“It’s Maggie Dwyer,” said Jimmie. “Say, there’s a girl for yer life! She’s got ’em all tied hand an’ foot.” “If there was no Annie,” remarked Goose, “and I had the drag with Maggie that youse have, why her name’d be McGonagle in short order, le’me tell ye that.” “G’way,” said Larry. “Quit yer stringin’.” “This is on the level,” insisted McGonagle. “I’ve heard it talked about for years. Everybody in the ward knowed that she wanted ye,--everybody but yerself. But, say, youse seemed so dead leary about the t’ing that nobody had the nerve to say anyt’ing to youse.” After the two young men departed, a perfect stream of reporters began to call, all anxious to get Larry’s views upon the political situation; and when this had subsided, Mason and Kerrigan came in, to talk over yesterday and confer about to-morrow. “Did youse see McQuirk since yesterday?” asked Larry, after some time spent in this fashion. “No,” answered Kerrigan, “but I received a note from him late last night, asking me to call upon him this afternoon.” Larry nodded. “I was at his house when he wrote it,” said he. “Youse don’t need to worry any about him; he’s right in line. He kin carry the ward, with youse on the ticket, hands down. And that’s McQuirk’s game, every time. As long as he’s on the side that wins he can make good, ye know, and any time they need the ward in a deal they have to come to him with the money.” “Owen Dwyer seems to think,” said Mason, “that the election is only a matter of the size of Kerrigan’s majority.” “That’s right,” said Larry. “In this ward, and in all the others for that matter, the fightin’s done at the primaries; the guy what’s named in the regular way by the party what runs the ward, has got the election cinched.” When he and Mason were ready to go, Kerrigan said: “I am glad that Nolan and Ferguson came out of their matter all right. I know Cullen, one of the doctors at St. Mary’s, and he told me that Mart Kelly’s condition, while painful, is not necessarily serious.” “O’Connor an’ Gartenheim talked to McQuirk,” said Larry; “and McQuirk squared it all right at the front office. They had to give bail but the case’ll never come to trial, because Jim Kelly won’t push it; he knows what Mart was done up for, and he dasn’t.” “McGonagle tells me that things are all O. K. in his matter,” remarked Kerrigan, as they stood upon the steps, Larry in the doorway. “I’ll be on hand promptly at noon to attend to my end of it.” Larry closed the door after they had departed and returned to the sitting room. He was glad that matters political had turned out as they did--but only because it would prevent the loss of Owen Dwyer’s savings, and thereby please Maggie--outside of that he seemed to have lost all zest of the battle, all exultation in the victory.