“Mr. Johnson,” said he—­I was passing as Johnson at that time, I remember—­“Mr. Johnson, I think it is an effective method.  Personally I might perhaps prefer another line of argument in this particular case, and personally perhaps you might; but in our profession personal considerations must be blown to the winds of the horizon; we must sink the individual.  In opposing the election of your relative, sir, you have set the seal of your heavy displeasure upon the sin of nepotism, and for this I respect you; nepotism must be got under!  But in the display of Roman virtues, sir, we must go the whole hog.  When in the interest of public morality”—­Mr. Masthead was now gesticulating earnestly with the sleeves of his coat—­“Virginius stabbed his daughter, was he influenced by personal considerations?  When Curtius leaped into the yawning gulf, did he not sink the individual?”

I admitted that he did, but feeling in a contentious mood, prolonged the discussion by leisurely loading and capping a revolver; but, prescient of my argument, Mr. Masthead avoided refutation by hastily adjourning the debate.  I sent him a note that evening, filling-in a few of the details of the policy that I had before sketched in outline.  Amongst other things I submitted that it would be better for us to exalt Mr. Scandril’s opponent than to degrade himself.  To this Mr. Masthead reluctantly assented—­“sinking the individual,” he reproachfully explained, “in the dependent employee—­the powerless bondsman!” The next issue of the Thundergust contained, under the heading, “Invigorating Zephyrs,” the following editorial article: 

“Last week we declared our unalterable opposition to the candidacy of Mr. Jefferson Scandril, and gave reasons for the faith that is in us.  For the first time in its history this paper made a clear, thoughtful, and adequate avowal and exposition of eternal principle!  Abandoning for the present the stand we then took, let us trace the antecedents of Mr. Scandril’s opponent up to their source.  It has been urged against Mr. Broskin that he spent some years of his life in the lunatic asylum at Warm Springs, in the adjoining commonwealth of Missouri.  This cuckoo cry—­raised though it is by dogs of political darkness—­we shall not stoop to controvert, for it is accidentally true; but next week we shall show, as by the stroke of an enchanter’s wand, that this great statesman’s detractors would probably not derive any benefits from a residence in the same institution, their mental aberration being rottenly incurable!”

I thought this rather strong and not quite to the point; but Masthead said it was a fact that our candidate, who was very little known in Claybank, had “served a term” in the Warm Springs asylum, and the issue must be boldly met—­that evasion and denial were but forms of prostration beneath the iron wheels of Truth!  As he said this he seemed to inflate and expand so as almost to fill his clothes, and the