The General was on his feet as if by the touch of a spring.

“I must go!”

“Ah! no, papa,” said the son.

“But, yes, I must.”

“But wait, papa, I had just now something to speak of”—­

“Well?” said the General, standing with his hand on the door, and with rather a dark countenance.

Dr. Mossy touched his fingers to his forehead, trying to remember.

“I fear I have—­ah!  I rejoice to see your name before the public, dear papa, and at the head of the ticket.”

The General’s displeasure sank down like an eagle’s feathers.  He smiled thankfully, and bowed.

“My friends compelled me,” he said.

“They think you will be elected?”

“They will not doubt it.  But what think you, my son?”

Now the son had a conviction which it would have been madness to express, so he only said: 

“They could not elect one more faithful.”

The General bowed solemnly.

“Perhaps the people will think so; my friends believe they will.”

“Your friends who have used your name should help you as much as they can, papa,” said the Doctor.  “Myself, I should like to assist you, papa, if I could.”

“A-bah!” said the pleased father, incredulously.

“But, yes,” said the son.

A thrill of delight filled the General’s frame. This was like a son.

“Thank you, my son!  I thank you much.  Ah, Mossy, my dear boy, you make me happy!”

“But,” added Mossy, realizing with a tremor how far he had gone, “I see not how it is possible.”

The General’s chin dropped.

“Not being a public man,” continued the Doctor; “unless, indeed, my pen—­you might enlist my pen.”

He paused with a smile of bashful inquiry.  The General stood aghast for a moment, and then caught the idea.

“Certainly! cer-tain-ly! ha, ha, ha!”—­backing out of the door—­“certainly!  Ah!  Mossy, you are right, to be sure; to make a complete world we must have swords and pens.  Well, my son, ’au revoir;’ no, I cannot stay—­I will return.  I hasten to tell my friends that the pen of Dr. Mossy is on our side!  Adieu, dear son.”

Standing outside on the banquette he bowed—­not to Dr. Mossy, but to the balcony of the big red-brick front—­a most sunshiny smile, and departed.

The very next morning, as if fate had ordered it, the Villivicencio ticket was attacked—­ambushed, as it were, from behind the Americain newspaper.  The onslaught was—­at least General Villivicencio said it was—­absolutely ruffianly.  Never had all the lofty courtesies and formalities of chivalric contest been so completely ignored.  Poisoned balls—­at least personal epithets—­were used.  The General himself was called “antiquated!” The friends who had nominated him, they were positively sneered at; dubbed “fossils,” “old ladies,” and their caucus termed “irresponsible”—­thunder