s of atmosphere, could not be
equaled elsewhere in the city, if in the nation at large. "Smiling"
Mike Tiernan, proud possessor of four of the largest and filthiest
saloons of this area, was a man of large and genial mold--perhaps six
feet one inch in height, broad-shouldered in proportion, with a bovine
head, bullet-shaped from one angle, and big, healthy, hairy hands and
large feet. He had done many things from digging in a ditch to
occupying a seat in the city council from this his beloved ward, which
he sold out regularly for one purpose and another; but his chief
present joy consisted in sitting behind a solid mahogany railing at a
rosewood desk in the back portion of his largest Clark Street
hostelry--"The Silver Moon." Here he counted up the returns from his
various properties--salons, gambling resorts, and houses of
prostitution--which he manipulated with the connivance or blinking
courtesy of the present administration, and listened to the pleas and
demands of his henchmen and tenants.

The character of Mr. Kerrigan, Mr. Tiernan's only rival in this rather
difficult and sordid region, was somewhat different. He was a small
man, quite dapper, with a lean, hollow, and somewhat haggard face, but
by no means sickly body, a large, strident mustache, a wealth of
coal-black hair parted slickly on one side, and a shrewd, genial
brown-black eye--constituting altogether a rather pleasing and ornate
figure whom it was not at all unsatisfactory to meet. His ears were
large and stood out bat-wise from his head; and his eyes gleamed with a
smart, evasive light. He was cleverer financially than Tiernan,
richer, and no more than thirty-five, whereas Mr. Tiernan was
forty-five years of age. Like Mr. Tiernan in the first ward, Mr.
Kerrigan was a power in the second, and controlled a most useful and
dangerous floating vote. His saloons harbored the largest floating
element that was to be found in the city--longshoremen, railroad hands,
stevedores, tramps, thugs, thieves, pimps, rounders, detectives, and
the like. He was very vain, considered himself handsome, a "killer"
with the ladies. Married, and with two children and a sedate young
wife, he still had his mistress, who changed from year to year, and his
intermediate girls. His clothes were altogether noteworthy, but it was
his pride to eschew jewelry, except for one enormous emerald, value
fourteen thousand dollars, which he wore in his necktie on occasions,
and the w