"The district is hopelessly Republican, in the first place, my dear, and I, as you know, am a Democrat."
Josephine looked grave for a moment. "But a great many Republicans would vote for you, Fred. Oh, I am sure they would!" she added, eagerly, impressed by the plausibility of the idea. "Harry Bolles is a Republican, and I am certain he would vote for you; so would Dr. Meredith and Sam Bangs."
"They are three out of several thousand voters in the district, Josephine. You argue like the committee which waited upon me."
"They said a great many Republicans would vote for you, didn't they? And they thought you would be elected?"
"They were kind enough to state that I had a good fighting chance; which means, my dear, that I haven't the ghost of a show."
Josephine regarded me a moment distrustfully. "It doesn't seem to me there is any use in being too modest about such a matter as this, Fred. Somebody has to be elected, and it might as well be you as anybody. I have always hoped you would go into politics, you know. If they hadn't wanted you they wouldn't have asked you."
"The only certain thing about it is, that, if they had supposed I could possibly be elected, they wouldn't have offered me the nomination."
"What do you mean, Fred? I call that mock modesty, darling."
I did not consider that I was called upon to unfold more particularly to my wife the cynical estimate of the case which I entertained in my secret soul, especially in view of the fact that the committee which had waited upon me comprised not merely politicians, but some of our best citizens. Although a man who is invited to run for Congress in a district hopelessly hostile is likely to cherish secret suspicions as to the sincerity of those who offer him the nomination, the bait of self-sacrifice for the public good has lured many a cleverer man than I to his destruction. Besides, a fighting chance invariably seems more prodigious to the one who is said to have it, than to anyone else. There were certainly weak joints in the armor (an analogy supplied me by the committee) of my opponent, who was a dyed-in-the-wool politician, and indisputably I had a great many friends. Could I afford to disregard the piteous, eloquent argument of the spokesman, Honorable David Flint, that the sacred cause of Reform demanded me as its champion, and that victory was possible only under my banner? I had promised to think it over, which was a coy way of stating that I would accept. Having made up my mind to run, I was obliged to tell Josephine that this would mean good-by for many a long and weary month to our jaunt.
"If you're elected, Fred, I shall be only too glad to postpone it. And if by any chance you don't get in, we'll forget all about it in dear Japan."