Four days later the Daily Tory published the first of its articles; it fell upon our enemy with the force of a trip-hammer. From that hour the assaults on the Chief gained never let or stay. The battle staggered on for months. The public, hating him for his insolence, joined in hunting him. One by one those papers, so lately his adorers, showed him their backs.
“Papers sail only with the wind,” said Big Kennedy sagely, in commenting on these ink-desertions of the Chief.
In the midst of the trouble, Old Mike began to sicken for his end. He was dying of old age, and the stream of his life went sinking into his years like water into sand. Big Kennedy gave up politics to sit by the bedside of the dying old man. One day Old Mike seemed greatly to revive.
“Jawn,” he said, “you'll be th' Chief of Tammany. The Chief, now fightin' for his life, will lose. The mish-take he made was in robbin' honest people. Jawn, he should have robbed th' crim'nals an' th' law breakers. The rogues can't fight back, an' th' honest people can. An' remember this: the public don't care for what it hears, only for what it sees. Never interfere with people's beer; give 'em clean streets; double the number of lamp-posts—th' public's like a fly, it's crazy over lamps—an' have bands playin' in every par-rk. Then kape th' streets free of ba-ad people, tinhorn min, an' such. You don't have to drive 'em out o' town, only off th' streets; th' public don't object to dirt, but it wants it kept in the back alleys. Jawn, if you'll follow what I tell you, you can do what else ye plaze. The public will go with ye loike a drunkard to th' openin' of a new s'loon.”
“What you must do, father,” said Big Kennedy cheerfully, “is get well, an' see that I run things straight.”
“Jawn,” returned Old Mike, smiling faintly, “this is Choosday; by Saturday night I'll be dead an' under th' daisies.”
Old Mike's funeral was a creeping, snail-like, reluctant thing of miles, with woe-breathing bands to mark the sorrowful march. Big Kennedy never forgot; and to the last of his power, the question uppermost in his mind, though never in his mouth, was whether or not that one who sought his favor had followed Old Mike to the grave.
The day of Old Mike's funeral saw the destruction of our enemy, the Chief. He fell with the crash of a tree. He fled, a hunted thing, and was brought back to perish in a prison. And so came the end of him, by the wit of Big Kennedy and the furtive sleighty genius of Darby the Goph.