“Sure I got one, jist the same way. The very same langwidge, nearly,” commented Mr. Tiernan, sweetly. “He’s beginning to wake up, eh? What! The little old first and second are beginning to look purty big just now, eh? What!” “Tush!” observed Mr. Kerrigan to Mr. Tiernan, with a marked sardonic emphasis, “that combination won’t last forever. They’ve been getting too big for their pants, I’m thinking. Well, it’s a long road, eh? It’s pretty near time, what?” “You’re right,” responded Mr. Tiernan, feelingly. “It is a long road. These are the two big wards of the city, and everybody knows it. If we turn on them at the last moment where will they be, eh?” He put a fat finger alongside of his heavy reddish nose and looked at Mr. Kerrigan out of squinted eyes. “You’re damned right,” replied the little politician, cheerfully. They went to the dinner separately, so as not to appear to have conferred before, and greeted each other on arriving as though they had not seen each other for days. “How’s business, Mike?” “Oh, fair, Pat. How’s things with you?” “So so.” “Things lookin’ all right in your ward for November?” Mr. Tiernan wrinkled a fat forehead. “Can’t tell yet.” All this was for the benefit of Mr. McKenty, who did not suspect rank party disloyalty. Nothing much came of this conference, except that they sat about discussing in a general way wards, pluralities, what Zeigler was likely to do with the twelfth, whether Pinski could make it in the sixth, Schlumbohm in the twentieth, and so on. New Republican contestants in old, safe Democratic wards were making things look dubious. “And how about the first, Kerrigan?” inquired Ungerich, a thin, reflective German-American of shrewd presence. Ungerich was one who had hitherto wormed himself higher in McKenty’s favor than either Kerrigan or Tiernan. “Oh, the first’s all right,” replied Kerrigan, archly. “Of course you never can tell. This fellow Scully may do something, but I don’t think it will be much. If we have the same police protection—” Ungerich was gratified. He was having a struggle in his own ward, where a rival by the name of Glover appeared to be pouring out money like water. He would require considerably more money than usual to win. It was the same with Duvanicki. McKenty finally parted with his lieutenants—more feelingly with Kerrigan and Tiernan than he had ever done before. He did not wholly trust these two, and he could not exactly admire them and their methods, which were the roughest of all, but they were useful. “I’m glad to learn,” he said, at parting, “that things are looking all right with you, Pat, and you, Mike,” nodding to each in turn. “We’re going to need the most we can get out of everybody. I depend on you two to make a fine showing—the best of any. The rest of us will not forget it when the plums are being handed around afterward.”