gang
could easily have brought any of them here. I've been having a hunt made
for cabs with outside locks; but so far, none have been discovered.
Between you and me, I doubt if we can ever find out."

"Between you and me, I shall not be surprised if we run up against
further deviltry of that sort," said Bailey, "before we get through
with--"

The telephone interrupted him, and after a short one-sided conversation,
Bailey arose, too.

"I'll go along with you," he said. "Miss Van Deusen wants to see me."

CHAPTER XIV

Graft

Two weeks later, the fluffy little member of the Progressive Workers
presented herself one morning at the rooms of the Mayor and requested a
private interview. Probably she was the last woman in Roma one would
have suspected of wanting to take a hand in politics. Yet, here she was.

"Why, Bella, is it you?" asked Gertrude. "What is it? Don't they keep
your street clean? or empty your ash can often enough?"

"Well, I hope I should know enough, Gertrude Van Deusen," retorted the
fluffy lady, "to go to the street-cleaning department about that. No,
I've something really important to tell you."

"Indeed. You may close the door after you, Minnie," she said to the
stenographer. "Now, what is it, Bella?" For the life of her, she could
not help using the same tone she would have used to a pretty child who
had dropped in to complain of her teacher.

"Well, Mary Flynn,--that's my laundress, you know,--has overworked
lately, and to keep up her strength, I'm sorry to say, has indulged in
her habit of toning up for her day's work with more of the 'crathur'
than is good for--, By the way, when are you going to tackle the
saloons, Gertie?" She did not wait for an answer, but rattled on. "And
so, you know, she gets rather talkative. Yesterday she was about
half-seas over and talked every minute, and when I went down stairs to
show her about my new lingerie waists--well, you should have heard
her!"

"Entertaining, no doubt," said Gertrude, wondering why she should have
come here to take up her time with these purely domestic affairs.

"'Faith, an' a woman for mayor is it, we do be havin'. An' a fine muss
she'll be in ef she kapes on, indade and indade! McAlister's foreman was
a tellin' av us last night, he was, that they'll soon be losin' their
job. He says, says he, she's again' an honest man makin' a livin', she
is. Why, there's me own naice's husband, Tim Mathews, ain't he an
ahlderman, rays