Winthrop Chase, Senior, hesitated. He hesitated for so long that Amos asked blandly: “Er--anything else?”

“No, no-o,” Chase decided then. “No--I’ll come.”

“That’s good,” said Amos; and hung up, and came back to his chair with a pleasant smile upon his countenance.

Almost immediately, some one knocked on the door. From the sitting room, the door was open into the hall, so that Amos heard the knock easily. There was a bell, and most people rang the bell; but Peter Gergue always knocked, so Amos called out confidently: “Come in, Pete.”

Listening, he heard the front door open. Then it closed, and Gergue came slowly along the hall and into the room. Amos looked up and nodded.

“Evening, Peter. Glad t’see you. Take a chair. Any chair.”

Peter put his hat on the table and dragged a morris chair before the fire. He sat down, still without speaking, and extended his feet toward the fire in imitation of Amos. Amos’ hands were clasped across his middle, and Gergue clasped his hands there too. Thus they remained for a little time silent.

But such a position put Gergue under too great a handicap. He had to get his fingers into his hair; and so presently he unclasped his hands and began to rummage through the tangle at the nape of his neck for his medulla, as though hunting for something. Apparently, he found it; for after a moment he said slowly: “Well, Amos, we’re licked.”

Amos turned his head and studied Gergue. “Do tell!” he exclaimed at last.

Gergue nodded. “Hollow ain’t got any more chance of being Mayor than--than young Wint Chase has.”

This seemed to startle Amos. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, closed it again, then asked: “Young Wint! What makes you say that?”

“We-ell--no more chance than I got, then,” Gergue amended.

The Congressman seemed satisfied with the amendment. He wagged his head as though deploring the situation, then asked: “Why? What’s Jim done?”

Gergue looked at Amos reproachfully. “We-ell, you know Jim.”

“Always does the right thing, don’t he?”

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