Sundry years slipped by, and the common routine work of the organization engaged utterly both Big Kennedy and myself. We struggled heartily, and had our ups and our downs, our years of black and our years of white. The storm that wrecked Big Kennedy's predecessor had left Tammany in shallow, dangerous waters for its sailing. Also Big Kennedy and I were not without our personal enemies. We made fair weather of it, however, particularly when one considers the broken condition of Tammany, and the days were not desolate of their rewards. Now ensues a great heave upward in my destinies. One evening I came upon Big Kennedy, face gray and drawn, sitting as still as a church. Something in the look or the attitude went through me like a lance. “What's wrong?” I asked. “There was a saw-bones here,” said he, “pawin' me over for a life-insurance game that I thought I'd buy chips in. He tells me my light's goin' to flicker out inside a year. That's a nice number to hand a man! Just as a sport finds himself on easy street, along comes a scientist an' tells him it's all off an' nothin' for it but the bone-yard! Well,” concluded Big Kennedy, grimly lighting a cigar, “if it's up to me, I s'ppose I can hold down a hearse as good as th' next one. If it's th' best they can do, why, let her roll!” CHAPTER XVI--THE BOSS IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE BOSS! BIG KENNEDY could not live a year; his doom was written. It was the word hard to hear, and harder to believe, of one who, broad, burly, ruddy with the full color of manhood at its prime, seemed in the very feather of his strength. And for all that, his hour was on its way. Death had gained a lodgment in his heart, and was only pausing to strengthen its foothold before striking the blow. I sought to cheer him with the probability of mistake on the side of ones who had given him this dark warning of his case. “That's all right,” responded Big Kennedy in a tone of dogged dejection; “I'm up ag'inst it just th' same. It didn't need th' doctor to put me on. More'n once I've felt my heart slip a cog. I shall clean up an' quit. They say if I pull out an' rest, I may hang on for a year. That's th' tip I've got, an' I'm goin' to take it. I'm two millions to th' good, an' when all is done, why, that's enough.” Big Kennedy declared for a vacation; the public announcement went for it that he would rest. I was to take control as a fashion of Boss by brevet.