She squeezed his arm. For a time they walked
on without speaking. "How is your settlement work progressing?" he asked
at length.

But she did not answer, for a shrieking newsie thrust a paper in her
hand. "Buy an extra, lady," he importuned her. "All about Morris
Haas' suicide!"

She tossed him a coin and he rushed off, shrilling his tragic
revelation. Huge black headlines announced that Heney's assailant had
shot himself to death in his cell.

CHAPTER LXXXIX

DEFEAT OF THE PROSECUTION

While Heney lay upon the operating table of a San Francisco hospital,
three prominent attorneys volunteered to take his place. They were Hiram
Johnson, Matt I. Sullivan and J.J. Dwyer. Ruef's trial went on with
renewed vigor three days after the attempted killing, though the
defendant's attorneys exhausted every expedient for delay. It was a case
so thorough and complete that nothing could save the prisoner. He was
found guilty of bribing a Supervisor in the overhead trolley transaction
and sentenced to serve fourteen years in San Quentin penitentiary.

Frank was in the court-room when Ruef's sentence was imposed. The Little
Boss seemed oddly aged and nerveless; the old look of power was gone
from his eyes. Frank recalled Ruef's plan of a political Utopia. The man
had started with a golden dream, a genius for organization which might
have achieved great things. But his lower self had conquered. He had
sold his dream for gold. And retribution was upon him.

Frank thought of Patrick Calhoun, large, blustering, arrogant with the
pride of an old Southern family; the power of limitless wealth between
him and punishment; a masterful figure who had broken a labor union and
who scoffed at Law. And Eugene Schmitz, once happy as a fiddler. Schmitz
was trying to face it out in the community. Frank could not tell if that
was courage or a sort of impudence.

During the holidays Frank visited his parents in San Diego. His
granduncle, Benito Windham, had died abroad. And his mother was ailing.
Frank and his father discussed the Prosecution.

"It has had its day," the elder Stanley said. "Your public is listless,
sick of the whole rotten mess. They've lost the moral perspective. All
they want is to have it over."

"I guess I feel the same way." Frank's eyes were downcast.

* * * * *

Sometimes Frank met Norah France at Aleta's apartment, but she carefully
avoided further mention of the topic they had ta