Ch. 9: The Mayor's Lamps

The serpent had crept into Eden. The Perkins household for ten years had been little less than Paradise to its inmates, and then in a single night the reptile of political ambition had dragged his slimy length through those happy door-posts and now sat grinning indecently at the inscription over the library mantel, a ribbon mosaic bearing the sentiment "Here Dwells Content" let into the tiles thereof.

How it ever happened no man knoweth, but happen it did. Thaddeus Perkins was snatched from the arms of Peace and plunged headlong into the jaws of Political Warfare.

"They want me because they think I'm strong," he pleaded, in extenuation of his acceptance of the nomination for Mayor of his town.

"But you ought to know better," returned Mrs. Perkins, failing to realize what possible misconstruction her lord and master might put upon the answer. "The idea of your meddling in politics when you've got twice as much work as you can do already! I think it's awful!"

"I didn't seek it," he said, after hesitating a moment; "they've--they've thrust it on me." Then he tried to be funny. "With me, public office is a public thrust."

"Is there any salary?" asked Mrs. Perkins, treating the jest with the contempt it merited.

"No," said Thaddeus. "Not a cent; but--"

"Not a cent!" cried Mrs. Perkins. "And you are going to give up all your career, or at least two years of it, and probably the best two years of your life, for--"

"Glory," said Thaddeus.

"Glory! Humph," said Mrs. Perkins, "I am not aware that nations are talking of previous Mayors of Dumfries Corners. Mr. Jiggers's name is not a household word outside of this city, is it?"

Mr. Jiggers was the gentleman, into whose shoes Thaddeus was seeking to place his feet--the incumbent of the mighty office to which he aspired.

"Who is the present Lord Mayor of London?" the lady continued.

"Haven't the slightest idea," murmured the standard-bearer of the Democratic party, hopelessly.

"Or Berlin, or Peking--or even of Chicago?" she went on.

"What has that got to do with it?" retorted the worm, turning a trifle.

"You spoke of glory--the glory of being Mayor of Dumfries Corners, a city of 30,000 inhabitants. This is going to send your name echoing from sea to sea, reverberating through Europe, and thundering down through the ages to come; and yet you admit that the glories of the Mayors of London with 4,000,000 souls, of Berlin, Chicago, and Peking, with millions more, are so slight that you can't remember their names--or even to have heard them, for that matter. Really, Thaddeus, I am surprised at you. What you expect to get out of this besides nervous prostration