Clams had occurred, and while we were discussing these small sea-monsters, Fatfloat broke suddenly forth. "I don't know if it be a subject for self-gratulation or no, but I observed that the daily papers took quick note of my statement that Tammany Hall was looted of its last shilling. For the guidance of these energetic folk of ink and types, I will unfold a further huddle of details. Instead of nine hundred thousand dollars, there were more than one million collected for the Tammany campaign. No one can show where so much as two hundred thousand dollars were honestly disbursed. Let me tell a story; it may suggest an idea to our diligent friends of the Dailies. There is a rotund, porpoise-shaped globular gentleman known of these parts as 'Bim the Button Man.' This personage went into the printing business at the beginning of the late campaign and went out of it--like blowing out a candle--at the close. Bim the Button Man, for his brief parade as a printer, took a partner. Or perhaps the partner took Mr. Bim. The partner was and is a doughty 'leader.' It was the new-made firm of 'Bim' that flourished in the production of those posters and lithographs of Mr. Shepard which for so long disfigured the town. Mr. Mitchell, printer, complained bitterly over this invasion of his rights by Mr. Bim. The latter snapped pudgy fingers at the querulous Mr. Mitchell by virtue of his powerful partner. Who was Mr. Bim's partner? One year before when Mr. Mitchell's bill was seven thousand dollars, Mr. Croker, being in a frugal mood, felt excessively pained. Why then should it mount last autumn to three hundred thousand dollars and excite neither grief nor reproach? And what was got for those three hundred thousand dollars? When a show leaves New York, it carries posters wherewith to embellish each fence and bill board in the land; and yet no show ever paid more than ten thousand dollars for paper. Five thousand dollars will cover every possible coign of bill-sticking advantage and hang, besides, a lithograph of Mr. Shepard in every window in the city of New York. Then wherefore those three hundred thousand dollars of Tammany? There be folk on the finance committee who should go into this business with a lantern. The most hopeful name of these is Mr. McDonald, our great subway contractor and partner of Mr. August Belmont; he is a member of that committee. He is, too, a gentleman of intelligence, business habits and high worth. Mr. McDonald of the subway, for his own credit and that of Mr. Belmont, his partner, should never sleep until he turned out the bottom facts of that Tammany treasure which has disappeared. Nor should a common interest with Mr. Croker and certain of that gentleman's retainers in the Port Chester railway deter him. Is there no honest man in Athens?" * * * * * It was at the close of the repast and when cigars were smokily going that Vacuum returned to the subject of Tammany Hall.