“I suppose you think it's mighty hard that your private character should be used against you in a political question by a man you call a public corruptionist. But I'm in a position where I can't take any chances against an antagonist that won't play the game my way. I had to find your vulnerable point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I find that there's no need to defend myself any longer, because it makes all your weapons ineffective. I believe the trouble with you, Mr. Knowles, is that you've never realized that politicians are human beings. But we are: we breathe and laugh and like to do right, like other folks. And, like most men, you've thought you were different from other men, and you aren't. So, here you are. I believe you said you'd had a hard night?” Knowles looked up at last, his lips working for a while before he could speak. “I'll resign now--if you'll--if you'll let me off,” he said. Gorgett shook his head. “I've got the election in my hand,” he answered, “though you fellows don't know it. You've got nothing to offer me, and you couldn't buy me if you had.” At that, Knowles just sank into himself with a little, faint cry, in a kind of heap. There wasn't anything but anguish and despair _to_ him. Big tears were sliding down his cheeks. I didn't say anything. Gorgett sat looking at him for a good while; and then his fat chin began to tremble a little and I saw his eyes shining in the shadow under his old hat-brim. He got up and went over to Farwell with slow steps and put his hand gently on his shoulder. “Go on home to your wife,” he said, in a low voice that was the saddest I ever heard. “I don't bear you any ill-will in the world. Nobody's going to give you away.” THE ALIENS Pietro Tobigili, that gay young chestnut vender--he of the radiant smiles--gave forth, in his warm tenor, his own interpretation of “Ach du lieber Augustine,” whenever Bertha, rosy waitress in the little German restaurant, showed her face at the door. For a month it had been a courtship; and the merchant sang often: _“Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, Ogostine, Ogostine! Ahaha, du libra Ogostine, Nees coma ross.”_ The acquaintance, begun by the song and Pietro's wonderful laugh, had grown tender. The chestnut vender had a way with him; he looked like the “Neapolitan Fisher Lad” of the chromos, and you could have fancied him of two centuries ago, putting a rose in his hair; even as it was, he had the ear-rings. But the smile of him it was that won Bertha, when she came to work in the little restaurant. It was a smile that put the world at its ease; it proclaimed the coming of morning over the meadows, and, taking every bystander into an April friendship, ran on suddenly into a laugh that was like silver, and like a strange puppy's claiming you for the lost master.