During that same day, Keighley received various hints, from various go-betweens, that the men in power were prepared to forgive and forget if he would take the first opportunity to “make himself solid” and come into the fold. He “jollied them along,” gave them evasive answers, or turned stupid and failed to understand what they were proposing. (The weather aided him, by making activity uncomfortable even for politicians.) He had the sure hope that the courts would dismiss the charges against Chief Borden and compel his reinstatement under the Civil Service laws. He heard rumors that the Fire Commissioner had had a falling out with “the Boss;” and he expected that with the autumn there might be changes in the department that would settle the whole quarrel. Meanwhile, it was his best policy--and his natural inclination--to stand firm. “I got nuthin’ against the ‘Jiggers,’” he replied to their emissaries. “I never did anythin’ to ’em. There’s no trouble here at all.” And if they pressed upon him the advantages of “getting square up above,” he said, “Well, I’ll think it over. I’ll think it over.” He even received with such evasions “Tim” Noonan, the leader of the “Sixt’”--Noonan of the suave Irish diplomacy--Noonan who had served with him as a fire laddie in the red-shirt days of the volunteer fire brigade. Wherever Noonan went, he closed the doors behind him; Keighley heard him in a silence that was irritating; and Noonan, in the breathless office, soon arrived at a blood-hot exasperation that kept boiling up red in his face. “Well,” Keighley promised placidly, for the fourth time, “I’ll think it over.” Noonan plucked from between his teeth the frayed butt of a cigar chewed to tatters. “Now look a-here,” he said hoarsely, “I’m yer friend I’m tellin’ yeh, Dan; but I can’t go back with no such answer. An’ _you_ know it. Take it er leave it. There’s promotion in it the one way, an’ there’s trouble th’ other. Are yeh with us, er are yeh not, now?” Keighley looked out the window and scratched the back of his hand. “This crew,” he said, “when I took a hold here, it was the makin’ of a mince-pie. An’ it’d ’a’ been the worst mess o’ nuthin’ in the whole department if I’d run it Jigger er anti-Jigger er anythin’ else but straight bus’ness to put out fires. I got nuthin’ against the actin’-chief ner his gang. They ain’t botherin’ me any.”