"I can get the emergency fund increased. We have to give no account of that, you know." "You seem to have thought o' everything, Baxter," Murphy admitted. "I say we can't see Foley any too soon." Bobbs and Isaacs approved this judgment heartily. "I'll write him, then, to meet us here to-morrow afternoon. There's one more point now." He paused to hunt for a phrase. "Don't you think the suggestion should--ah--come from him?" The three men looked puzzled. "My mind don't make the jump," said Murphy. Baxter coughed. It was not very agreeable, this having to say things right out. "Don't you see? If we make the offer, it's--well, it's bribery. But if we can open the way a little bit, and lead him on to make the demand, why we're----" "Held up, o' course!" supplied Murphy admiringly. "Yes. In that case, if the negotiations with Foley come to nothing, or there is a break later, Foley can't make capital out of it, as he might in the first case. We're safe." "We couldn't help ourselves! We were held up!" Alderman Murphy could not restrain a joyous laugh, and he held out a red hairy hand. "Put 'er there, Baxter! There was a time when I classed you with the rest o' the reform bunch you stand with in politics--fit for nothin' but to wear white kid gloves and to tell people how good you are. But say, you're the smoothest article I've met yet!" Baxter, with hardly concealed reluctance, placed his soft slender hand in Murphy's oily paw. Chapter XXIV BUSINESS IS BUSINESS It had been hard for Baxter to broach his plan to the Executive Committee. The next step in the plan was far harder--to write the letter to Foley. His revolted pride upreared itself against this act, but his business sense forced him to go on with what he had begun. So he wrote the letter--not an easy task of itself, since the letter had to be so vague as to tell Foley nothing, and yet so luring as to secure his presence--and sent it to Foley's house by messenger. The next afternoon at a quarter past two the committee was again in Baxter's office. Foley had been asked to come at half-past. The fifteen minutes before his expected arrival they spent in rehearsing the plan, so soon to be put to its severest test. "I suppose you'll do all the talking, Baxter," said Bobbs. "Sure," answered Murphy. "It's his game. I don't like to give in that any man's better than me, but when it comes to fine work o' this kind we ain't one, two, three with Baxter." Baxter took the compliment with unchanged face. Foley was not on time. At two-forty he had not come, and that he would come at all began to be doubted. At two-fifty he had not arrived. At three none of the four really expected him. "Let's go," said Murphy. "He'd 'a' been here on time if he was comin' at all. I ain't goin' to waste my time waitin' on any walkin' delegate."