"And it's because Otis H. Mann, the people's friend, as he calls himself," explained Fitzgerald, impulsively, "has left town, bag and baggage, and will sail for foreign ports as soon as he strikes New York, that I'm telling." "Tell me all you know, Newton. I've been wanting a good long talk with you for a long time. Begin at the beginning, please." "Well, of course you know I'm a democrat. I've always voted with that party, and would have done so last fall, even against you--if it hadn't been for the job they put up on you. Yes--I mean the night before election. They talked it all over in a little room back of my saloon. The boss was there himself that night--" "You mean Burke?" interrupted Gertrude. "No--Mann. Burke's under his orders every time. Whatever Burke done, it was Mann behind him; and when Burke got a rake-off of a thousand, Mann got two. As I'm tellin' you, they arranged the whole affair in my rooms. There was Mann and Burke, and McAdoo, and one or two others, and myself. I ain't claiming to be any better than the rest. I was there--not that I was ag'in you, but because it was my room, and my liquor, and I'd always been in their confabs. I didn't approve of them electric cabs and seizing you by main force, as it were, and rushing you out into the country; but Mann and Burke were determined to have it--and when I saw they were bound to do it, anyhow, I just had to agree; and to see that nothing happened to you, I went along, too. If they'd tried any funny business with you, I'd--well, I took my irons along." "Newton!" cried Gertrude. "Were you there? You!" "Yes," replied the man, grimly. "I was your chauffeur. I wouldn't trust you to anyone else. I ain't forgot all you and your father done for me when I was a kid." "Newton, you've a queer sense of gratitude," she laughed, for the situation seemed not without humor. "You ran away with me to protect me." "That's about the size of it. I didn't know what the others might do; I did know I should bring you in safely." "Where did you get that cab?" she asked him. "It was one I ran all last summer out to my summer place at Itosco. It's stored there now. The other we got at Bonborough from a friend of Mann's. His chauffeur ran that. The third man was McAdoo." "Then it was you who brought me--and Mr. Allingham--home?"