defiance at the organization of the present session all the
mayor's friends--the reformers--those who could not be trusted--had
been relegated to this committee. Now it was proposed to take this
ordinance out of the hands of friends and send it here, from whence
unquestionably it would never reappear. The great test had come.

Alderman Hoberkorn (mouthpiece for his gang because the most skilful in
a parliamentary sense). "The vote cannot be reconsidered." He begins a
long explanation amid hisses.

A Voice. "How much have you got?"

A Second Voice. "You've been a boodler all your life."

Alderman Hoberkorn (turning to the gallery, a light of defiance in his
eye). "You come here to intimidate us, but you can't do it. You're
too contemptible to notice."

A Voice. "You hear the drums, don't you?"

A Second Voice. "Vote wrong, Hoberkorn, and see. We know you."

Alderman Tiernan (to himself). "Say, that's pretty rough, ain't it?"

The Mayor. "Motion overruled. The point is not well taken."

Alderman Guigler (rising a little puzzled). "Do we vote now on the
Gilleran resolution?"

A Voice. "You bet you do, and you vote right."

The Mayor. "Yes. The clerk will call the roll."

The Clerk (reading the names, beginning with the A's). "Altvast?"
(pro-Cowperwood).

Alderman Altvast. "Yea." Fear had conquered him.

Alderman Tiernan (to Alderman Kerrigan). "Well, there's one baby down."

Alderman Kerrigan. "Yep."

"Ballenberg?" (Pro-Cowperwood; the man who had introduced the
ordinance.)

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan. "Say, has Ballenberg weakened?"

Alderman Kerrigan. "It looks that way."

"Canna?"

"Yea."

"Fogarty?"

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan (nervously). "There goes Fogarty."

"Hvranek?"

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan. "And Hvranek!"

Alderman Kerrigan (referring to the courage of his colleagues). "It's
coming out of their hair."

In exactly eighty seconds the roll-call was in and Cowperwood had
lost--41 to 25. It was plain that the ordinance could never be revived.

Chapter LXII

The Recompense

You have seen, perhaps, a man whose heart was weighted by a great woe.
You have seen the eye darken, the soul fag, and the spirit congeal
under the breath of an icy disaster. At ten-thirty of this particular
evening Cowperwood, sitting alone in the library of his Michigan Avenue
house, was brought face to face with the fact that he had lost. He had
built so much on the ca