Before I went to an open alliance with the mugwumps, I would weaken the labor people. This I might do by pretending to be their friend. There was a strip of the labor candidate's support which was rabid anti-Tammany. Let me but seem to come to his comfort and aid, and every one of those would desert him. Within the week after my talk with Morton, I sent a sly scrap of news to the captains of labor. They were told that I had given utterance to sentiments of friendship for them and their man. Their taste to cultivate my support was set on edge. These amateurs of politics came seeking an interview. I flattered their hopes, and spoke in high terms of their candidate, his worth and honesty. The city could not be in safer hands. There were many interviews. It was as an experience, not without a side to amuse, since my visitors, while as pompous as turkey cocks, were as innocently shallow as so many sheep. Many times did we talk; and I gave them compliments and no promises. My ends were attained. The papers filled up with the coming partnership between the labor movement and the machine, and those berserks of anti-Tammany, frothing with resentment against ones who would sell themselves into my power as the price of my support, abandoned the laborites in a body. There were no fewer than five thousand of these to shake the dust of labor from their feet. When I had driven the last of them from the labor champion, by the simple expedient of appearing to be his friend, I turned decisively my back on him. Also, I at once called Tammany Convention--being the first in the field--and issued those orders which named the reputable old gentleman. There arose a roar and a cheer from my followers at this, for they read in that name a promise of money knee-deep; and what, than that word, should more brighten a Tammany eye! I was first, with the machine at my back, to walk upon the field with our reputable old gentleman. The mugwumps followed, adopting him with all dispatch; the Republicans, proper, made no ticket; two or three straggling cliques and split-offs of party accepted the reputable old gentleman's nomination; and so the lines were made. On the heels of the conventions, the mugwump leaders and I met and merged our tickets, I getting two-thirds and surrendering one-third of those names which followed that of the reputable old gentleman for the divers offices to be filled. When all was accomplished, the new situation offered a broad foundation, and one of solvency and depth, whereon to base a future for both Tammany and myself. It crystallized my power, and my grip on the machine was set fast and hard by the sheer effect of it. The next thing was to win at the polls; that would ask for studied effort and a quickness that must not sleep, for the opposition, while clumsy, straggling, and unwieldly with no skill, overtopped us in strength by every one of those thousands of which I had given Morton the name.