"Ah, Mr. O'Meagher," he says, "good-morning! Good-morning! Happy to see you so--er--well. Charming day, so warm for the--er--season." "Yes," says Mr. O'Meagher, "so it be." "I received your notification of the high--er--honor, you propose to confer on me." "Yes," says Mr. O'Meagher, "you're the man for the place." "So kind of you to--er--say so. You mentioned that the--er--assessment was--" "Twenty thousand dollars," says Mr. O'Meagher, with great promptness. [Illustration: "JUST SO," SAYS MR. WIMPLES, "JUST SO."] "Just so," says Mr. Wimples, "just so." "And you've called to pay it," says Mr. O'Meagher, taking up his list and his pencil. "I've been expecting you." "Ah, yes, to be sure, of course. I was going to propose a--er--settlement." "A what?" says Mr. O'Meagher sharply. Mr. Wimples mops his brow. "The fact is," he says, "I don't happen to have so considerable a sum as $20,000 at the--er--moment, and I was thinking of suggesting that I just pay you, say, $10,000 down, and give you two--er--notes." "'Twont do," says Mr. O'Meagher, shaking his head and fetching his pencil down upon the table with a smart tap, "'twont do at all." "Eh? Indorsed, you know, by--" "Mr. Wimples, that $20,000 in hard cash must be in my hands by six o'clock to-night, or your name goes off the ticket." "O--er--Lud!" says Mr. Wimples, sadly. "By six P. M." "But, my dear Mr. O'Meagher--" "Or your name goes off the ticket." Mr. Wimples groaned, grasped the whisky bottle, poured out a copious draught, tossed it down his throat, bowed meekly, and withdrew. In the vestibule he met the Hon. Perfidius Ruse, the Mayor of the city, whose term of office was about to expire, and as to whose renomination there was going on a heated controversy. Mr. Ruse was a reformer. It was as a reformer that he had been elected two years before. At that time Mr. O'Meagher found himself menaced by a strange peril. It had been alleged by jealous enemies that he was corrupt, and they called loudly for reform. At first, Mr. O'Meagher experienced some difficulty in understanding what was meant by corrupt and what by reform. His mission in life, as he understood it, was to name the individuals who should hold the city's offices and to control their official acts in the interest of Tammany Hall, and he had great difficulty in comprehending how it could be anybody's business that he had grown rich performing his mission. But perceiving that a large and dangerous class of voters was clamoring for a reformer, he concluded to humor it if he could find a good safe reformer on whom he could rely. In this emergency he had produced the Hon. Perfidius Ruse.