gratified. He was having a struggle in his own ward,
where a rival by the name of Glover appeared to be pouring out money
like water. He would require considerably more money than usual to
win. It was the same with Duvanicki.

McKenty finally parted with his lieutenants--more feelingly with
Kerrigan and Tiernan than he had ever done before. He did not wholly
trust these two, and he could not exactly admire them and their
methods, which were the roughest of all, but they were useful.

"I'm glad to learn," he said, at parting, "that things are looking all
right with you, Pat, and you, Mike," nodding to each in turn. "We're
going to need the most we can get out of everybody. I depend on you
two to make a fine showing--the best of any. The rest of us will not
forget it when the plums are being handed around afterward."

"Oh, you can depend on me to do the best I can always," commented Mr.
Kerrigan, sympathetically. "It's a tough year, but we haven't failed
yet."

"And me, Chief! That goes for me," observed Mr. Tiernan, raucously. "I
guess I can do as well as I have."

"Good for you, Mike!" soothed McKenty, laying a gentle hand on his
shoulder. "And you, too, Kerrigan. Yours are the key wards, and we
understand that. I've always been sorry that the leaders couldn't
agree on you two for something better than councilmen; but next time
there won't be any doubt of it, if I have any influence then." He went
in and closed the door. Outside a cool October wind was whipping dead
leaves and weed stalks along the pavements. Neither Tiernan nor
Kerrigan spoke, though they had come away together, until they were two
hundred feet down the avenue toward Van Buren.

"Some talk, that, eh?" commented Mr. Tiernan, eying Mr. Kerrigan in the
flare of a passing gas-lamp.

"Sure. That's the stuff they always hand out when they're up against
it. Pretty kind words, eh?"

"And after ten years of about the roughest work that's done, eh? It's
about time, what? Say, it's a wonder he didn't think of that last June
when the convention was in session.

"Tush! Mikey," smiled Mr. Kerrigan, grimly. "You're a bad little boy.
You want your pie too soon. Wait another two or four or six years,
like Paddy Kerrigan and the others."

"Yes, I will--not," growled Mr. Tiernan. "Wait'll the sixth."

"No more, will I," replied Mr. Kerrigan. "Say, we know a trick that
beats that next-year business to a pulp. What?"

"You're dead right," c