"The people seem to be in a nasty mood about corruption. Darn their fool souls, as if they wouldn't be in the rottenest kind of a fix, with no property and no jobs, if we didn't keep the ignorant vote under control and head off such firebrands as this fellow Scarborough." "Got any figgers?" demanded Merriweather, who had listened to this tirade with an expression suggesting cynicism. He thought, and he knew Joe Larkin thought, politics a mere game of chance--you won or you didn't win; and principles and oratory and likes and dislikes and resentments were so much "hot air." If the "oil can" had been with Scarborough, Merriweather would have served him as cheerfully and as loyally as--well, as would Joe Larkin in those circumstances. Larkin wrenched a big bunch of letters and papers from the sagged inside pocket of his slouchy sack coat; after some fumbling and sorting, he paused upon the back of a dirty envelope. "Here's how the convention stands, to a man," he said. "Sure, two hundred and sixty-seven-by 'sure' I mean the fellows we own outright. Safe, two hundred and forty-five-by 'safe' I mean those that'll stand by the organization, thick and thin. Insurgents, two hundred and ninety-five--those are the chaps that've gone clean crazy with Scarborough. Doubtful, three hundred and eighty-six-some of 'em can be bought; most of 'em are waiting to see which way the cat jumps, so as to jump with her." "Then we've got five hundred and twelve, and it takes five hundred and ninety-seven to elect," said Merriweather, the instant the last word was out of Larkin's mouth. Merriweather was a mite of a man, could hardly have weighed more than a hundred pounds, had a bulging forehead, was bald and gray at the temples, eyes brown as walnut juice and quick and keen as a rat-terrier's. His expression was the gambler's--calm, watchful, indifferent, pallid, as from years of nights under the gas-light in close, hot rooms, with the cards sliding from the faro box hour after hour. "Eighty-five short--that's right," assented Larkin. Then, with a look at Culver: "And some of 'em'll come mighty high." "Where are you going to do business with them?" inquired Merriweather. "Here?" "Right here in this room, where I've done it many's the time before," replied Larkin. "To-morrow night Conkey Sedgwick and my boy Tom'll begin steerin' 'em in one at a time about eight o'clock." "Then I'll turn the money over to you at seven to-morrow night," said Culver. "I've got it in a safe place." "Not one of the banks, I hope," said Merriweather. "We noted your suggestions on that point, and on all the others," Culver answered with gracious condescension. "That's why I brought cash in small denominations and didn't go near anybody with it."