e eight I'm talking about, we'll have a
majority in council, and"--flick! he snapped his fingers--"out you
go--you, McKenty, Cowperwood, and all the rest. No more franchises, no
more street-paving contracts, no more gas deals. Nothing--for two
years, anyhow, and maybe longer. If we win we'll take the jobs and the
fat deals." He paused and surveyed Kerrigan cheerfully but defiantly.

"Now, I've just been all over the city," he continued, "in every ward
and precinct, so I know something of what I am talking about. I have
the men and the cash to put up a fight all along the line this time.
This fall we win--me and the big fellows over there in La Salle Street,
and all the Republicans or Democrats or Prohibitionists, or whoever
else comes in with us--do you get me? We're going to put up the biggest
political fight Chicago has ever seen. I'm not naming any names just
yet, but when the time comes you'll see. Now, what I want to ask of
you is this, and I'll not mince me words nor beat around the bush.
Will you and Tiernan come in with me and Edstrom to take over the city
and run it during the next two years? If you will, we can win hands
down. It will be a case of share and share alike on
everything--police, gas, water, highways, street-railways,
everything--or we'll divide beforehand and put it down in black and
white. I know that you and Tiernan work together, or I wouldn't talk
about this. Edstrom has the Swedes where he wants them, and he'll poll
twenty thousand of them this fall. There's Ungerich with his Germans;
one of us might make a deal with him afterward, give him most any
office he wants. If we win this time we can hold the city for six or
eight years anyhow, most likely, and after that--well, there's no use
lookin' too far in the future--Anyhow we'd have a majority of the
council and carry the mayor along with it."

"If--" commented Mr. Kerrigan, dryly.

"If," replied Mr. Gilgan, sententiously. "You're very right. There's a
big 'if' in there, I'll admit. But if these two wards--yours and
Tiernan's--could by any chance be carried for the Republicans they'd be
equal to any four or five of the others."

"Very true," replied Mr. Kerrigan, "if they could be carried for the
Republicans. But they can't be. What do you want me to do, anyhow?
Lose me seat in council and be run out of the Democratic party? What's
your game? You don't take me for a plain damn fool, do you?"

"Sorry the man that ever took 'E