"I don't see that I can be of any service to you, Mr. Pennybaker. If I have any influence in the matter, it shall be given to Miss Matchin, whom I proposed once before." "Exactly! Now you're talkin'. Miss Matchin shall have it, on one little proviso that won't hurt you nor me nor nobody. Say the word, and it's a whack." And he lifted up his hand to strike the bargain. "What is it?" asked Farnham, in a tone which was severe and contemptuous, in spite of him. "Namely, just this," answered Pennybaker, "You ain't on the make; you're fixed. You don't care about these d---- little things except to help a friend once 'n awhile," he said, in a large and generous way. "But I ain't that kind yet. I've got to look out for myself--pretty lively, too. Now, I'll tell you what's my racket. You let me perpose Miss Matchin's name and then go and tell her father that I put it through, and it'll be done slick as a whistle. That's all solid, ain't it?" Farnham's brow clouded. He did not answer at once. Pennybaker repeated his question a little anxiously: "That's all solid, ain't it?" "You will excuse me, Mr. Pennybaker, if I do not quite understand your racket, as you call it. I do not see how you make anything out of this. Matchin is a poor man. You surely do not intend----" "To strike Saul for a divvy? Nothing of the sort," said Pennybaker, without the least offence. "The whole thing lies just here. Among gentlemen there's no use being shy about it. My brother wants to be assessor in Saul Matchin's ward. Saul's got a lot of influence among the boys in the planing-mills, and I want his help. You see?" Farnham thought he saw, and, after assenting to Pennybaker's eager demand, "That's all solid?" he walked away, too much relieved by the thought that Maud was provided for to question too closely the morality of the proceeding which the sordid rascal had exposed to him. In the afternoon, at the meeting of the board, the programme agreed upon was strictly carried out. Pennybaker proposed Miss Matchin's name as soon as the vacancy was announced, to the amazement of his late confederates. They moved a postponement, but to no purpose; Maud was elected; and the angry politicians had no better revenge than to say spitefully to Pennybaker on the stairs, as they went away, "How much did the Captain give you for that sell-out?"--a jeer which he met by a smile of conscious rectitude and a request to be informed the next time they organized a freeze-out against him. It must be said, however, that he lost no time in going to Matchin, informing him that he had succeeded in carrying Maud in by unheard-of exertions, and demanding and receiving on the spot five per cent of her year's salary, which he called "the usual commission."