he public
good--and not merely in fame and office for David Hull.

The struggle ended as struggles usually end in the famous arena of
moral sham battles called conscience; and toward the middle of the
following morning Davy, at peace with himself and prepared to make any
sacrifice of personal squeamishness or moral idealism for the sake of
the public good, sought out Dick Kelly.

Kelly's original headquarters had, of course, been the doggery in and
through which he had established himself as a political power. As his
power grew and his relations with more respectable elements of society
extended he shifted to a saloon and beer garden kept by a reputable
German and frequented by all kinds of people--a place where his friends
of the avowedly criminal class and his newer friends of the class that
does nothing legally criminal, except in emergencies, would feel
equally at ease. He retained ownership of the doggery, but took his
name down and put up that of his barkeeper. When he won his first big
political fight and took charge of the public affairs of Remsen City
and made an arrangement with Joe House where--under Remsen City,
whenever it wearied or sickened of Kelly, could take instead Kelly
disguised as Joe House--when he thus became a full blown boss he
established a secondary headquarters in addition to that at Herrmann's
Garden. Every morning at ten o'clock he took his stand in the main
corridor of the City Hall, really a thoroughfare and short cut for the
busiest part of town. With a cigar in his mouth he stood there for an
hour or so, holding court, making appointments, attending to all sorts
of political business.

Presently his importance and his ideas of etiquette expanded to such an
extent that he had to establish the Blaine Club. Joe House's Tilden
Club was established two years later, in imitation of Kelly. If you
had very private and important business with Kelly--business of the
kind of which the public must get no inkling, you made--preferably by
telephone--an appointment to meet him in his real estate offices in the
Hastings Building--a suite with entrances and exits into three
separated corridors. If you wished to see him about ordinary matters
and were a person who could "confer" with Kelly without its causing
talk you met him at the Blaine Club. If you wished to cultivate him,
to pay court to him, you saw him at Herrmann's--or in the general rooms
of the club. If you were a busy man and had