charger, the perplexed candidate became so confused that he kissed
the paper napkin and autographed the baby.

He found Quimbleton a stern ringleader. Virgil was not satisfied
with the old-fashioned method of stumping the country from the
taff-rail of a Pullman car, and insisted on strapping Bleak into
the cockpit of a biplane and flying him from city to city. They
would land in some central square, and the candidate, deafened and
half-frozen, would stammer a few halting remarks. He felt it
rather keenly that Quimbleton looked down on his lack of
oratorical gift, and it was a frequent humiliation that when words
did not prosper on his tongue his impatient pilot would turn on
the motors and zoom off into space in the very middle of a
sentence.

Nevertheless, the campaign went famously. Bleak had one
considerable advantage in being comparatively unknown. He had
never permitted himself the luxury of making enemies: except for a
few ex-reporters who had once worked on the Balloon he had not a
foe in the world. Quimbleton had been eager to import a covey of
gunmen from other cities, but when these arrived there was really
nothing for them to do. They were glad to accept jobs from Bishop
Chuff, and were well paid for waylaying and sniping the few grapes
and apples that had escaped previous pogroms.

There was only one plank in Bleak's modest platform, but he walked
it so happily that it began to look like a gangplank leading onto
the Ship of State. He expressed his doctrine very agreeably in his
speech accepting the party nomination; though credit should be
given to Theodolinda, who had assisted him by a little private