Some had made
honorable records. Others, foremost in negro-baiting and election
frauds, had done the dirty work of politics, as their fathers had done
that of slavery, seeking their reward at first in minor offices,--for
which men of gentler breeding did not care,--until their ambition began
to reach out for higher honors.

Of this class McBane--whose captaincy, by the way, was merely a polite
fiction--had been one of the most successful. He had held, until
recently, as the reward of questionable political services, a contract
with the State for its convict labor, from which in a few years he had
realized a fortune. But the methods which made his contract profitable
had not commended themselves to humane people, and charges of cruelty
and worse had been preferred against him. He was rich enough to escape
serious consequences from the investigation which followed, but when the
Fusion ticket carried the state he lost his contract, and the system of
convict labor was abolished. Since then McBane had devoted himself to
politics: he was ambitious for greater wealth, for office, and for
social recognition. A man of few words and self-engrossed, he seldom
spoke of his aspirations except where speech might favor them,
preferring to seek his ends by secret "deals" and combinations rather
than to challenge criticism and provoke rivalry by more open methods.

At sight, therefore, of these two men, with whose careers and characters
he was entirely familiar, Carteret felt sweep over his mind the
conviction that now was the time and these the instruments with which to
undertake the redemption of the state from the evil fate which had
befallen it.

Jerry, the porter, who had gone downstairs to the counting-room to find
two whole chairs, now entered with one in each hand. He set a chair for
the general, who gave him an amiable nod, to which Jerry responded with
a bow and a scrape. Captain McBane made no acknowledgment, but fixed
Jerry so fiercely with his single eye that upon placing the chair Jerry
made his escape from the room as rapidly as possible.

"I don' like dat Cap'n McBane," he muttered, upon reaching the hall.
"Dey says he got dat eye knock' out tryin' ter whip a cullud 'oman, when
he wuz a boy, an' dat he ain' never had no use fer niggers
sence,--'cep'n' fer what he could make outen 'em wid his convic' labor
contrac's. His daddy wuz a' overseer befo' 'im, an' it come nachul fer
him ter be a nigger-driver. I don' want da