The decline of the American press was a familiar topic of conversation at the Craighill breakfast table, but to-day it served to divert attention from the great issue of the hour. When Wayne had finished with the papers he told the maid to take them away and addressed himself to the simple breakfast.
“They talk of running John for mayor,” remarked Colonel Craighill, “and I hope he’ll consent to be the Municipal League’s candidate. He’d have the support of the best element beyond a doubt.”
“Beyond a doubt,” Wayne repeated, not particularly interested in his brother-in-law’s political ambitions; “but that wouldn’t elect him. We’ve had reform candidates before who were just as good as John. They start all right, but they don’t finish.”
“All we can do in such matters is to keep up the fight. The powers of evil can’t prevail forever.”
“No; but they work with the boys in the trenches while the rest of us abuse them over expensive dinners. There’s a practical difference. This town’s all right. If we’d stop abusing it and suppress the muck-rakers we might get somewhere.”
“I’m glad Fanny takes my marriage in good part,” remarked Colonel Craighill, to whom Wayne’s political views were not important. Wayne answered cheerfully for his sister’s acceptance of the new situation in family affairs.
“Oh, Fanny’s all right! You can always be sure she’ll rise to an occasion.”
“Fanny is a fine woman,” declared Colonel Craighill.
“She is all of that,” replied Wayne.
“I used to fear, in her young girlhood, that she was a trifle flighty; but marriage settled her wonderfully.”