Mr. Pixley, again seated upon the barrel which he had used for his interview with Toby, beheld the transfigured face of the young man as the chestnut vender passed the mouth of the alley, and the committee-man released from his soul a burdening profanity in the ear of his companion and confidant, a policeman who would be on duty in Pixley's precinct on the morrow, and who had now reported for instructions not necessarily received in a too public rendezvous. “After I talked to him out here on this very barrel,” said Pixley, his anathema concluded, “I raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me fer a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of _cigars_ fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like a plumb fool and tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote Republican fer nothin'! Talked like a parrot: 'Vote a Republican! Republican eternal!' _Republican_! Faugh, he don't know no more why he's a Republican than a yeller dog'd know! I went around to-night, when he was out, thought mebbe I could fix it up with the others. No, _sir_! Couldn't git nothing out of 'em except some more parrot-cackle: 'Vote same Petro. All a good Republican!' It's enough to sicken a man!” “Do we need his gang bad?” inquired the policeman deferentially. “I need everybody bad! This is a good-sized job fer me, and I want to do it right. Throwin' the precinck to Maxim is goin' to do me _some_ wrong with the Republican crowd, even if they don't git on that it was throwed; and I want to throw it _good_! I couldn't feel like I'd done right if I didn't. I've give my word that they'll git a majority of sixty-eight votes, and that'll be jest twicet as much in my pocket as a plain majority. And I want them seven Dagoes! I've give up on _votin_' 'em; it can't be done. It'd make a saint cuss to try to reason with 'em, and it's no good. They can't be fooled, neither. They know where the polls is, and they know how to vote--blast the Australian ballot system! The most that can be done is to keep 'em away from the polls.” “Can't you git 'em out of town in the morning?” “D'you reckon I ain't tried that? _No_, sir! That Dago wouldn't take a pass to _heaven_! Everything else is all right. Doc Morgan's niggers stays right here and _votes_. I _know_ them boys, and they'll walk up and stamp the rooster all right, all right. Them other niggers, that Hell-Valley gang, ain't that kind; and them and Tooms's crowd's goin' to be took out to Smelter's ice-houses in three express wagons at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't goin' to cost over two dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan Kelly is fixed, and the Loo boys. Mike, I don't like to brag, and I ain't around throwin' no bokays at myself as a reg'lar thing, but I want to say right, here, there ain't another man in this city--no, nor the State neither--that could of worked his precinck better'n I have this. I tell you, I'm within five or six votes of the majority they set for their big money.”