self-convicted falsifier and cheat! A man who snaps his fingers in the
face of the laws of the country! Isn't that a commentary on the
workings of universal suffrage?" This was a caustic summing up on
George's part of the story he had already told Miss Wellington
piecemeal, and he looked at her as much as to ask if his dejection
were not amply justified.

"It's a humiliating performance certainly," she said. "I don't wonder
you are exercised about it. Are there no extenuating circumstances?"
Miss Wellington appeared duly shocked; yet, being a woman of an alert
and cheery disposition, she reached out instinctively for some
palliative before accepting the affair in all its stark offensiveness.

"None which count--none which should weigh for a moment with any one
with patriotic impulses," he answered. "The plea is that the people
down there--Jim Daly's constituents--have no sympathy with the
civil-service examination for public office, and so they think it was
rather smart of him than otherwise to get the better of the law. In
other words, that it's all right to break a law if one doesn't happen
to fancy it. A nation which nurses that point of view is certain to
come to grief."

Mary nodded gravely. "It's a dangerous creed--dangerous, and a little
specious, too. And can nothing be done about it? About Daly, I mean?"

"No. He's an alderman-elect, and the hero of his district. A
wide-awake, square-dealing young man with no vices, as I heard one of
his admirers declare. By the time I return from my trip to the
Mediterranean I expect they will be booming him for Congress."