than a hundred miles. The whole business would take about five minutes
to a station. We would put number Two, or number Three, or whichever
it was, on the wire, while the People's Choice was talkin', provided we
could catch the station agent, who on such occasions was bigger than
the President. Then, toot! toot! and we were off for the next Basswood
Junction, to show 'em who was their spontaneous choice.

"Well, that was all right, and it was easy work to report. The only
thing was not to get number One speech mixed up with number Two or
number Three at any given point. The Honorable Secretary had to attend
to that. So all the time we were bored for something to do. What we
was hopin' and longin' for all the time was that some one in the
opposition at some station would haul off and throw a brick at the car.
Then we would have had some News."

"Oh," said I, "you got to wanting news! You had a narrow escape."

"Maybe," said Dan Anderson. "I admit I got to likin' the game. I
think, too, I did get to understandin' what news was. So one day, when
I was mighty tired of the four-factory, railroad-centre,
leadin'-citizen business, I mixed up the speeches on the Honorable
Secretary between stations." Dan Anderson blew a faint wreath of blue
smoke up toward the blue sky and remained silent for a time.

"The next particular Basswood Junction happened to be a Democratic
minin' town, instead of a Republican agricultural community. It didn't
have any overall factories at all. They didn't relish bein' told that
they had voted the straight Republican ticket ever since Alexander
Hamilton, and that they had given to the public that distinguished
citizen, James K. Blinkensop, when the man they had really given to the