“There’s only one way to do this thing,” Ralph shouted hotly. “Show ’em up. Shame the town for tolerating them, fight them to a finish. If I could get the proofs that they opened those ballot boxes, do you suppose I’d be quiet? Not on your life.”
“You won’t get the proof.”
“You mean you won’t help me to get it?”
“I do.”
The Rev. Richard could be very final and very disarming. Ralph knew he could not count on him for help in tracing the gossip. He did not suspect what was true, that his friend knew even the details of the bit of law-breaking Jake Mulligan had carried out. It had come to him by the direct confession of one of his young Irish friends, Micky Flaherty. Micky had listened at the Boys’ Club, which Ingraham ran, to a clear and forceful explanation of why the ballot box must be sacred. He had given the talk at the first rumor that there had been a raid on the ballot box by Jake, for the direct purpose of finding exactly how the town stood towards giving him and Reuben Cowder in perpetuity the water, gas and electric light franchises, which they had secured long before Sabinsport dreamed of their importance. He had thought it entirely probable that the rumor was founded on truth, also quite probable that one or more of the likely young politicians in his club had been used as a go-between.
His talk did more than he had even dreamed. Micky was struck with guilt. He was a good Catholic, and confession was necessary to his peace of mind. It was not to the priest, but to Dick, he went; telling him in detail, and with relish too, it must be acknowledged, how at midnight he alone had stolen from the clerk’s office in the town hall the ballot boxes, and how he had worked with Jake and two or three faithful followers, carefully piecing together the torn ballots, until a complete roster of the election was tabulated. When this nice piece of investigation was finished and thoroughly finished, Micky had returned the boxes.
Ingraham had never for a moment considered a betrayal of Micky’s confession. For one reason, he was keen enough to know it would be useless. Micky’s sense of guilt might recognize the confessional, but it did not, and would not, recognize the witness stand. He had no intention of giving his friend the slightest help in unearthing the scandal. He was convinced, as he told him, that a new form of attack must be found.
“You’re a queer one, Dick,” fretted Ralph. “You don’t believe for a moment that Jake and Reub are anything but a pair of pirates. You aren’t afraid. What is it?”
“I suppose, Ralph, it is partly because I like Jake and don’t despair of him.”
“Like him! Like him! Do you know what he calls your mission over on the South Side—sacrilegious rascal. He calls it the Holy Coal Bin. Nice way to talk about a man who saved a neighborhood from freezing to death because he’s too blamed obstinate and narrow to listen to the leaders of his own workingmen. ‘Runs his business to suit himself!’ Think of that in this day! Those men and women would have died of cold if you hadn’t turned your club basement into coal bins. And now he laughs at you.”