his town on a goody-good basis and
make everybody rich and happy, he's going to get badly fooled, that's
all there is to that."

Fortunately for him three of the eight council members were fellows of
the mayor's own economic beliefs, individuals elected on the same ticket
with him. These men could not carry a resolution, but they could stop
one from being carried over the mayor's veto. Hence it was found that if
the contracts could not be given to men satisfactory to the mayor they
could not be given at all, and he stood in a fair way to win.

"What the hell's the use of us sitting here day after day!" were the
actual words of the leading members of the opposition in the council
some weeks later, when the fight became wearisome. "We can't pass the
contracts over his veto. I say let 'em go."

So the proviso was tacked on, that two a day was the minimum wage to be
allowed, and the contracts passed.

The mayor's followers were exceedingly jubilant at this, more so than
he, who was of a more cautious and less hopeful temperament.

"Not out of the woods yet, gentlemen," he remarked to a group of his
adherents at the reform club. "We have to do a great many things
sensibly if we expect to keep the people's confidence and 'win again.'"

Under the old system of letting contracts, whenever there was a wage
rate stipulated, men were paid little or nothing, and the work was not
done. There was no pretense of doing it. Garbage and ashes accumulated,
and papers littered the streets. The old contractor who had pocketed the
appropriated sum thought to do so again.

"I hear the citizens are complaining as much as ever," said the mayor to
this individual one morning. "You will have to keep the streets clean."

The contractor, a robust, thick-necked, heavy-jawed Irishman, of just so
much refinement as the sudden acquisition of a comfortable fortune would
allow, looked him quizzically over, wondering whether he was "out" for a
portion of the appropriation or whether he was really serious.

"We can fix that between us," he said.

"There's nothing to fix," replied the mayor. "All I want you to do is to
clean the streets."

The contractor went away and for a few days after the streets were
really clean, but it was only for a few days.

In his walks about the city the mayor himself found garbage and paper
uncollected, and then called upon his new acquaintance again.

"I'm mentioning this for the last time, Mr. M----," he said. "