Grigsby sprang toward Jennings and seized his hand.
“Hank, you’re the best friend I ever had,” he cried, and his eyes glistened.
“Aw, don’t talk like that,” said Jennings awkwardly.
“But can we trust Hennessey?” said Grigsby, the next instant, his eyes dilating, his hand suddenly dropping by his side.
“Hell, we’ve got to,” said Jennings. Then he strode across the room and turned the old-fashioned brass bell-pull.
When a black boy grinned in the doorway, Jennings sent for Hennessey, and soon, the old elevator having clambered to the parlor floor, there was a knock. Jennings yelled “Come!” and in the doorway stood a young Irishman, red-cheeked and with closely-cropped, silver-sprinkled black hair. In the cities, the hair of the Irish-American—especially in politics, and they are all in—turns gray early. Hennessey was strong in the Thirteenth Ward of Chicago, hence his job in the office of the secretary of state. Jennings had been writing while awaiting the Irishman’s coming. Turning to him the secretary of state gave his instructions, and he departed. As he closed the door Grigsby called:
“I’ll make it all right with you, Mike.”
Grigsby went to the window and pressed his face to one of the small panes, placing his hands as blinds beside his eyes as a little child does. The cold glass soothed his forehead deliciously. He saw Shorty, who has driven “statesmen” on their mysterious nightly rounds for generations, mount the box of his old hack and pull his reluctant horses into the street. Then he turned to confront the three hours’ wait. He poked the smouldering fire of soft prairie coal, gave Jennings a cigar, and was about to pull the old-fashioned brass bell crank that more cheer might be added to the factitious comfort he sought to create in the room, when Jennings, meditatively scratching his head, said:
“Bill, where’s them notes o’ yourn?”
“Why, in the treasury, I suppose.”