Routt shook him gently, cuffed his cheeks smartly. “Wint! Wint! Come out of it! Come on. Let’s go to my house. Let’s go home.”

Wint recognized the others. “H’lo, V. R.,” he said amiably. “V. R., why this sudd’n s’lic’tude?”

V. R. Kite was not a bashful man. He was enjoying himself. “I came to take you home--take you to some respectable house,” he declared. “This is no place for you.”

Mrs. Moody broke into objurgations. But one of Kite’s companions deftly hustled her into the hall, and silenced her there. Wint persisted:

“Why don’ this place suit me all right? I wanna know, V. R.”

Routt looked at Kite, and Kite said oracularly: “Because, my friend, the voters of Hardiston have elected you their next Mayor.”

Wint was swaying a little in Routt’s arms; and for a time his face remained blank. Then it assumed a puzzled look. In the end he asked, his voice less unsteady: “What’s--that?”

“You’re elected Mayor, Wint,” Routt told him. “Brace up.”

Wint sat up slowly, pushing Routt’s arms aside. “You mean--my father, don’t you?”

Routt shook his head; and Kite said pompously: “No, not your father. Yourself. The voters wrote in your name on the ballots....”

They saw a slow sweep of red flood Wint’s face; and for an instant his eyes closed as though he were fainting. The flush passed and left him pale. He got up, stood erect, unsteady, then firm. He shed drunkenness as though it were a cloak, throwing it off with a backward movement of his shoulders.They watched him, waiting; and V. R. Kite suddenly moved a little toward the door, half afraid. Then Wint burst out on them. He waved his hands furiously. 

“Routt!” he shouted. “This is a poor joke. It’s a damn poor joke. You Kite, you old whited sepulchre. You panderer, you worse than a prostitute--get out of here! Jack--I counted you my friend. You’re all dogs, cowards, rascals! Get out! If I choose to lie drunk in this shack--I’ll lie here. None of you shall stop me. It’s not your affair. It’s mine. Mine! Get out! The last one of you! Get out!”

He was so furious that they obeyed him. Routt tried to protest, but Wint gripped him by the shoulders and whirled him and thrust him toward the door. They tumbled over each other into the hall. Even V. R. Kite lost his dignity. Wint pursued them, cursing them. He drove them 

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