It is scarce required that I say I paid not the least attention to young Van Flange and his business affairs. I possessed no stock knowledge, being as darkened touching Wall Street as any Hottentot. More than that, my time was taken up with Tammany Hall. The flow of general feeling continued to favor a return of the machine, for the public was becoming more and sorely irked of a misfit “reform” that was too tight in one place while too loose in another. There stood no doubt of it; I had only to wait and maintain my own lines in order, and the town would be my own again. It would yet lie in my lap like a goose in the lap of a Dutch woman; and I to feather-line my personal nest with its plumage to what soft extent I would. For all that, I must watch lynx-like my own forces, guarding against schism, keeping my people together solidly for the battle that was to be won. Much and frequently, I discussed the situation with Morton. With his traction operations, he had an interest almost as deep as my own. He was, too, the one man on whose wisdom of politics I had been educated to rely. When it became a question of votes and how to get them, I had yet to meet Morton going wrong. “You should have an issue,” said Morton. “You should not have two, for the public is like a dog, don't y' know, and can chase no more than just one rabbit at a time. But one you should have--something you could point to and promise for the future. As affairs stand--and gad! it has been that way since I have had a memory--you and the opposition will go into the campaign like a pair of beldame scolds, railing at one another. Politics has become a contest of who can throw the most mud. Really, the town is beastly tired of both of you--it is, 'pon my word!” “Now what issue would you offer?” “Do you recall what I told our friend Bronson? Public Ownership should be the great card. Go in for the ownership by the town of street railways, water works, gas plants, and that sort of thing, don't y' know, and the rabble will trample on itself to vote your ticket.” “And do you shout 'Municipal Ownership!'--you with a street railway to lose?” “But I wouldn't lose it. I'm not talking of anything but an issue. It would be a deuced bore, if Public Ownership actually were to happen. Besides, for me to lose my road would be the worst possible form! No, I'm not so insane as that. But it doesn't mean, because you make Public Ownership an issue, that you must bring it about. There are always ways to dodge, don't y' know. And the people won't care; the patient beggars have been taught to expect it. An issue is like the bell-ringing before an auction; it is only meant to call a crowd. Once the auction begins, no one remembers the bell-ringing; they don't, really!” “To simply shout 'Public Ownership:'” said I, “would hardly stir the depths. We would have to get down to something practical--something definite.”