"Hot shot, grape, canister and shrapnel, sir! Horses in lather, guns on
the wheel and bayonets set. We'll bivouac in the camp of the enemy on the
night of the election! We'll--"
"I don't believe you will want to lie down in the lair of the blind tiger
as soon as that, Major," laugher Phoebe.
"Phoebe," answered the major, "politics makes strange bed-fellows. Mike
O'Rourke, the boss of the democratic Irish, was around this morning
hunting for David Kildare with the entire green grocer's vote in his
pocket. He spoke of the boy as his own son."
"Good for old Mike!" laughed David. "It's not every boy who can boast an
intimate friendship with his corner grocer from childhood up. It means a
certain kind of---self-denial in the matter of apples and other
temptations. I used to go to the point of an occasional errand for him.
Those were the days, Phoebe, when you sat on the front steps and played
hollyhock dolls. Wish I'd kidnapped you then--when I could!"
"It would have saved us both lots of time--and trouble," answered Phoebe
daringly from the protection of the major's presence.
"David, sir," said the major who had been busy settling himself in his
chair and lighting his pipe during this exchange of pleasantries between
David and Phoebe, to the like of which he was thoroughly accustomed,
"this is going to be a fight to the ditches. I believe the whisky
ring that controls this city to be the worst machine south of Mason and
Dixon's. State-wide prohibition voted six months ago and every saloon in
the town going full tilt night and day! They own the city council, the
board of public works and the mayor, but none of that compares in
seriousness to the debauching of our criminal courts. The grand jury is
helpless if the judge dismisses every true bill they return--and Taylor
does it every time if it is a whisky law indictment or pertaining
thereto, and most of the bills are at least distantly pertaining. So
there you have us bound and helpless--a disgrace to the nation, sir, and
a reproach to good government!"
"Yes, Major, they've got us tied up some--but they forgot to gag us,"
answered David with a smile. "Your editorial in the _Gray Picket_,
calling on me to run for criminal court judge, has been copied in every
paper in the state and some of the large northern sheets. I am willing to
make the try, Major. I've practised down there more than you'd think and
it's rotten from the cellar steps to the lightning-rod. Big black buck is
sent up for rioting down at Hein's Bucket of Blood dive--stand aside and
forget about it--while some poor old kink is sent out to the pen for
running into a flock of sleepy hens in the dark, 'unbenkownst' entirely.
I defended six poor pick-ups last week myself, and I guess Taylor saw
my blood was on the boil at the way he's running things. I'm ready to
take a hand with him, but it will take some pretty busy doing around to
beat the booze gang. Am I the man--do you feel sure?"