“Morning,” said Mr. Barry. “You look ripping. My congratulations. Sorry you could not come around to the council meeting, last night. You’d have been pleased to see the old franchise waltz through.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Norris, stopping short.
“Haven’t even read the morning paper? Good land, that’s what it means to be a bridegroom!” Barry went on with a chuckle. “Couldn’t stop looking at her face behind the coffee-pot!”
Norris restrained an impulse to throttle him and allowed Barry to proceed.
“Why, yes, we passed the old thing. I always said we would. Your friend Percival voted with the combine. He’s the real stuff. When he saw how truth and justice lay, he buckled down and did the square thing. Have a cigar? No? Oh yes, it’s straight goods I’m givin’ you. You needn’t look so queer. And say, on the quiet, I’m rather stuck on you reform fellers. All they need is argument. So when you get ’em, you get ’em cheap. Say, it’s better than cash, any day.”
Norris ran up the steps and snatched a morning’s paper. Yes, it was true. Percival had voted against his friends and had given the victory to the other side. Ellery flung into his office and whirled into his day’s work in a kind of daze. There was much to do and no time for outside thought, but when the afternoon was over, instead of rushing back to the little home, as he had expected, Norris hurried into his coat and hastened to find Dick. Mr. Percival was at home; and, without waiting to be announced, Ellery sprang up the stairs to the little sanctum where the two had confabbed on many a day. He plunged in on Dick, pale and unresponsive, and blurted out his question.
“Yes,” said Dick, “I voted for it. I became convinced that it was the best thing the city could do. I’ve been telling the boys so for the past two weeks. I really didn’t understand the matter before. Don’t get so excited, Norris.”
He spoke quietly, but without meeting his friend’s eyes, and Ellery’s heart sank.
“I don’t know what it means, Dick,” he said bitterly, “but it seems to me that, like Lucifer, you’ve been falling from dawn to dewy eve, and now you are likely to consort with the devils in the pit. Are you the old Dick who used to be my idol?”
“Oh, bosh!” said Dick. “You are making mountains out of mole hills. The franchise is all right.”