my nerves": that she of all women should have
developed it was a recurring and unpleasant surprise. I began at times to
pity myself a little, to feel the need of sympathetic companionship
--feminine companionship....

I shall not go into the details of the procurement of what became known
as the Riverside Franchise. In spite of the Maplewood residents, of the
City Improvement League and individual protests, we obtained it with
absurd ease. Indeed Perry Blackwood himself appeared before the Public
Utilities Committee of the Board of Aldermen, and was listened to with
deference and gravity while he discoursed on the defacement of a
beautiful boulevard to satisfy the greed of certain private individuals.
Mr. Otto Bitter and myself, who appeared for the petitioners, had a
similar reception. That struggle was a tempest in a tea-pot. The reformer
raged, but he was feeble in those days, and the great public believed
what it read in the respectable newspapers. In Mr. Judah B. Tallant's
newspaper, for instance, the Morning Era, there were semi-playful
editorials about "obstructionists." Mr. Perry Blackwood was a
well-meaning, able gentleman of an old family, etc., but with a sentiment
for horse-cars. The Era published also the resolutions which (with
interesting spontaneity!) had been passed by our Board of Trade and
Chamber of Commerce and other influential bodies in favour of the
franchise; the idea--unknown to the public--of Mr. Hugh Paret, who wrote
drafts of the resolutions and suggested privately to Mr. Leonard
Dickinson that a little enthusiasm from these organizations might be
helpful. Mr. Dickinson accepted the suggestion eagerly, wondering why he
hadn't thought of it himself. The resolutions carried some weight with a
public that did not know its right hand from its left.

After fitting deliberation, one evening in February the Board of Aldermen
met and granted the franchise. Not unanimously, oh, no! Mr. Jason was not
so simple as that! No further visits to Monahan's saloon on my part, in
this connection were necessary; but Mr. Otto Bitter met me one day in the
hotel with a significant message from the boss.

"It's all fixed," he informed me. "Murphy and Scott and Ottheimer and
Grady and Loth are the decoys. You understand?"

"I think I gather your meaning," I said.

Mr. Bitter smiled by pulling down one corner of a crooked mouth.

"They'll vote against it on principle, you know," he added. "We get a
little somet