told
him no money of mine would go into his campaign if he made a fool of
himself--or words to that effect."

"Phew! Cast you off, did he? Just like that?"

"Just like that! Went out of his way to overdo it, too. Needn't have
come out half so strong. No chance now to backwater--not a chance
on earth to explain what he really did mean--and make it something
different." "Quixotic! That's how it reads to me."

Uncle Martin here became oracular, his somber stick gesturing to point
his words.

"Trouble with poor George, he's been silly enough to blurt out the
truth, what every man of us thinks in his heart--"

"Eh?" said Mr. Evans quickly, as one who has been jolted.

"No more sense than to come right out and say what every one of us
thinks in his secret heart about women. I think it and you think it--"

"Oh, well, if you put it _that_ way," admitted young Mr. Evans
gracefully. "But of course--"

"Certainly, of _course!_ We all think it--sacred names of home and
mother and all the rest of it; but a man running for office these days
is a chump to say so, isn't he? Of course he is! What chance does it
leave him? Answer me that."

"Darned little, if you ask me," said Mr. Evans judicially. "Poor old
George!"

"Talks as if he were going to be married tomorrow instead of its having
come off five weeks ago," pursued Uncle Martin bitterly. Plainly there
were depths of understanding in the man, trimmer though he might be.

Mr. Evans made no reply. Irrationally he was considering the terms "five
weeks" and "married" in relation to a spinster who would have professed
to be indignant had she known it.

"Got to pull the poor devil out," said Uncle Martin, when in silence
they had traversed fifty feet more of the shaded side of Maple Avenue.

"How?" demanded the again practical Mr. Evans.

"Make him take it back; make him recant; swing him over the last week
before election. Make him eat his words with every sign of exquisite
relish. Simple enough!"

"How?" persisted Mr. Evans.

"Wiles, tricks, subterfuges, chicanery--understand what I mean?"

"Sure! I understand what you mean as well as you do, but--come down to
brass tacks."

"That's an entirely different matter," conceded Uncle Martin gruffly.
"It may take thought."

"Oh, is that a