The Titan [150]
One of the amusing features of the campaign was that the McKenty orators had been instructed to shout as loudly for reforms as the Republicans, only instead of assailing Cowperwood and McKenty they were to point out that Schryhart's Chicago City Railway was far more rapacious, and that this was a scheme to give it a blanket franchise of all streets not yet covered by either the Cowperwood or the Schryhart-Hand-Arneel lines. It was a pretty argument. The Democrats could point with pride to a uniformly liberal interpretation of some trying Sunday laws, whereby under Republican and reform administrations it had been occasionally difficult for the honest working-man to get his glass or pail of beer on Sunday. On the other hand it was possible for the Republican orators to show how "the low dives and gin-mills" were everywhere being operated in favor of McKenty, and that under the highly respectable administration of the Republican candidate for mayor this partnership between the city government and vice and crime would be nullified.
"If I am elected," declared the Honorable Chaffee Thayer Sluss, the Republican candidate, "neither Frank Cowperwood nor John McKenty will dare to show his face in the City Hall unless he comes with clean hands and an honest purpose.
"Hooray!" yelled the crowd.
"I know that ass," commented Addison, when he read this in the Transcript. "He used to be a clerk in the Douglas Trust Company. He's made a little money recently in the paper business. He's a mere tool for the Arneel-Schryhart interests. He hasn't the courage of a two-inch fish-worm."
When McKenty read it he simply observed: "There are other ways of going to City Hall than by going yourself." He was depending upon a councilmanic majority at least.
However, in the midst of this uproar the goings to and fro of Gilgan, Edstrom, Kerrigan, and Tiernan were nor fully grasped. A more urbanely shifty pair than these latter were never seen. While fraternizing secretly with both Gilgan and Edstrom, laying out their political programme most neatly, they were at the same time conferring with Dowling, Duvanicki, even McKenty himself. Seeing that the outcome was, for some reason--he could scarcely see why --looking very uncertain, McKenty one day asked the two of them to come to see him. On getting the letter Mr. Tiernan strolled over to Mr. Kerrigan's place to see whether he also had received a message.
"Sure, sure! I did!" replied Mr. Kerrigan, gaily. "Here it is now in me outside coat pocket. 'Dear Mr. Kerrigan,"' he read, "'won't you do me the favor to come over to-morrow evening at seven and dine with me? Mr. Ungerich, Mr. Duvanicki, and several others will very likely drop in afterward. I have asked Mr. Tiernan to come at the same time. Sincerely, John J. McKenty.' That's the way he does it," added Mr. Kerrigan; "just like that.
He kissed the letter mockingly and put it back into his pocket.
"Sure I got one, jist the same way. The very same langwidge, nearly," commented Mr. Tiernan, sweetly. "He's beginning to wake up, eh? What! The little old first and second are beginning to look purty big just now, eh? What!"
"Tush!" observed Mr. Kerrigan to Mr. Tiernan, with a marked sardonic emphasis, "that combination won't last forever. They've been getting too big for their pants, I'm thinking. Well, it's a long road, eh? It's pretty near time, what?"
"You're right," responded Mr. Tiernan, feelingly. "It is a long road. These are the two big wards of the city, and everybody knows it. If we turn on them at the last moment where will they be, eh?"
He put a fat finger alongside of his heavy reddish nose and looked at Mr. Kerrigan out of squinted eyes.
"You're damned right," replied the little politician, cheerfully.
They went to the dinner separately, so as not to appear to have conferred before, and greeted each other on arriving as though they had not seen each other for days.
"How's business, Mike?"
"Oh, fair, Pat. How's things with you?"
"So so."
"Things lookin' all right in your ward