always too long, even when he has just emerged from the barber’s chair. This long, black hair is Gergue’s sole affectation. It is his custom, when the barber has finished his ministrations, to rumple the hair on the back of his head and rub it with his fingers until it is matted and tangled in a fashion to defy the comb. He is conscious of doing this, and has been known to explain the action. And his explanation is always the same.

“When I was a boy,” he says, “I used to comb the top of my head and slick it down, but I never got at the back much. So I got used to having it tangled; and now I don’t feel right if it’s smooth.” So he keeps it religiously tangled; and at moments of deep thought, his fingers stray into this maze as though searching for his medulla oblongata in the hope of finding some idea there.

Gergue’s office is above that of the Building and Loan Company, on Main Street, opposite the Court House. There are spider webs in the corners and on the windows; there is dust on everything. The floor of soft wood has been worn till every knot stands up like a wart, and every nail protrudes its shining head. Against one wall, there is a wardrobe of walnut, higher than a man. Within this piece some law books are piled, and a few rusty garments hang. In the summer, moths nest here; in the winter they hibernate in their nests. The garments have not been disturbed for years, and now their fabric looks more like mosquito netting than honest broadcloth and serge.

Gergue has an old kitchen table, covered with oilcloth, near the windows that overlook the street. There is an iron inkwell on this table, a pen, and a miscellaneous litter of papers, while at one side of the table, on the window sill, stands his notary’s seal and a disused letter press. The oilcloth top of the table has worn through in many places, and the soft wood beneath is polished to a not unlovely luster by constant usage.

Toward train time of the day Congressman Caretall was to come home, Gergue was in this office of his. James T. Hollow was with him, sitting stiffly in a chair that was too narrow for his pudgy bulk. James T. Hollow was a candidate for Mayor. Amos Caretall was supporting him. And Gergue, as Caretall’s first lieutenant, had asked Hollow to go with him to the train to meet the Congressman. Hollow had obeyed the summons, and now waited Gergue’s pleasure. He was smiling with a determined, though tremulous, amiability.

"I’ve always aimed to do what was right,” he explained hurriedly. They had been discussing the chance of his election.

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