In the regular course of political events, Laird was renominated on a fusion ticket. Thereupon the old ring, which had so long battened on the corruption or local government, put up a sleek and presentable figurehead. Marrineal nominated himself amidst the Homeric laughter of the professional politicians. How's he goin' to get anywhere, they demanded with great relish of the joke, when he ain't got any organization at-tall! Presently the savor oozed out of that joke. Marrineal, it appeared, did have an organization, of sorts; worse, he had gathered to him, by methods not peculiarly his own, the support of the lesser East-Side foreign language press, which may or may not have believed in his protestations of fealty to the Common People, but certainly did appreciate the liberality of his political advertising appropriation, advertising, in this sense, to be accorded its freest interpretation. Worst of all, he had Banneker.

Banneker's editorials, not upon Marrineal himself (for he was too shrewd for that), but upon the cause of which Marrineal was standard-bearer, were persuasive, ingenious, forceful, and, to the average mind, convincing. Was Banneker himself convinced? It was a question which he resolutely refused to follow to its logical conclusion. Of the justice of the creed which The Patriot upheld, he was perfectly confident. But did Marrineal represent that creed? Did he represent anything but Marrineal? Stifling his misgivings, Banneker flung himself the more determinedly into the fight. It became apparent that he was going to swing an important fraction of the labor vote, despite the opposition of such clear-eyed leaders as McClintick. To this extent he menaced the old ring rather than the forces of reform, led by Laird and managed by Enderby. On the other hand, he was drawing from Laird, in so far as he still influenced the voters who had followed The Patriot in its original support of the reform movement. That Marrineal could not be elected, both of his opponents firmly believed; and in this belief, notwithstanding his claims of forthcoming victory, the independent candidate privately concurred. It would be enough, for the time, to defeat decisively whichever rival he turned his heaviest guns upon in the final onset; that would insure his future political prestige. Thus far, in his speeches, he had hit out impartially at both sides, denouncing the old ring for its corruption, girding at Laird as a fake reformer secretly committed to Wall Street through Judge Enderby, corporation lawyer, as intermediary.

Herein Banneker had refrained from following him. Ever the cat at the hole's mouth, the patient lurker, the hopeful waiter upon the event, the proprietor of The Patriot forbore to press his editorial chief. He still mistrusted the strength of his hold upon Banneker; feared a defiance when he could ill afford to meet it. What he most hoped was some development which would turn Banneker's heavy guns upon Laird so that, with the defeat of the fusion ticket candidate, the public would say, "The Patriot made him and The Patriot broke him."

Laird played into Marrineal's hands. Indignant at what he regarded as a desertion of principles by The Patriot, the fusion nominee, in one of his most important addresses, devoted a stinging ten minutes to a consideration of that paper, its proprietor, and its editorial writer, in its chosen role of "friend of labor." His text was the Veridian strike, his information the version which McClintick furnished him; he cited Banneker by name, and challenged him as a prostituted mind and a corrupted pen. Though Laird had spoken as he honestly believed, he did not have the whole story; McClintick, in his account, had ignored the important fact that Marrineal, upon being informed of conditions, had actually (no matter what his motive) remedied them. Banneker, believing that Laird was fully apprised, as he knew Enderby to be, was outraged. This alleged reformer, this purist in politics, this apostle of honor and truth, was holding him up to contumely, through half-truths, for a course which any decent man must, in conscience, have followed. He composed a seething editorial, tore it up, substituted another wherein he made reply to the charges, in a spirit of ingenuity rather than ingenuousness, for The Patriot case, while sound, was one which could not well be thrown open to The Patriot's public; and planned vengeance when the time should come.

Io, on a brief trip from Philadelphia, lunched with him that week, and found him distrait.

"It's only politics," he said. "You're not interested in politics," and, as usual, "Let's talk about you."

She gave him that look which was like a smile deep in the shadows of her eyes. "Ban, do you know the famous saying of Terence?"

He quoted the "Homo sum." "That one?" he asked.

She nodded. "Now, hear my version: 'I am a woman; nothing that touches _my_ man is alien to my interests.'"

He laughed. But there was a note of gratitude in his voice, almost humble, as he said: "You're the only woman in the world, Io, who can quote the classics and not seem a prig."

"That's because I'm beautiful," she retorted impudently. "_Tell_ me I'm beautiful, Ban!"

"You're the loveliest witch in the world," he cried.

"So much for flattery. Now--politics."

He recounted the Laird charges.

"No; that wasn't fair," she agreed. "It was most unfair. But I don't believe Bob Laird knew the whole story. Did you ask him?"

"Ask him? I certainly did not. You don't understand much about politics, dearest."

"I was thinking of it from the point of view of the newspaper. If you're going to answer him in The Patriot, I should think you'd want to know just what his basis was. Besides, if he's wrong, I believe he'd take it back."

"After all the damage has been done. He won't get the chance." Banneker's jaw set firm.

"What shall you do now?"

"Wait my chance, load my pen, and shoot to kill."

"Let me see the editorial before you print it."

"All right, Miss Meddlesome. But you won't let your ideas of fair play run away with you and betray me to the enemy? You're a Laird man, aren't you?"

Her voice fell to a caressing half-note. "I'm a Banneker woman--in everything. Won't you ever remember that?"

"No. You'll never be that. You'll always be Io; yourself; remote and unattainable in the deeper sense."

"Do _you_ say that?" she answered.

"Oh, don't think that I complain. You've made life a living glory for me. Yet"--his face grew wistful--"I suppose--I don't know how to say it--I'm like the shepherd in the poem,

'Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade.'

Io, why do I always think in poetry, when I'm with you?"

"I want you always to," she said, which was a more than sufficient answer.

Io had been back in Philadelphia several days, and had 'phoned Banneker that she was coming over on the following Tuesday, when, having worked at the office until early evening, he ran around the corner to Katie's for dinner. At the big table "Bunny" Fitch of The Record was holding forth.

Fitch was that invaluable type of the political hack-writer, a lackey of the mind, instinctively subservient to his paper's slightest opinion, hating what it hates, loving what it loves, with the servile adherence of a medieval churchman. As The Record was bitter upon reform, its proprietor having been sadly disillusioned in youth by a lofty but abortive experiment in perfecting human nature from which he never recovered, Bunny lost no opportunity to damn all reformers.

"Can't you imagine the dirty little snob," he was saying, as Banneker entered, "creeping and fawning and cringing for their favors? Up for membership at The Retreat. Dines with Poultney Masters, Jr., at his club. Can't you hear him running home to wifie all het up and puffed like a toad, and telling her about it?"

"Who's all this, Bunny?" inquired Banneker, who had taken in only the last few words.

"Our best little society climber, the Honorable Robert Laird," returned the speaker, and reverted to his inspirational pen-picture: "Runs home to wifie and crows, 'What do you think, my dear! Junior Masters called me 'Bob' to-day!"

In a flash, the murderous quality of the thing bit into Banneker's sensitive brain. "Junior Masters called me 'Bob' to-day." The apotheosis of snobbery! Swift and sure poison for the enemy if properly compounded with printer's ink. How pat it fitted in with the carefully fostered conception, insisted upon in every speech by Marrineal, of the mayor as a Wall Street and Fifth Avenue tool and toady!

But what exactly had Bunny Fitch said? Was he actually quoting Laird? If so, direct or from hearsay? Or was he merely paraphrasing or perhaps only characterizing? There was a dim ring in Banneker's cerebral ear of previous words, half taken in, which would indicate the latter--and ruin the deadly plan, strike the poison-dose from his hand. Should he ask Fitch? Pin him down to the details?

The character-sketcher was now upon the subject of Judge Enderby. "Sly old wolf! Wants to be senator one of these days. Or maybe governor. A 'receptive' candidate! Wah! Pulls every wire he can lay hand on, and then waits for the honor to be forced upon him.... Good Lord! It's eight o'clock. I'm late."

Dropping a bill on the table he hurried out. Half-minded to stop him, Banneker took a second thought. Why should he? His statement had been definite. Anyway, he could be called up on the morrow. Dining hastily and in deep, period-building thought, Banneker returned to the office, locked himself in, and with his own hand drafted the editorial built on that phrase of petty and terrific import: "Junior Masters called me 'Bob' to-day."

After it was written he would not for the world have called up Fitch to verify the central fact. He couldn't risk it. He scheduled the broadside for the second morning following.... But there was Io! He had promised. Well, he was to meet her at a dinner party at the Forbes's. She could see it then, if she hadn't forgotten.... No; that, too, was a subterfuge hope. Io never forgot.

As if to assure the resumption of their debate, the talk of the Forbes dinner table turned to the mayoralty fight. Shrewd judges of events and tendencies were there; Thatcher Forbes, himself, not the least of them; it was the express opinion that Laird stood a very good chance of victory.

"Unless they can definitely pin the Wall Street label on him," suggested some one.

"That might beat him; it's the only thing that could," another opined.

Hugging his withering phrase to his heart, Banneker felt a growing exultation.

"Nobody but The Patriot--" began Mrs. Forbes contemptuously, when she abruptly recalled who was at her table. "The newspapers are doing their worst, but I think they won't make people believe much of it," she amended.

"Is Laird really the Wall Street candidate?" inquired Esther Forbes.

Parley Welland, Io's cousin, himself an amateur polit............