“Conventions have been held in all the senatorial districts down the state, and sixty-nine candidates are already nominated. Of these sixty-nine, we have beyond any question”—he consulted his paper, as if to make sure of the number—“we have fifty-three, and that doesn’t include the nine hold-over senators who are with us. We can lose ten of them at the polls and still have enough to control the caucus. In Cook County, to-morrow, we’ll carry the First, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Eleventh, Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-third and the country towns—the Seventh—giving us thirty-five more candidates, or ninety-seven in all. This is a conservative estimate, and gives the doubtful districts to Warren. We can lose Cook to-morrow and still have a fighting chance to win out. I regard the battle as ours. Senator Warren is defeated.”
“Over at the Richelieu,” said Cowley, of the News-Despatch, “Baldwin claims they have you whipped to a standstill.”
“They’re welcome over there to any comfort they can get out of the situation,” said Garwood in a superior way.
It rained on the day of the primaries. All morning politicians, big and little, stamped into Senator Warren’s hotel on Michigan Avenue, or stamped into the Grand, tracking with greasy mud the muslin that had been stretched over the carpet in Colonel Talbott’s headquarters. The polls were to open at one o’clock. The colonel had risen early, after three hours’ sleep, and snatched his breakfast from a tray, talking to Carroll between bites. All morning he was buttonholed by men who scuffled for a word, complaining that Warren’s fellows would have money to burn, and he fought with them, bill by bill, for the few dollars he had in his pocket. He was only liberal, to the extent that his slender campaign funds permitted liberality, with those who were to work in Carroll’s district. As the day wore on and he received reports and despatched orders, like a general fighting a battle, the colonel’s spirits rose, and the politicians, when he ordered them sharply about, paused at the door to look back at him, pleased by the thought that this was the Colonel Talbott of the good old days.
It was a wicked battle they fought out at the polls that day. The Warren men had control of the party organization and named the judges and clerks. Inmates of lodging houses, and Lake Front hoboes, their rags steaming in the warm rain, were hauled from poll to poll in big moving vans, and voted wherever Warren needed votes and as often as he pleased. The city hall took a hand and furnished policemen in larger numbers than the primary election law intended, so that whenever an anti-Warren challenger challenged a vote he was hustled by officers, and if he resisted, bundled off to the Harrison Street police station and locked up on a charge of disturbance. Late in the afternoon reports coming from Halsted Street that the Fifth Ward was in danger, the colonel escaped from his headquarters and went into the trenches himself. Carroll never forgot the old man as he splashed from poll to poll that waning summer day, or stood in the drenching rain before a voting booth, waving back policemen, ordering men up to vote, threatening judges and clerks. He had never heard the old man swear before.
At seven o’clock the polls closed. Warren carried some of the districts, the opposition others. Both claimed the victory. It was left for the convention to decide.
The colonel, for some reason, preferred not to get up the next morning, but opened his mail, read his papers, ate his breakfast, and finally held his morning levee, the last of the campaign, in bed. The politicians who had been waiting outside for an hour, grumbled at such indolence, and, when they were finally admitted to their leader’s presence, suspected him of imitating the undemocratic luxuriousness of Senator Warren, who received his callers in bed every morning. But by nine o’clock they had received their final instructions and scattered to the conventions, and when Mosely and Garwood sauntered in from the breakfast-room, they found only a few stragglers, who lingered on in the hope of beer money, at least, for their imaginary services on this decisive day. Malachi Nolan, in black garments and white cravat, came presently, his big diamond flashing, his face shining and red from his dull razor, and then Carroll, at the sound of whose young step and fresh laugh the colonel succeeded in evoking a wan, tired smile.
“Just lazy, that’s all,” he declared reassuringly, seeing Carroll halt in surprise. He reared himself on his elbow, and as he raised his head, its white hair all tangled, Carroll saw how haggard he was. He never had seen him look so old, so white, so worn, before.
“I was waiting for you,” said the colonel, indicating Nolan with a finger that was like a claw. “I’ve fixed everything but the First District.” He paused for breath. “The First Ward’s solid, isn’t it? Well, all right. But watch Donahue. I’m sorry we ever let him get on the delegation. And then, let’s see”—he pressed his brow in a troubled effort to steady his senses—“oh, yes. See McGlynn and have him lay down on Hardy, and tell Reinhold that if he wants that job from the South Park board he’d better get in line, and as to Wright—his brother’s a conductor on the Cottage Grove line, and you can get at him through Harlow. Tell him I sent you. That’ll give you thirty-five votes on the first ballot, and—”