“Remember my orders. Five-thirty is the time. Go for the blokes with badges—th' ticket peddlers. An' mind! don't pound'em, chase'em. Unless they stop to slug with you, don't put a hand on'em.”
Being thus re-instructed and about to depart, I made bold to ask Big Kennedy if there were any danger of his man's defeat. He shook his head.
“Not a glimmer,” he replied. “But we've got to keep movin'. They've put out stacks of money. They've settled it to help elect the opposition candidate—this old gent, Morton. They don't care to win; they're only out to make me lose. If they could take the Alderman an' the police away from me, they would go in next trip an' kill me too dead to skin. But it's no go; they can't make th' dock. They've put in their money; but I'll show'em a trick that beats money to a standstill.”
It was as I had surmised; Big Kennedy feared treachery and the underhand support of the enemy by men whom he called his friends. For myself, I would stand by him. Beg Kennedy was the only captain I knew.
To the commands of Big Kennedy, and their execution, I turned with as ready a heart as ever sent duck to drink. No impulse to disobey or desert so much as crossed my slope of thought. Tammany Hall has ever been military in its spirit. Big Kennedy was my superior officer, I but a subaltern; it was my province to accept his commands and carry them forward without argument or pause.
In full and proper season, I had my Tin Whistles in hand. I did not march them to the polling place in a body, since I was not one to obstreperously vaunt or flaunt an enterprise in advance. Also, I was too much the instinctive soldier to disclose either my force or my purpose, and I knew the value of surprise.
There were a round twenty of my Tin Whistles, each a shoulder-hitter and warm to shine in the graces of Big Kennedy. I might have recruited a double strength, but there was no need. I had counted the foe; the poll-tenders of the opposition numbered but ten; my twenty, and each a berserk of his fists, ought to scatter them like a flock of sparrows. My instructions given to my fellows were precisely Big Kennedy's orders as given to me; no blows, no blood unless made necessary by resistance.
As the time drew down for action, my Tin Whistles were scattered about, sticking close to the elbows of the enemy, and waiting the signal. The polling booth was a small frame construction, not much larger than a Saratoga trunk. On other occasions it served as the office of a wood and coal concern. The table, with the ballot-box thereon, stood squarely in the door; behind it were the five or six officers—judges and tally clerks—of election. There was a crush and crowd of Big Kennedy's clansmen to entirely surround the little building, and they so choked up the path that ones who had still to vote couldn't push through. There arose, too, a deal of shoving and jostling, and all to a running uproar of profanity; affairs appeared to be drifting towards the disorderly.
The reputable old gentleman, his face red with indignation, was moving to and fro on the outskirts of the crowd, looking for a police officer. He would have him cut a way through the press for those who still owned votes. No officer was visible; the reputable old gentleman, even though he searched with that zeal common of candidates anxious for success, would have no aid from the constabulary.
“And this is the protection,” cried the reputable old gentleman, striding up to Big Kennedy, and shaking a wrathful finger in his face, “that citizens and taxpayers receive from the authorities! Here are scores of voters who are being blocked from the polls and robbed of their franchise. It's an outrage!”