In our own city, which we fondly believed to be proof against the prevailing madness, a slight epidemic occurred; slight, yet momentarily alarming.  Accidents will happen, even in the best regulated political organizations,—­and accidents in these days appeared to be the rule.  A certain Mr. Edgar Greenhalge, a middle-aged, mild-mannered and inoffensive man who had made a moderate fortune in wholesale drugs, was elected to the School Board.  Later on some of us had reason to suspect that Perry Blackwood—­with more astuteness than he had been given credit for—­was responsible for Mr. Greenhalge’s candidacy.  At any rate, he was not a man to oppose, and in his previous life had given no hint that he might become a trouble maker.  Nothing happened for several months.  But one day on which I had occasion to interview Mr. Jason on a little matter of handing over to the Railroad a piece of land belonging to the city, which was known as Billings’ Bowl, he inferred that Mr. Greenhaige might prove a disturber of that profound peace with which the city administration had for many years been blessed.

“Who the hell is he?” was Mr. Jason’s question.

It appeared that Mr. G.’s private life had been investigated, with disappointingly barren results; he was, seemingly, an anomalistic being in our Nietzschean age, an unaggressive man; he had never sold any drugs to the city; he was not a church member; nor could it be learned that he had ever wandered into those byways of the town where Mr. Jason might easily have got trace of him:  if he had any vices, he kept them locked up in a safe-deposit box that could not be “located.”  He was very genial, and had a way of conveying disturbing facts—­when he wished to convey them—­under cover of the most amusing stories.  Mr. Jason was not a man to get panicky.  Greenhalge could be handled all right, only—­what was there in it for Greenhalge?—­a nut difficult for Mr. Jason to crack.  The two other members of the School Board were solid.  Here again the wisest of men was proved to err, for Mr. Greenhalge turned out to have powers of persuasion; he made what in religious terms would have been called a conversion in the case of another member of the board, an hitherto staunch old reprobate by the name of Muller, an ex-saloon-keeper in comfortable circumstances to whom the idea of public office had appealed.

Mr. Greenhalge, having got wind of certain transactions that interested him extremely, brought them in his good-natured way to the knowledge of Mr. Gregory, the district attorney, suggesting that he investigate.  Mr. Gregory smiled; undertook, as delicately as possible, to convey to Mr. Greenhalge the ways of the world, and of the political world in particular, wherein, it seemed, everyone was a good fellow.  Mr. Greenhalge was evidently a good fellow, and didn’t want to make trouble over little things.  No, Mr. Greenhalge didn’t want to make trouble; he appreciated a comfortable life as much as Mr. Gregory; he told