THE COLONEL'S DEFEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 31 May 1907, Page 4

THE COLONEL'S DEFEAT.

The limited was climbing the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge, it was raining and the track was slippery. The big engine puffed slowly and painfully reminding one of tiie grunts of a section hand driving a spike. Every little while it would break into a series of rapid staccato puffs as it struck a particularly glassy rail and then would seem to pause for a moment as if exhausted by the effort. In the smoking compartment sat a man whose mood was in harmony with the outer surroundings and who pulled his cigar in unconscious accord with the groans of the locomotive. His soft hat was drawn down over his eyes his shoulders drooped, and he had the general air of one drawing himself into himself. The red headed man in the corner eyed him with mingled amusement and sympathy. He knew the man and suspected the reason for his dejection, but he had eutcredthe compartment unobserved by the ligure huddled up in the big chair and he liad some doubts about the propriety of breaking through the gloom. But* his desire for companionship would not permit him to remain ipiiet long, and soon ti" broke the sii-mce.

"What's the matter. Colonel I' - he asked cheerily. "You don't look happy." The c.ilonel looking up recognised the questioner and the habit of years at olice transformed him. His dejection vanished and his face beamed as he reached over to shake hands.

"Mighty glad to see you, old man," he exclaimed, ''mighty glad. A yellow dog that I knew would look good to me today, so don't get puffed up. But laying all jokes aside, 'its a great pleasure to have you aboard to-day. The theme of my thought when you broke into my meditations was that saying of Job's or Jeremiah's, or one of those Old Testament characters. I've forgotten which, 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'" "In other words, what's the use?" suggested the red-haired' man. "Yes," assented the Colonel, "that's more modem and fully as expressive of my feelings. Here am 1, after ten years of public service, making my way unhonored and unsung back to my home, back to my little office, where I'll have to clean out the cobwebs and begin, life all over again. Turned down by my constituents, displaced by a measly little upstart who don't even know the way to Washington . An' I've got more public buildings more pensions, more seeds, than any man that ever represented the district. Tell you what, old man, it's a tough deal." And the Colonel was about to relapse into his former melancholy. "Tell me how it happened, Colonel?" said the red-haired man with sympathy in his voice.

"What!" exclaimed the Colonel, "didn't you hear about that! Xo? Sure ? Well, well; there's a little comfort in that, anyway. Maybe I'm not as great as I thought I was; maybe, I didn't fall as far as I thought I did, and if I didn't fall so far maybe I'm not hurt so bad, after all. There's another election next year an' maybe—but IH tell you about it. It's what the Stage people call a serio-comedy; serio enough, tile Lord knows, from my standpoint, but some folks claim they can see some humor in it. There's a fellow down in my district who can get amusement out of the United States Constitution. I've seen folks laugh at King Lear.

"It was all on account of a woman. Xo, Ididnt get tangled up in any scandal. I don't claim to be a saint, but petticoats are not in my line of depravity. This woman was a postmistress down in my district. She'd had the job so long she got to thinkin' the post office was her private property. She was a widow with a tongue as sharp as the sword o 1 Damocles. It got so that people was almost afraid to go after their mail ami I wasn't surprised when, about a year ago. the party leaders in that neighborhood asked me to secure the appointment of a man they endorsed to succeed her. Well, it was purely a local light and none of my affair as I could see, so 1 approved their recommendation without hesitation, and the change was made. Then I supposed the matter was settled and dismissed it from my mind. But I didn't know that woman. She, it seems, held me personally responsible. She didn't say anything just then, nor make any trouble, but she got an axe on the grindstone right away.

"1 went out to my district last spring to do my usual perfunctory campaigning. I'd been nominated by acclamation and while the normal majority of my party in the district is never very large it had always been just about as certain as death and taxes. So I wasn't worryin' a little bit about the results. I just had to run through the notions and the people would do the rest* in November. That's the way I felt about it and that's the way the thing -had worked out every two years before that. Well, my first speech was made at the biggest town in my district. I had prepared it with some eare because it was to be the opening gun and because I had a reputation as an orator to sustain. I went over the whole field of national politics by way of introduction and then I started to get down to business. 'Fellow-citi-zens,' I cried, 'what is the great issue of the hour?' And as I paused for effect, out of the far end of the hall came a clear, strong, soprano voice:

" 'Who stole them buotß V 'A smile ran over the sea of faces before me like a ripple over a mill pond, and some were ill-mannered enough to laugh out aloud. I ignored the interruption and proceeding with my address 1 sized up the situation in language that I though fairly sizzled with eloquence. I felt sorry that Demosthenes and Cicero wasn't there to get pointers. 1 carried the audience with me and every point 1 made was punctuated with cheers. That speech was a hummer if i do say it mv- ; self. I was working up into my peroration and with arms waving and coat tails flapping like the star spangled banner in a Kansas zephyr,. 1 was putting red-hot rivets into an jirgument that was ;i----brilliant as Kimbcily Simond. 'Oh, my fellow-citizens.' 1 was shoutimc. Me

stand like Orestes at tin* lurks of Unload. Tlii* way is disaster; that way is prosperity. Which road shall we lake': Is there before us to-day one question so pregnant as thi-sV Is then* one? Can yon think of <>ut> question so tremendously polent in its possibilities?' And then from away back came that voice again: "'Who stole them hoots?' "Well, sir, old man. I had to finish that speech oil one leg, and that was the beginning of a campaign that for devilish ingenuity was never equalled on thi> continent. Nobody but a woman could have devised it and none but a woman thirst for revenge could have carried it out. I soon found out that it was th<> widow from I'ogram post oflice, and th » way she camped on my trail from star; to finish was something awful. And yet

her scheme was simplicity in itself. ]'■ was nothing more than that one question repeated, repeated, repeated everywhere and every place. Xow T had never stolen any boots and had never been charge ! with stealing any hoots, nor with stealing anything at alt for that matter, I

had always boon proud of my record in tliis particular. There was no direct charge now, nothing but the damnable inference of that question. 1 laughed at it at first; it was so absurd; and everybody seemed to take the same vicnv of the matter, at lirst. But gradually as the campaign proceeded it Wan to have its effect. At every place i would speak that woman would be pvcM«t, and at every appropriate pause in ; : > remarks she would insert her infernal (]U<'stion. 1 tried all manner of means to keep her out of the meetings, but all to no purpose. We couldn't use force. We couldn't eject her. We couldn't, arrest her. Being a woman ally such action would be likely to accomplish my defeat. There was less danger in ignoring her. lint she wouldn't be ignored.

"She didn't rest satisfied with the interjection of the question into my public meetings. She luid big posters printed end ported up on barns and fences at every place I was to speak. These posters had nothing but Use question. 'Who stole the boots'" in great big black let-

ifr.i. Xevev my nune. rimer any reiVrt nre to nic personally, you understand; just the question. She put il in tin? opposition papers, alio scattered thousands of' handbills along my way, she put it on postal cards and sent one to every voter in the district. Even that didn't sa!Wy her. She put the question direct to me in every conceivable form. Each morning my mail contained it, so disguised in its wrapping that it was before me before I knew it. It jumped from under my plate at the hotel; it looked up at nic when 1 turned down the cover of my bed; it was pinned on the back of my coat as I Tvalked through the streets. Can you wonder that I began to see it in my dreams?

"Well, the people who thought it a joke at first began to think there might possibly be something in it. Couldn't see any reason why 1 should want to steal boots, because nobo'dy wears boots i nowadays. lint then you can never tell, you know. Maybe it was something that happened a long time ago. That's the way they talked to themselves. Gradually this feeling grew into the conclusion that I had stolen the boots, and anybody who would steal boots would steal other things. Therefore I wasn't a safe man to trust with 'public responsibilities. You see the logic? Even my best friend got to eyeing me with suspicion, and I grew so thin and haggard under the strain that I looked more like a candidate for a sanatorium than a candidate for Congress. I stuck it though and made speeches every day right up to the end of the campaign. When the votes were counted I lacked about two hundred of having as many as my opponent. And that's why lam starting back homo to-day as a private citizen. I'm" going to live it down, though, bv Jingo."

"Colonel," said the red-headed man "let me oiler you a suggestion. If yoi| want to ran again next year you'll lutvj to side-track that woman. Go back and marry her, Colenl, marry her!" "By Jack, I'll do it," exclaimed the Colonel, "I'll do it, so help me Moses!"