From that moment began the Golden Age on Lone Palm for Mr. Higgins. With flattering frequency he drank healths to the Grand Old Party, then to the party “that gave birth to Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, sah!”
But no maiden, pressed by two suitors, was ever more coy in avowing a choice than he.
A week before election the Captain’s and the Colonel’s liquor ran out. Mr. Higgins, to his horror, began to get sober. The day before election the Captain and his sloop disappeared. The Colonel did not wait to investigate. He also hoisted sail for Key West. That night both the Captain and the Colonel unloaded mysterious cargoes. At midnight, after wandering constantly between the Captain’s bungalow and the lighthouse, Mr. Higgins fell down in the sand, impartially between the two abodes. The Captain and the Colonel, in silence, removed the political enigma to his sail-cloth tent.
Mr. Higgins did not appear at the polls until nearly noon. It was evident that the combination of Jamaica rum and Kentucky mountain dew had made terrible ravages on a constitution even so immune to spirituous shocks as his.
“Drink’s the cause o’ this here country’s goin’ to the dorgs,” he remarked, through pallid, parched lips, as he entered the booth.
His ballot cast, he disappeared, still enwrapped in mystery and silence.
At exactly six o’clock the Colonel arose.
“The polls of the Sixty-sixth Precinct, Monroe County, State of Florida, are now closed. We will proceed to count votes, Captain Hartford!”
The Colonel thrust into the box a hand that shook in spite of him and drew out a ballot.
“One Republican!”