"Fallen is Caesar!" Jap exploded. "What can we say about him?"
"Nothin' for certain, as Kelly Jones says," Bill lamented.
"I never tried fiction," Jap averred, "but for the honor of the first aspirant to the office of Mayor of Bloomtown, and the greater glory of our Associate Editor, I am going to plunge."
And plunge he did. When the town read the eulogium that Jap spread upon the front page of the Herald it gasped as from a sudden cold plunge, sat up, rubbed its eyes, and concluded that it had somehow failed to understand or appreciate its foremost son. Hollins, the leading grocer, and Bolton, the furniture dealer, had felt the itch for office; and Marquis, the attorney, had stood in his doorway for a week awaiting the delegation that would press upon him the nomination; but all these aspirants faded like poppies in the wake of the reaper. Nobody could be found to buck a sure thing, such as Judge Bowers, backed by the power of the press.
The week after election, the Herald sported fifty small flags through its columns, and quoted Wat Harlow's speech in which he declared that Judge William Hiram Bowers was "the noblest Roman of them all." For which Bill accounted to Jap by the astute observation that Rome was a long way off. The Judge hardly caught Wat's meaning, and came into the office to protest.
"I am afeard that folks 'll think we have Catholic blood in the family," he complained, shaking the paper nervously.
"Mystery is the blood of progress, Pap," assured Bill gravely. "If you will notice, the men that get there always have a skeleton rattling a limb now and then."
"Mis' Bowers don't like it," he objected. "I had to quit the Methodists and be immersed in the Baptists afore she'd have me, and now she's fairly tearin' up the wind over this talk about me bein' a Roman. You gotta correct it!"
"We have given you a hundred dollars' worth of advertising for a measly two-dollar bill," declared Jap emphatically. "The columns of the Herald are free to news. Advertising at our regular rates. Bill will give you particulars."
"Dollar an inch for display," crisped Bill; "ten cents a line for readers." He seated himself, pencil in band, as he added, "payable in advance."