You think we overdid ourselves to the point ridiculous, in this breathless solicitude of preparation? Man! the wealth of twenty Ophirs hung upon the hazard. I was in no mood to lose, if skill and sleepless forethought, and every intrigue born of money, might serve to bring success. Morton--that best of prophets!--believed in the star of the machine. “This time,” said he, “I shall miss the agony of contributing to the other fellows, don't y' know. It will be quite a relief--really! I must say, old chap, that I like the mugwump less and less the more I see of him. He's so deucedly respectable, for one thing! Gad! there are times when a mugwump carries respectability to a height absolutely incompatible with human existence. Besides, he is forever walking a crack and calling it a principle. I get tired of a chalkline morality. It's all such deuced rot; it bores me to death; it does, really! One begins to appreciate the amiable, tolerant virtues of easy, old-shoe vice.” Morton, worn with this long harangue, was moved to recruit his moody energies with the inevitable cigarette. He puffed recuperative puffs for a space, and then he began: “What an angelic ass is this city of New York! Why! it doesn't know as much as a horse! Any ignorant teamster of politics can harness it, and haul with it, and head it what way he will. I say, old chap, what are the round-number expenses of the town a year?” “About one hundred and twenty-five millions.” “One hundred and twenty-five millions--really! Do you happen to know the aggregate annual profits of those divers private companies that control and sell us our water, and lighting, and telephone, and telegraph, and traction services?--saying nothing of ferries, and paving, and all that? It's over one hundred and fifty millions a year, don't y' know! More than enough to run the town without a splinter of tax--really! That's why I exclaim in rapture over the public's accommodating imbecility. Now, if a private individual were to manage his affairs so much like a howling idiot, his heirs would clap him in a padded cell, and serve the beggar right.” “I think, however,” said I, “that you have been one to profit by those same idiocies of the town.” “Millions, my boy, millions! And I'm going in for more, don't y' know. There are a half-dozen delicious things I have my eye on. Gad! I shall have my hand on them, the moment you take control.” “I make you welcome in advance,” said I. “Give me but the town again, and you shall pick and choose.” In season, I handed my slate of names to the nominating committee to be handed by them to the convention.