“What?”
“He’s stirred up that mare’s nest of a dude club till they’ve taken to sending a committee to attend every meeting of the council—which is irritating.”
“But not necessarily serious.”
“Not in itself, though it’s getting on Barry’s nerves, as you people of fashion say. To tell you the truth, I’ve had to make a concession to Barry, just to keep him in order. I preferred him right on the council where he is, but he’s got a bee in his top-hat. He wants to run for mayor. I suppose he wants to show people what a great man he really is. I gave in to him on that point. Now here comes in the thing that made me look you up. Barry has some sort of an acquaintance with this Percival fellow, and when he proclaimed his intentions, Percival jumped on him with a flat defiance—told him that he had proof of a disreputable affair in Barry’s career that would queer him with the whole community. How your neighbor got hold of this thing, I’m jiggered if I can guess. I thought I was the only man in the city that knew it, and it has been my chief club to keep Barry in order. But however he got them, Percival’s facts were all square, and Barry collapsed. Now, these two patched up an agreement. Barry promised to give up his candidacy for mayor, and stay in his seat in the council, and Percival, on his part, agreed to keep quiet.”
“Well, that suits you all right.”
“It would if it ended there, but what I started out to tell you is this: the Municipal Club is beginning to take up city politics in earnest. They are organizing systematically in every ward to be ready for a fight for the council in next fall’s election, and, to cap the climax, I was told to-day that they had succeeded in getting Preston to run for mayor. Now you know they could hardly have picked out a worse man, so far as we are concerned. Preston is popular and strong, and he’s perfectly unapproachable. I’d as soon tackle the law of gravitation. It isn’t even pleasant for respectable citizens, like you and me, to come out publicly against the whole movement. We can’t afford to do it. Everything we do has got to be done on the quiet.”
“You needn’t get so hot, Jim. It’ll blow over. This kind of thing always does. It’s only spasmodic. You ought to know that.”
“Well, it’s taking a very inconvenient time for its spasms. It may result in spasmodically losing Billy his seat in the council in November. Nice thing if we didn’t have a clear majority of aldermen next winter, wouldn’t it?” Mr. Murdock was becoming finely sarcastic in his rage.
“I suppose it would be inconvenient,” assented Mr. Early.
“Inconvenient!” growled Murdock. “Is that the strongest swear word you can raise? Do you happen to remember that the lighting franchise expires next fall? Now do we want it renewed, or do we not? Can we afford to lose the biggest thing we’ve got? Do we want Billy to see it through, or do we not?”