"What sort of woman was she?" "Quiet," he said; "always still; silent-like; a worker. Kept the old man straight--some; and me too--'s well as she could. She's th' one that got him off th' wagon and started in th' liquor business." "You were poor people?" "Yes." "And common?" "Y-yes-s." "A child of the people," I commented: "the common people." He nodded, wondering. "One of the great, friendless mass of helpless humanity?" He nodded. "That wasn't your fault, was it?" I said. "Not to blame for that? That's not your sin, is it?" He shook his head, staring, and he was so mystified that I said that most people were "pretty terribly punished for being born poor and common." He nodded, but he wasn't interested or enlightened, apparently. "And you learned, somehow, that the thing to do was to get yourself on, get up out of it, make a success of your life?" "Yes," he said slowly. "I don't know how, but I did get that, somehow." "That was the ideal they taught you," I said. "Never heard of getting everybody on and making a success of society; of the city and State?" But this line of questioning was beyond him. I changed my tack.... "In that first interview we had," I said, "you insisted that, while the business boss was the real boss, the sovereign, you had some power of your own. And you described it today as the backing of your own ward, which, you said, you had in your pocket. When you became boss, you got the backing, the personal support, of other wards, didn't you?" "Seven of 'em," he counted. "Made th' leaders myself." "And you developed a big personal following in other wards, too?" "Sure," he said; "in every one of them. I was a popular leader; not only a boss, but a friend with friends, lots of 'em. The people liked me." "That's the point," I said. "The people liked you." He nodded warmly. "The common people," I went on, and he was about to nod, but he didn't. And his fingers became still. "Your own people--the great helpless mass of the friendless mob--liked you." His eyes were fixed on mine. "They followed you; they trusted you." I paused a moment, then I asked: "Didn't they, Boss?" "Yes," he said with his lips alone. "They didn't set a watch on you, did they?" I continued. "They voted as you bade them vote, elected the fellows you put on the tickets of their party for them. And, after they elected them, they left it to them, and to you, to be true to them; to stick to them; to be loyal." His eyes fell to his fingers, and his fingers began again to pick. "And when your enemies got after you and accused you," I said, "the people stuck by you?" No answer; only the fingers picked. "The great, friendless mass--the hopeful, hopeless majority--they were true to you and the party, and they re-elected you." His eyes were on mine again, and there was light in them; but it was the reflected light of fire, and it burned.