Simms and young
Truman Leslie MacDonald. His father-in-law was both rich and
moderately influential. Having lent himself to some campaign speaking,
and to party work in general, he proved quite an adept. Because of all
these things--his ability, such as it was, his pliability, and his
thoroughly respectable savor--he had been slated as candidate for mayor
on the Republican ticket, which had subsequently been elected.

Cowperwood was well aware, from remarks made in the previous campaign,
of the derogatory attitude of Mayor Sluss. Already he had discussed it
in a conversation with the Hon. Joel Avery (ex-state senator), who was
in his employ at the time. Avery had recently been in all sorts of
corporation work, and knew the ins and outs of the courts--lawyers,
judges, politicians--as he knew his revised statutes. He was a very
little man--not more than five feet one inch tall--with a wide
forehead, saffron hair and brows, brown, cat-like eyes and a mushy
underlip that occasionally covered the upper one as he thought. After
years and years Mr. Avery had learned to smile, but it was in a
strange, exotic way. Mostly he gazed steadily, folded his lower lip
over his upper one, and expressed his almost unchangeable conclusions
in slow Addisonian phrases. In the present crisis it was Mr. Avery who
had a suggestion to make.

"One thing that I think could be done," he said to Cowperwood one day
in a very confidential conference, "would be to have a look into
the--the--shall I say the heart affairs--of the Hon. Chaffee Thayer
Sluss." Mr. Avery's cat-like eyes gleamed sardonically. "Unless I am
greatly mistaken, judging the man by his personal presence merely, he
is the sort of person who probably has had, or if not might readily be
induced to have, some compromising affair with a woman which would
require considerable sacrifice on his part to smooth over. We are all
human and vulnerable"--up went Mr. Avery's lower lip covering the upper
one, and then down again--"and it does not behoove any of us to be too
severely ethical and self-righteous. Mr. Sluss is a well-meaning man,
but a trifle sentimental, as I take it."

As Mr. Avery paused Cowperwood merely contemplated him, amused no less
by his personal appearance than by his suggestion.

"Not a bad idea," he said, "though I don't like to mix heart affairs
with politics."

"Yes," said Mr. Avery, soulfully, "there may be something in it. I
don't know. You never can