When Williard and Newcomb met at the club, at the Saturday-night luncheons, they avoided each other tactfully, each secretly longing to grasp the other's hand and say: "Don't believe a word of it, old boy; it's all tommy-rot." But policy held them at arm's length. What would the voters say if they heard that their respective candidates were hobnobbing at a private club? Newcomb played billiards in the basement while Williard played a rubber at whist up stairs; and the Saturday rides out to the country club became obsolete. Only a few cynics saw the droll side of the situation; and they were confident that when the election was over the friendship would be renewed all the more strongly for the tension.
One night, some weeks before the election, Williard dined alone with the senator at the Gordon home. Betty Gordon was dining elsewhere. With the cognac and cigars, the senator drew out a slip of paper, scrutinized it for a space, then handed it to his protégé.
"That's the slate. How do you like it?"
Williard ran his glance up and down the columns. Once he frowned.
"What's the matter?" asked the senator shrewdly.
"I do not like the idea of Matthews for commissioner of public works. He's a blackleg—there's no getting around that. He practically runs that faro-bank above his down-town saloon. Can't you put some one else in his place?"
The senator flipped the ash from the end of his cigar.
"Honestly, my boy, I agree with your objection; but the word is given, and if we turn him down now, your friend Newcomb will stand a pretty fair show of being the next mayor."
"You might get a worse one," Williard laughed. "Jack is one of the finest fellows in the world," loyally.
"Not a bit of doubt; but politically," said the senator, laughing, "he is a rascal, a man without a particle of character, and all that. But personally speaking, I would that this town had more like him. Win or lose, he will always be welcome in this house. But this Matthews matter; you will have to swallow him or be swallowed."