“Poor people,” said Mrs. Carriswood; “do you know, Grace, I can see Tommy’s future; he will grow to be a boss, a political boss.  He will become rich by keeping your streets always being cleaned—­ which means never clean—­and giving you the worst fire department and police to be obtained for money; and, by and by, a grateful machine will make him mayor, or send him to the Legislature, very likely to Congress, where he will misrepresent the honest State of Iowa.  Then he will bloom out in a social way, and marry a gentlewoman, and they will snub the old people who are so proud of him.”

“Well, we shall see,” said Mrs. Lossing; “I think better things of Tommy.  So does Harry.”

Part of the prophecy was to be speedily fulfilled.  Two years later, the Honorable Thomas Fitzmaurice was elected mayor of his city, elected by the reform party, on account of his eminent services—­and because he was the only man in sight who had the ghost of a chance of winning.  Harry’s version was:  “Tommy jests at his new principles, but that is simply because he doesn’t comprehend what they are.  He laughs at reform in the abstract; but every concrete, practical reform he is as anxious as I or anybody to bring about.  And he will get them here, too.”

He was as good as his word; he gave the city an admirable administration, with neither fear nor favor.  Some of the “boys” still clung to him; these, according to Harry, were the better “boys,” who had the seeds of good in them and only needed opportunity and a leader.  Tommy did not flag in zeal; rather, as the time went on and he soared out of the criminal courts into big civil cases involving property, he grew up to the level of his admirers’ praises.  “Tommy,” wrote Mr. Lossing, presently, “is beginning to take himself seriously.  He has been told so often that he is a young lion of reform, that he begins to study the role in dead earnest.  I don’t talk this way to Harry, who believes in him and is training him for the representative for our district.  What harm?  Verily, his is the faith that will move mountains.  Besides, Tommy is now rich; he must be worth a hundred thousand dollars, which makes a man of wealth in these parts.  It is time for him to be respectable.”

Notwithstanding this preparation, Mrs. Carriswood (then giving Washington the benefit of her doubts of climate) was surprised one day to receive a perfectly correct visiting card whereon was engraved, “Mr. Thomas Sackville Fitzmaurice, M.C.”

The young lady who was with her lifted her brilliant hazel eyes and half smiled.  “Is it the droll young man we met once at Mrs. Lossing’s?  Pray see him, Aunt Margaret,” said Miss Van Harlem.

Mrs. Carriswood shrugged her shoulders and ordered the man to show him up.