livered, and publicly compared them with prices paid
for similar amounts of the same material used in other buildings. So the
public was kept aware of what was going on and the cry of cheapness for
political purposes set at naught. It was the first public structure
erected by the city, and by all means the cheapest and best of all the
city's buildings.

Excellent as these services were in their way, the mayor realized later
that a powerful opposition was being generated and that if he were to
retain the interest of his constituents he would have to set about
something which would endear him and his cause to the public.

"I may be honest," he told one of his friends, "but honesty will play a
lone hand with these people. The public isn't interested in its own
welfare very much. It can't be bothered or hasn't the time. What I need
is something that will impress it and still be worth while. I can't be
reelected on promises, or on my looks, either."

When he looked about him, however, he found the possibility of
independent municipal action pretty well hampered by mandatory
legislation. He had promised, for instance, to do all he could to lower
the exorbitant gas rate and to abolish grade crossings, but the law said
that no municipality could do either of these things without first
voting to do so three years in succession--a little precaution taken by
the corporation representing such things long before he came into power.
Each vote must be for such contemplated action, or it could not become a
law.

"I know well enough that promises are all right," he said to one of his
friends, "and that these laws are good enough excuses, but the public
won't take excuses from me for three years. If I want to be mayor again
I want to be doing something, and doing it quick."

In the city was a gas corporation, originally capitalized at $45,000,
and subsequently increased to $75,000, which was earning that year the
actual sum of $58,000 over and above all expenses. It was getting ready
to inflate the capitalization, as usual, and water its stock to the
extent of $500,000, when it occurred to the mayor that if the
corporation was making such enormous profits out of a $75,000 investment
as to be able to offer to pay six per cent on $500,000 to investors, and
put the money it would get for such stocks into its pocket, perhaps it
could reduce the price of gas from one dollar and nineteen cents to a
more reasonable figure. There was the th