“There is one point, sure,” resumed the Reverend Bronson, going backward in his trend of thought, “and of that I warn you. I shall not give up this fight. I began with an attack upon those robbers, and I've been withstood by ones who should have strengthened my hands. I shall now assail, not alone the lawbreakers, but their protectors. I shall attack the machine and the police. I shall take this story into every paper that will print it; I shall summon the pulpits to my aid; I shall arouse the people, if they be not deaf or dead, to wage war on those who protect such vultures in their rapine for a share of its returns. There shall be a moral awakening; and you may yet conclude, when you sit down in the midst of defeat, that honesty is after all the best policy, and that virtue has its reward.” The Reverend Bronson, in the heat of feeling, had risen from the chair, and declaimed rather than said this, while striding up and down. To him it was as though my floor were a rostrum, and the private office of Tammany's Chief, a lecture room. I am afraid I smiled a bit cynically at his ardor and optimism, for he took me in sharp hand, “Oh! I shall not lack recruits,” said he, “and some will come from corners you might least suspect. I met your great orator, Mr. Gutterglory, but a moment ago; he gave me his hand, and promised his eloquence to the cause of reform.” “Nor does that surprise me,” said I. Then, with a flush of wrath: “You may say to orator Gutterglory that I shall have something to remind him of when he takes the stump in your support.” My anger over Gutterglory owned a certain propriety of foundation. He was that sodden Cicero who marred the scene when, long before, I called on Big Kennedy, with the reputable old gentleman and Morton, to consult over the Gas Company's injunction antics touching Mulberry Traction. By some wonderful chance, Gutterglory had turned into sober walks. Big Kennedy, while he lived, and afterward I, myself, had upheld him, and put him in the way of money. He paid us with eloquence in conventions and campaigns, and on show occasions when Tammany would celebrate a holiday or a victory. From low he soared to high, and surely none was more pleased thereby than I. On every chance I thrust him forward; and I was sedulous to see that always a stream of dollar-profit went running his way. Morton, I remember, did not share my enthusiasm. It was when I suggested Gutterglory as counsel for Mulberry. “But really now!” objected Morton, with just a taint of his old-time lisp, “the creature doesn't know enough. He's as shallow as a skimming dish, don't y' know.” “Gutterglory is the most eloquent of men,” I protested. “I grant you the beggar is quite a talker, and all that,” retorted Morton, twirling that potential eyeglass, “but the trouble is, old chap, that when we've said that, we've said all. Gutterglory is a mere rhetorical freak. He ought to take a rest, and give his brain a chance to grow up with his vocabulary.”