fended voters for
your behavior and your utterances on St. Patrick's Day."

"Go down on your knees at once, Mayor," sneered Everard.

"I hope Your Honor does not pay too much attention to the opinions of
this gentleman," said Arthur with a gesture for his companion. "He's a
Crusoe in politics. There's no one else on his island. You have a
history, sir, which is often told in the Irish colony here. I have heard
it often since my return home----"

"This is the gentleman who spoke of your policy at the Donnybrook
banquet," Everard interrupted.

Livingstone made a sign for silence, and took a closer look at Arthur.

"The Irish do not like you, they have no faith in you as a fair man,
they say that you are always planning against them, that you are
responsible for the deviltries practised upon them through gospel
missions, soup kitchens, kidnapping industries, and political intrigues.
Whether these things be true, it seems to me that a candidate ought to
go far out of his way to destroy such fancies."

"A very good word, fancies! Are you going to make your famous speech
over again?" said Everard with the ready sneer.

"Can you deny that what I have spoken is the truth?"

"It is not necessary that he should," Livingstone answered quietly. "I
am not interested in what some people say of me. Tell Mr. Sullivan I am
ready to accept the nomination, but that I never retract, never desert
a position."

This young man nettled and irritated the Mayor. His insolence, the
insolence of his own class, was so subtly and politely expressed, that
no fault could be found; and, though his inexperience was evident, he
handled a ready blade and made no secret of his disdain. Arthur did not
know to what point of the compass the short conversation had carried
them, but he took a boy's foolish delight in teasing the irritated men.

"It all comes to this: you must nominate yourself," said Everard.

"And divide the party?"

"I am not sure it would divide the party," Livingstone condescended to
say, for he was amused at the simple horror of Dillon. "It might unite
it under different circumstances."

"That's the remark of a statesman. And it would rid us, Arthur Dillon,
of Sullivan and his kind, who should be running a gin-mill in Hester
street."

"If he didn't have a finer experience in politics, and a bigger brain
for managing men than any three in the city," retorted Arthur icily. "He
is too wise to bring the prejudices of race and