audience--a crowded one--is getting impatient," Bailey went on.
"We've got to begin somehow. The other side have a speaker whom they can
put on, but we--"

"Go on yourself, Bailey," said Mrs. Mason. "You'll have to. We can fill
up the time somehow until Gertrude comes."

After a hurried consultation with the representatives from Allingham's
committee, the meeting was opened and the speaking began. But although
those who addressed the audience were eloquent enough, they were
unprepared, and moreover, were conscious that their listeners were
keeping one eye upon the door; in short, everybody present desired only
to hear the two appointed speakers; so that the affair was most
perfunctory. The minutes grew into hours, and these did not arrive. Mrs.
Mason, Mrs. Bateman, even Mary Snow, were sent out to the platform to
represent the woman's side, and although they were well received, the
meeting broke up at eleven o'clock with a distinct sense of
disappointment, not to say failure. The audience dispersed with but one
question:

"Where are they? and why have they not come?"

A little after two, Gertrude called up Mrs. Bateman and told her of the
events which had transpired since she had started out for the joint
debate; but it was too late to send explanations to any other member of
the committee.

"Are you going to let it get into the newspapers?" asked Mrs. Bateman.

"Not I," said Gertrude. "Think what a miserable sensation it would
make."

"Then I must call up Allingham's house and ask them to suppress it,"
answered Mrs. Bateman. "But what excuse can we make? Something must be
said in explanation."

"I don't know," said Gertrude wearily. "I leave that to you and Judge
Bateman. I do not want it to get into the newspapers."

"Very well; then I will call up the Allingham's" responded Mrs. Bateman.
Which she did, and found that Mrs. Allingham was horror-stricken at the
bare suggestion that the kidnaping of her son should be written up for
the press.

"He is asleep," she said, "and has been since the doctor put on his last
bit of plaster; but as soon as he wakens I will ask him what I shall
tell you to say. Anyhow, we will keep it out of the papers, if
possible."

But all the same the next morning the story was featured in every
journal in town, with more or less display according to the style of
each individual paper. Naturally, the more conservative of them strove
to tell the story correctly and insinuated that