later.

An actual conversation which occurred on one of the outlying street
corners one evening about dusk will best illustrate the entire
situation.

"Who is the man, anyway?" asked one citizen of a total stranger whom he
had chanced to meet.

"Oh, no one in particular, I think. A grocery clerk, they say."

"Astonishing, isn't it? Why, I never thought those people would get
anything. Why, they didn't even figure last year."

"Seems to be considerable doubt as to just what he'll do."

"That's what I've been wondering. I don't take much stock in all their
talk about anarchy. A man hasn't so very much power as mayor."

"No," said the other.

"We ought to give him a trial, anyway. He's won a big fight. I should
like to see him, see what he looks like."

"Oh, nothing startling. I know him."

"Rather young, ain't he?"

"Yes."

"Where did he come from?"

"Oh, right around here."

"Was he a mill-hand?"

"Yes."

The stranger made inquiry as to other facts and then turned off at a
corner.

"Well," he observed at parting, "I don't know. I'm inclined to believe
in the man. I should like to see him myself. Good-night."

"Good-night," said the other, waving his hand. "When you see me again
you will know that you are looking at the mayor."

The inquirer stared after him and saw a six-foot citizen, of otherwise
medium proportions, whose long, youthful face and mild gray eyes, with
just a suggestion of washed-out blue in them, were hardly what was to be
expected of a notorious and otherwise astounding political figure.

"He is too young," was the earliest comments, when the public once
became aware of his personality.

"Why, he is nothing but a grocery clerk," was another, the skeptical and
condemnatory possibilities of which need not be dilated upon here.

And he was, in his way--nothing much of a genius, as such things go in
politics, but an interesting figure. Without much taste (or its
cultivated shadow) or great vision of any kind, he was still a man who
sensed the evils of great and often unnecessary social inequalities and
the need of reorganizing influences, which would tend to narrow the vast
gulf between the unorganized and ignorant poor, and the huge
beneficiaries of unearned (yes, and not even understood) increment. For
what does the economic wisdom of the average capitalist amount to, after
all: the narrow, gourmandizing hunger of the average multi-millionaire?

At any rate, people watched hi