This story has its beginnings in the town of Alexandria, Illinois, between 1884 and 1889, at the time when the place had a population of somewhere near ten thousand. There was about it just enough of the air of a city to relieve it of the sense of rural life. It had one street-car line, a theatre, -or rather, an opera house, so-called (why no one might say, for no opera was ever performed there)-two railroads, with their stations, and a business district, composed of four brisk sides to a public square