Mr. Slocum was defeated, despite the fact that he wished to succeed. Mr. Walsh, it appears, was disappointed, in the same contest, in a wholly different manner. Mr. Walsh was the predecessor of our present coroner, Mr. Maginn. How Mr. Walsh was elected he informed me in these words:
"You know," said Mr. Walsh, "that I didn't want that position. When they talked of nominating me, I told them, says I, 'It's no use; you needn't elect me; I'm not going to serve. D'you s'pose I'm going to give up a respectable business to become a kind of State undertaker? I'm opposed to this post-mortem foolery, any way. When a man's blown up with gunpowder, it don't interest me to know what killed him; so you needn't make me coroner, for I won't serve.'
"Well, do you believe that they persisted in nominating me on the Republican ticket—actually put me up as a candidate? So I published a letter declining the nomination; but they absolutely had the impudence to keep me on the ticket and to hold mass-meetings, at which they made speeches in my favor. I was pretty mad about it, because it showed such a disregard of my feelings; and so I chummed in with the Democrats, and for about two months I went around to the Democratic mass-meetings and spoke against myself and in favor of the opposition candidate. I thought I had them for sure, because I knew more about my own failings than those other fellows did, and I enlarged upon them until I made myself out—Well, I heaped up the iniquity until I used to go home feeling that I was a good deal wickeder sinner than I ever thought I was before. It did me good, too: I reformed. I've been a better man ever since.
"Now, you'd a thought people would a considered me pretty fair authority about my own unfitness for the office, but hang me if the citizens of this county positively didn't go to the polls and elect me by about eight hundred majority. I was the worst disappointed of any man you ever saw. I had repeaters around at the polls, too, voting for the Democratic candidate, and I paid four of the judges to falsify the returns, so as to elect him. But it was no use; the majority was too big. And on election night the Republican executive committee came round to serenade me, and as soon as the band struck up I opened on them with a shot-gun and wounded the bass drummer in the leg. But they kept on playing; and after a while, when they stopped, they poked some congratulatory resolutions under the front door, and gave me three cheers and went home. I was never so annoyed in my life.
"Then they sent me round my certificate of election, but I refused to receive it; and those fellows seized me and held me while Harry Hammer pushed the certificate into my coat-pocket, and then they all quit. The next day a man was run over on the railroad, and they wanted me to tend to him. But I was angry, and I wouldn't. So what does the sheriff do but come here with a gang of police and carry me out there by force? And he hunted up a jury, which brought in a verdict. Then they wanted me to take the fees, but I wouldn't touch them. I said I wasn't going to give my sanction to the proceedings. But of course it was no use. I thought I was living in a free country, but I wasn't. The sheriff drew the money and got a mandamus from the court, and he came here one day while I was at dinner. When I said I wouldn't touch a dollar of it, he drew a pistol and said if I didn't take the money he'd blow my brains out. So what was a man to do? I resigned fifteen times, but somehow those resignations were suppressed. I never heard from them. Well, sir, at last I yielded, and for three years I kept skirmishing around, perfectly disgusted, meditating over folks that had died suddenly.
[Illustration: FORCED TO DO DUTY]
"And do you know that on toward the end of my term they had the face to try to nominate me again? It's a positive fact. Those politicians wanted me to run again; said I was the most popular coroner the county ever had; said that everybody liked my way of handling a dead person, it was so full of feeling and sympathy, and a lot more like that. But what did I do? I wasn't going to run any such risk again. So I went up to the city, and the day before the convention met I sent word down that I was dead. Circulated a report that I'd been killed by falling off a ferry-boat. Then they hung the convention-hall in black and passed resolutions of respect, and then they nominated Barney Maginn.
"On the day after election I turned up, and you never saw men look so miserable, so cut to the heart, as those politicians. They said it was an infamous shame to deceive them in that way, and they declared that they'd run me for sheriff at the next election to make up for it. If they do, I'm going to move for good. I'm going to sail for Colorado, or some other decent place where they'll let a man alone. I'll die in my tracks before I'll ever take another office in this county. I will, now mind me!"