What is to be done with such a rag-bag, moralistic ass as this? In spite of all his philanderings, and the resultant qualms due to his fear of being found out, he prospered in business and rose to some eminence in his own community. As he had grown more lax he had become somewhat more genial and tolerant, more generally acceptable. He was a good Republican, a follower in the wake of Norrie Simms and young Truman Leslie MacDonald. His father-in-law was both rich and moderately influential. Having lent himself to some campaign speaking, and to party work in general, he proved quite an adept. Because of all these things—his ability, such as it was, his pliability, and his thoroughly respectable savor—he had been slated as candidate for mayor on the Republican ticket, which had subsequently been elected. Cowperwood was well aware, from remarks made in the previous campaign, of the derogatory attitude of Mayor Sluss. Already he had discussed it in a conversation with the Hon. Joel Avery (ex-state senator), who was in his employ at the time. Avery had recently been in all sorts of corporation work, and knew the ins and outs of the courts—lawyers, judges, politicians—as he knew his revised statutes. He was a very little man—not more than five feet one inch tall—with a wide forehead, saffron hair and brows, brown, cat-like eyes and a mushy underlip that occasionally covered the upper one as he thought. After years and years Mr. Avery had learned to smile, but it was in a strange, exotic way. Mostly he gazed steadily, folded his lower lip over his upper one, and expressed his almost unchangeable conclusions in slow Addisonian phrases. In the present crisis it was Mr. Avery who had a suggestion to make. “One thing that I think could be done,” he said to Cowperwood one day in a very confidential conference, “would be to have a look into the—the—shall I say the heart affairs—of the Hon. Chaffee Thayer Sluss.” Mr. Avery’s cat-like eyes gleamed sardonically. “Unless I am greatly mistaken, judging the man by his personal presence merely, he is the sort of person who probably has had, or if not might readily be induced to have, some compromising affair with a woman which would require considerable sacrifice on his part to smooth over. We are all human and vulnerable”—up went Mr. Avery’s lower lip covering the upper one, and then down again—“and it does not behoove any of us to be too severely ethical and self-righteous. Mr. Sluss is a well-meaning man, but a trifle sentimental, as I take it.” As Mr. Avery paused Cowperwood merely contemplated him, amused no less by his personal appearance than by his suggestion. “Not a bad idea,” he said, “though I don’t like to mix heart affairs with politics.” “Yes,” said Mr. Avery, soulfully, “there may be something in it. I don’t know. You never can tell.”