alk over the maps, he repeated the question, and the
captain himself led the chorus, "It goes. We'll all stand by you!"

The blizzard had not come, and the moon was shining when George Robbins
and Wesley Orr drove home from town. A basket was carefully held on
Orr's knees. Robbins was caroling the chorus to "Johnny Harvard" and
wishing a health to him and his true love at the top of a hoarse and
husky voice. Orr looked solemnly ahead into the little wavering disk of
radiance that their lantern cast. Once he shivered violently, but he was
not cold. Suddenly he spoke. There was a quiver in his face and his
voice, but all he said was: "Say, he was dead right. We was so desperate
we was crazy. Hope, that was what we needed, and he give it to us; but
how some fellers would have messed that job, getting round to that same
proposal we all wanted to hug him for! And--I'm glad he didn't. I'm
almighty glad we didn't git a chance to do what we set out to do. He was
slick. Say, what is it they call them newspaper boys? Spellbinders?
That's him--a first-class, A-number-one spellbinder!"

THE OBJECT OF THE FEDERATION

"I joined a woman's club in the Federation a little over two years ago,"
said Mrs. Hardy. "I didn't know what was the object then; and to tell
you the truth, I am no wiser now."

"You know as much as I," was her neighbor's reply, politely given, the
neighbor, however, feeling no real interest, at the moment, in anything
outside the approaching election of president, and the gossip regarding
a possible "dark horse" which was buzzing behind her, between some
better informed members of the delegation.

The babble of mighty waters is like the noise that filled the theater.
It surged from the plant-bedecked platform (where it might be likened to
nothing more resonant than the hum of insects of a summer night) through
the auditorium, to the dais under the balconies. The dais was noisy,
always, not because its occupants were any more inclined to talk than
other women, but because it was the rarest thing in the world for them
to hear anyone either on the stage or the floor; and generally, they had
to vote by their eyes, watching the advocates of their pet measures; and
rising or sitting by their example; hence they solaced themselves with
conversation.

At this moment, however, the quiet gentlewoman with the gavel, behind
the long table, had not lifted her hand; and the upper part of the hall
(which being in good