"I believe you!" said Mr. Curtis, emphatically, for our old friend it was. "It is the sovereign people's pleasure to go mad about their favorite just now, and, like spoiled children, they must be humored. What a thing the mob is, to be sure! They would shout as heartily and with as good a will if Wildair were to be hung to-night as inaugurated. Since the days when they shouted 'Crucify Him! crucify Him! Release unto us Barrabas!' they have remained unchanged."
"I hope you don't mean to insinuate that there is any resemblance between the Jewish malefactor and the American governor—eh, Curtis?" said his friend, laughing.
"By no means, Captain Arlingford. Wildair deserves his popularity; he is a great statesman, a real friend of his admirers, the people, and with genius enough to steer the whole republic himself. He has fought his way up; he has fought for equal rights, liberty, fraternity, equality—the French dodge, you know—and deserves to be what he is, the people's idol. Never in this good Yankee town was a new governor greeted so enthusiastically; never did the mob shout themselves hoarse with such a right good will. By Jove! I envied him to-day, as he stood on the balcony of the hotel, with his hat off, while the sea of human beings below shouted and shouted, until they could shout no longer. It was a reception fit for a king; and never did a king look more kingly and noble than at that moment of triumph did he."
Captain Arlingford laughed.
"Whew! there's enthusiasm for you! My sober, steady-headed friend, Dick Curtis, starting off in this manner, and longing for public popularity! I confess I should like to have witnessed his triumphal entry to-day though. I have heard that the ladies absolutely buried him alive in the showers of bouquets from the windows."
"Didn't they!" said Mr. Curtis laughing at the recollection. "As his secretary, I sat in the carriage with him, and, 'pon my honor, I was half smothered under the load of fragrant favors. Such a waving of cambric handkerchiefs, too, and how the crowd doffed their hats and hurrahed! It excites me even yet to think of it; but there sat Wildair touching his chapeau, and bowing right and left, 'with that easy grace that wins all hearts,' to quote our friend and your admirer, Miss Harper, a little."
"That last bill about the people's rights did the business for him," said Captain Arlingford, meditatively; "what a strong case he made out in their favor, and what an excitement it created! Well, it's a famous thing to be clever, after all; I knew it was in him, but it might never have come out so forcibly, had it not been for that loss of his two years ago. And it appears she is a genius too. To think she should have painted that blood-chilling picture of Hagar, and found a brother in that poet, Randall. Don't things turn up strangely, Curtis? I wonder where she has gone, and if she will ever come back."
"Don't know! Like as not," said Mr. Curtis, sententiously.
"Splendid-looking girl she was, wasn't she, Curtis?" continued Arlingford, pursuing his own train of thought.
"Magnificent eyes, a step like an empress, and the smile of an angel."