When the socialist came out of the booth he stood before Sam shaking his head. His whole attitude had changed, and he looked like a man caught doing a foolish or absurd thing. “Nothing doing, nothing doing, Mr. McPherson,” he said, starting for the hotel door. At the door he stopped and shook his finger at Sam. “It won’t work,” he said, emphatically. “Chicago is too wise.” Sam turned and went back to his room. His name had killed his only chance to beat Crofts, Jake, Bill and Ed. In his room he sat looking out of the window into the street. “Where shall I take hold now?” he asked himself. Turning out the lights he sat listening to the roar of the waterfall and thinking of the events of the last week. “I have had a time,” he thought. “I have tried something and even though it did not work it has been the best fun I have had for years.” The hours slipped away and night came on. He could hear men shouting and laughing in the street, and going downstairs he stood in a hallway at the edge of the crowd that gathered about the socialist. The orator shouted and waved his hand. He seemed as proud as a young recruit who has just passed through his first baptism of fire. “He tried to make a fool of me--McPherson of Chicago--the millionaire--one of the capitalist kings--he tried to bribe me and my party.” In the crowd the old carpenter was dancing in the road and rubbing his hands together. With the feeling of a man who had finished a piece of work or turned the last leaf of a book, Sam went back to his hotel. “In the morning I shall be on my way,” he thought. A knock came at the door and the red-haired man came in. He closed the door softly and winked at Sam. “Ed made a mistake,” he said, and laughed. “The old man told him you were a socialist and he thought you were trying to spoil the graft. He is scared about that beating you got and mighty sorry. He’s all right--Ed is--and he and Bill and I have got the votes. What made you stay under cover so long? Why didn’t you tell us you were McPherson?” Sam saw the hopelessness of any attempt to explain. Jake had evidently sold out the men. Sam wondered how. “How do you know you can deliver the votes?’” he asked, trying to lead Jake on. Jake rolled the quid in his mouth and winked again. “It was easy enough to fix the men when Ed, Bill and I got together,” he said. “You know about the other. There’s a clause in the act authorising the bond issue, a sleeper, Bill calls it. You know more about that than I do. Anyway the power will be turned over to the man we say.” “But how do I know you can deliver the votes?” Jake threw out his hand impatiently.