Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/161

 than to attend a Catholic fair in Father Hennessey's church, and make a speech awarding the prize some one had won in the raffle. But in the spring, Hank Defrees, loafing around among the boys, told them the thing to do was to nominate George for mayor on the Democratic ticket, and it was done. When old Horace Goddard heard of the nomination, he chuckled until his great belly shook, and actually invited Captain Bishop and the rest of the boys, who had gathered at the post-office to wait for the seven o'clock mail, around to Cramer's drug store to have a drink. The cronies all laughed as they drank—though they said, with soberness, that they felt sorry for old Judge Halliday himself.

It was a cruel thing to do, and it was young Halliday's idea alone. He was a youth with aspirations, and he saw in the nomination something more than the mere compliment Hank Defrees had intended. Therefore Squire Goddard's checker game was interrupted by a black-coated delegation of Protestant clergymen. It was a Monday morning, and they must have come straight from preachers' meeting with their impudent questions. They wanted to know whether or not it was true that the liquor laws