“The people seem to like what he’s got to say,” I observed.

“It beats me,” said Grierson.  “They don’t understand a quarter of it—­I’ve been talking to some of ’em.  It’s their d—­d curiosity, I guess.  You know how they’ll stand for hours around a street fakir.”

“It’s more than that,” I retorted.

Grierson regarded me piercingly.

“Well, we’ll put a crimp in him, all right,” he said, with a laugh.

I was in an unenviable state of mind when he left me.  I had an impulse to send for Miss McCoy and ask her if she had understood what Krebs was “driving at,” but for reasons that must be fairly obvious I refrained.  I read over again that part of Krebs’s speech which dealt with the immediate programme of the Citizens Union.  After paying a tribute to Greenhalge as a man of common sense and dependability who would make a good mayor, he went on to explain the principle of the new charter they hoped ultimately to get, which should put the management of the city in the hands of one man, an expert employed by a commission; an expert whose duty it would be to conduct the affairs of the city on a business basis, precisely as those of any efficient corporation were conducted.  This plan had already been adopted, with encouraging results, in several smaller cities of the country.  He explained in some detail, with statistics, the waste and inefficiency and dishonesty in various departments under the present system, dwelling particularly upon the deplorable state of affairs in the city hospital.

I need not dwell upon this portion of his remarks.  Since then text-books and serious periodicals have dealt with these matters thoroughly.  They are now familiar to all thinking Americans.

XXV.

My entrance into the campaign was accompanied by a blare of publicity, and during that fortnight I never picked up a morning or evening newspaper without reading, on the first page, some such headline as “Crowds flock to hear Paret.”  As a matter of fact, the crowds did flock; but I never quite knew as I looked down from platforms on seas of faces how much of the flocking was spontaneous.  Much of it was so, since the struggle had then become sufficiently dramatic to appeal to the larger public imagination that is but occasionally waked; on the other hand, the magic of advertising cannot be underestimated; nor must the existence be ignored of an organized corps of shepherds under the vigilant direction of Mr. Judd Jason, whose duty it was to see that none of our meetings was lacking in numbers and enthusiasm.  There was always a demonstrative gathering overflowing the sidewalk in front of the entrance, swaying and cheering in the light of the street lamps, and on the floor within an ample scattering of suspiciously bleary-eyed voters to start the stamping and applauding.  In spite of these known facts, the impression of popularity, of repudiation of reform by a large majority of level-headed inhabitants had reassuring and reenforcing effects.