“This man Hopkins,” said Mr. Watson, angrily, “is not a gentleman.  He’s an impertinent meddler.”

“He ruined any good effect my speech might have created,” said Kenneth, gloomily.

“Give it up, my boy,” advised the elder man, laying a kindly hand on the youth’s shoulder.  “It really isn’t worth the struggle.”

“But I can’t give it up and acknowledge myself beaten,” protested Kenneth, almost ready to weep with disappointment.

“Well, well, let’s think it over, Ken, and see what can be done.  Perhaps that rascally Hopkins was right when he advised you to find some other way to serve the community.”

“I can’t do better than to make it clean—­to do away with these disreputable signs,” said the boy, stubbornly.

“You made a fine speech,” declared Mr. Watson, gravely puffing his pipe.  “I am very proud of you, my lad.”

Kenneth flushed red.  He was by nature shy and retiring to a degree.  Only his pent-up enthusiasm had carried him through the ordeal, and now that it was over he was chagrined to think that the speech had been so ineffective.  He was modest enough to believe that another speaker might have done better.

CHAPTER IV

KENNETH TAKES A BOLD STEP

“This man Hopkins gets on my nerves,” said Mr. Watson, a week or two after the eventful meeting in the school-house.  He was at the breakfast table opposite Kenneth, and held up a big, glaring post-card which was in his mail.

“What is it now?” asked the boy, rousing himself from a fit of abstraction.

“An announcement offering himself for renomination at the primaries.  It’s like a circus advertisement.  Isn’t it a shame to think that modern politics has descended to such a level in our free and enlightened republic?”

Kenneth nodded, stirring his coffee thoughtfully.  He had lost his spirit and enthusiasm since the meeting, and was fast relapsing into his old state of apathy and boredom.  It grieved Mr. Watson to note this.

“Hopkins isn’t fit to be the Representative for this district,” observed the old gentleman, with sudden energy.

The boy looked at him.

“Who is Hopkins?” he asked.

“His mother once kept a stationery shop in town, and he was stable boy at the hotel.  But he was shrewd and prospered, and when he grew up became a county-clerk or tax-collector; then an assessor, and finally he ran last term for State Representative from this district and was elected by a mighty small majority.”

“Why small?” asked Kenneth.

“Because he’s a Democrat, and the district is strongly Republican.  But Thompson ran against him on the Republican ticket and couldn’t win his party vote.”

“Who’s Thompson?”

“The general store keeper.  He has a reputation for short weights and measures.”

The boy sipped his coffee thoughtfully.