and contented with his lot. And what do you suppose he found when he
returned home? He had been nominated for alderman. It is too early to
predict the fate of this unhappy man. And what tools Fate uses with
which to carve out her devious peculiar patterns! An Apache Indian,
besmeared with brilliant greases and smelling of the water that never
freezes, an understudy to Cupid? Fudge! you will say, or Pshaw! or
whatever slang phrase is handy and, prevalent at the moment you read
and run.

I personally warn you that this is a really-truly story, though I do
not undertake to force you to believe it; neither do I purvey many
grains of salt. If Truth went about her affairs laughing, how many
more persons would turn and listen! For my part, I believe it all
nonsense the way artists have pictured Truth. The idea is pretty
enough, but so far as hitting things, it recalls the woman, the
stone, and the hen. I am convinced that Truth goes about dressed in
the dowdiest of clothes, with black-lisle gloves worn at the fingers,
and shoes run down in the heels, an exact portrait of one of Phil
May's lydies. Thus it is that we pass her by, for the artistic sense
in every being is repelled at the sight of a dowdy with weeping eyes
and a nose that has been rubbed till it is as red as a winter apple.
Anyhow, if she _does_ go about in beautiful nudity, she ought at
least to clothe herself with smiles and laughter. There are sorry
enough things in the world as it is, without a lachrymal,
hypochondriacal Truth poking her face in everywhere.

Not many months ago, while seated on the stone veranda in the rear of
the Metropolitan Club in Washington (I believe we were discussing the
merits of some very old product), I recounted some of the lighter
chapters of this adventure.