But the scheme was an Addicks scheme. Had it been the plot of any other man with the brains, the nerve, and the lack of principle to concoct it and set it in motion, inevitably it would have been carried through to the designed conclusion. As it was, this is what happened: The lieutenant who had charge of the actual commission of the crime thoughtlessly chuckled over the details of it with another, and this other "in the presence of witnesses" laughingly congratulated Addicks on his plan's success. What was the astonishment of the group to hear the candidate for the Senate say: "Gentlemen, I could not countenance such a transaction. This is the first I have heard of it, and it is so outrageously criminal that I refuse to allow it to proceed further. There will be no investigation, and if it is a fact that those ballots have been changed in the box, the ones who changed them shall receive no benefit from their nefarious work. I have spoken." Mind you, every member of the group was a party to the scheme and had been carefully rehearsed in the part assigned him by Addicks himself, but alone, that is, without witnesses; nevertheless so earnest and apparently honest was the man in his protest that for an instant they doubted their senses--until they remembered it was Addicks. The investigation was never held, and to this day Addicks' lieutenants, especially he who did the midnight work and who still lives in the peaceful State of Delaware, turn with disgust when Addicks' daring is mentioned. It should be explained here that, whenever Addicks plans an illegal transaction--one for which he might be made civilly or criminally liable--he invariably coaches each of his accomplices alone, "without witnesses." And when it becomes necessary in developing the plot to have a confab, at which the several parties to the proceeding must meet, Addicks is most careful to preserve a legal semblance of ignorance of incriminating details. At intervals, when a danger-place in the discussion is approaching, he will get up from his seat and, moving to the door, will say: "Gentlemen, halt right there, until I step out of the room; tap at the door when you are over that bad spot, and I will return." Addicks' "Wait until I step out of the room" is as familiar among his coworkers as the "I am going upstairs" is among the "Standard Oil" family.