ection
of the previous winter had been centered on the mayor; and that although
the rank and file of voters knew that Joyce was making a fight for his
candidacy, none of them had believed he could win over the old
incumbent, and had paid little heed to his political efforts. His
election was one of the surprises of the campaign, but even that was not
much talked about, in the excitement of proclaiming the woman for mayor
of Roma.

Now, as once before, he saw his opportunity and seized it. For the past
week he had done little else but probe the affairs of the Boulevard
Railway scheme, scarcely eating or sleeping while he pursued the case
with all the eagerness of a hound after his first fox. Gertrude Van
Deusen could not have found a better ally than Robert Joyce, and she
knew it. He had already secured evidence and managed his case so well
that the grand jury would bring in a bill for indictment, not only
against Orlando Vickery, but against Otis H. Mann, chairman of the board
of aldermen. The case was to be brought up in court on the following
morning.

"I must congratulate you, Mr. Joyce, upon your quick and able work,"
said she. "I wanted the case hurried along, and you have surely done
it."

"Mr. Armstrong has helped greatly," returned Joyce. "He has a good deal
of inside knowledge, and it didn't take long to convince us both that
there was a vast amount of corruption. How to clinch the evidence has
been the problem. But you say you are willing to go on the witness
stand?"

"I am--and Miss Snow also," answered the mayor. "I should think our
evidence enough."

"It is; and yet, while we are about it we want to catch the whole
outfit. We don't want to leave any loop-holes for the criminals--for
they will have an expert to defend them; you may be sure of that. Some
of the old aldermen may confess. They will pin their faith to
confession as the rock of salvation for them. But that is just the
beginning. We are after the big man, the man who debauches as well as
the man who receives. This is no partial house-cleaning. Fordham, the
agent of the Roma Telephone Company, who handed the old board $1,000
each, is now on his way back from China. To save his skin, he may tell
us about the money which his corporation has so generously handed over
to the supervisors. Then the Telephone Company, composed of men high in
the social circles of this city (with its franchise bought for a paltry
few thousand dollars) will have to