ore or less reliable, all black-frocked, or at least in their
Sunday clothes; all scowling, nervous, defensive, red-faced, and
fearing trouble. Mr. Pinski has come armed. This talk of the mayor's
concerning guns, ropes, drums, marching clubs, and the like has been
given very wide publicity, and the public seems rather eager for a
Chicago holiday in which the slaughter of an alderman or so might
furnish the leading and most acceptable feature.

"Hey, Pinski!" yells some one out of a small sea of new and decidedly
unfriendly faces. (This is no meeting of Pinski followers, but a
conglomerate outpouring of all those elements of a distrait populace
bent on enforcing for once the principles of aldermanic decency. There
are even women here--local church-members, and one or two advanced
civic reformers and W. C. T. U. bar-room smashers. Mr. Pinski has been
summoned to their presence by the threat that if he didn't come the
noble company would seek him out later at his own house.)

"Hey, Pinski! You old boodler! How much do you expect to get out of
this traction business?" (This from a voice somewhere in the rear.)

Mr. Pinski (turning to one side as if pinched in the neck). "The man
that says I am a boodler is a liar! I never took a dishonest dollar in
my life, and everybody in the Fourteenth Ward knows it."

The Five Hundred People Assembled. "Ha! ha! ha! Pinski never took a
dollar! Ho! ho! ho! Whoop-ee!"

Mr. Pinski (very red-faced, rising). "It is so. Why should I talk to
a lot of loafers that come here because the papers tell them to call me
names? I have been an alderman for six years now. Everybody knows me."

A Voice. "You call us loafers. You crook!"

Another Voice (referring to his statement of being known). "You bet
they do!"

Another Voice (this from a small, bony plumber in workclothes). "Hey,
you old grafter! Which way do you expect to vote? For or against this
franchise? Which way?"

Still Another Voice (an insurance clerk). "Yes, which way?"

Mr. Pinski (rising once more, for in his nervousness he is constantly
rising or starting to rise, and then sitting down again). "I have a
right to my own mind, ain't I? I got a right to think. What for am I
an alderman, then? The constitution..."

An Anti-Pinski Republican (a young law clerk). "To hell with the
constitution! No fine words now, Pinski. Which way do you expect to
vote? For or against? Yes or no?"

A Voice (that of a bricklayer, an