ewing Machine, paid his friends
in Prospect school district a visit; that Jasper Adams has been promoted
to superintendent of deliveries in Wright & Perry's store; that Kenyon
Adams entertained his friends in the Fifth Grade of the South Harvey
schools with a violin solo on the last day of school; that Grant Adams
had been made assistant to the secretary of the National Building Trades
Association in South Harvey; that Mr. George Brotherton with Miss Emma
Morton and Martha and Ruth had enjoyed a pleasant visit with the Adamses
Sunday afternoon and had resumed an enjoyable buggy ride after partaking
of a chicken dinner. In the editorial column were some reflections
evidently in Mr. Left's most lucid style and a closing paragraph
containing this: "Happiness and character," said the Peach Blow
Philosopher, "are inseparable: but how easy it is to be happy in a
great, beautiful house; or to be unhappy if it comes to that in a great,
beautiful house: Environment may influence character; but all the good
are not poor, nor all the rich bad. Therefore, the Peach Blow
Philosopher takes to the woods. He is willing to leave something to the
Lord Almighty and the continental congress. Selah!"

As Dr. Nesbit sat reading the items above set forth upon the broad new
veranda of the residence that he was so proud to call his home, he
smiled. It was late afternoon. He had done a hard day's work--some of it
among the sick, some of it among the needy--the needy in the Doctor's
bright lexicon being those who tried to persuade him that they needed
political offices. "I cheer up the sick, encourage the needy, pray for
'em both, and sometimes for their own good have to lie to 'em all," he
used to say in that day when the duties of his profession and the care
of his station as a ruling boss in politics were oppressing him. Dr.
Nesbit played politics as a game. But he played always to win.

"Old Linen Pants is a bland old scoundrel," declared Public Opinion,
about the corridors of the political hotel at the capital. "But he is as
ruthless as iron, as smooth as oil, and as bitter as poison when he sets
his head on a proposition. Buy?--he buys men in all the ways the devil
teaches them to sell--offices, power, honor, cash in hand, promises,
prestige--anything that a man wants, Old Linen Pants will trade for, and
then get that man. Humorous old devil, too," quoth Public Opinion.
"Laughs, quotes scripture, throws in a little Greek philosophy, and
kn