"Well...no."

"What gets me, Clevum," Robar went on, "is that he could be elected so easily. He's got everything; a good sound platform that you can stir people up with, the correct background, a grand way of speaking, and the most beautiful appearance that a candidate ever had. Compared with Old Bat Ears, he's a natural. It ought to be just one-two-three. But Bat Ears will be re-elected, sure as shootin'."

"I'm afraid you're right," mourned Clevum. "We're going to take such a shellacking as nobody ever saw. 1 thought for a while that we would make the grade, but now -- Did you see what the King's Men said about him this morning?"

"That dirty little sheet -- What was it?"

"Besides some nasty cracks about Atlantis gold, they accused him of planning to destroy the Murian home and defile the sanctity of Murian womanhood. They called upon every red-blooded one hundred per cent Murian to send this subversive monster back where he came from. Oh, it stank! But the yokels were eating it up."

"Sure they do. That's just what I mean. The governor's gang slings mud all the time, but if we sling any mud about governor Vortus, Talus throws a fit. His idea of a news story is a nifty little number about comparative statistics of farm taxes in the provinces of Mu...What are you drawing now, Dolph?"

"This." He held up a ghoulish caricature of Governor Vortus himself, with his long face, thin lips, and high brow, atop of which rested the tall crimson governor's cap. Enormous ears gave this sinister face the appearance of a vulture about to take flight. Beneath the cartoon was the simple caption: