The important thing was that these clothes of gentility gave me multiplied vogue with ones who were peculiarly my personal followers. They earned me emphasis with my Red Jackets, who still bore me aloft as their leader, and whose favor I must not let drift. The Tin Whistles, too, drew an awe from this rich yet civil uniform which strengthened my authority in that muscular quarter. I had grown, as an alderman and that one next in ward power to Big Kennedy, to a place which exempted me from those harsher labors of fist and bludgeon in which, whenever the exigencies of a campaign demanded, the Tin Whistles were still employed. But I claimed my old mastery over them. I would not permit so hardy a force to go to another's hands, and while I no longer led their war parties, I was always in the background, giving them direction and stopping them when they went too far. It was demanded of my safety that I retain my hold upon both the Tin Whistles and the Red Jackets. However eminent I might be, I was by no means out of the ruck, and my situation was to be sustained only by the strong hand. The Tin Whistles and the Red Jackets were the sources of my importance, and if my voice were heeded or my word owned weight it was because they stood ever ready to my call. Wherefore, I cultivated their favor, secured my place among them, while at the same time I forced them to obey to the end that they as well as I be preserved. Those clothes of a gentleman not only augmented, but declared my strength. In that time a fine coat was an offense to ones more coarsely clothed. A well-dressed stranger could not have walked three blocks on the East Side without being driven to do battle for his life. Fine linen was esteemed a challenge, and that I should be so arrayed and go unscathed, proved not alone my popularity, but my dangerous repute. Secretly, it pleased my shoulder-hitters to see their captain so garbed; and since I could defend my feathers, they made of themselves another reason of leadership. I was growing adept of men, and I counted on this effect when I spent my money with that tailor.