"Den an' in dat case who does dey count fer?"
Mr. Bockerheisen leaned his head upon his hand, which was supported by the bar against which they were standing, slowly closed one eye, and murmured, "Yah-ah-ah."
"I t'ought you'd see de p'int w'en I got it out right," said The Croak.
"How you do somedings like dot?"
"Dat aint fer me to say," The Croak diffidently remarked. "But dey do tell me dat dat McCafferty has a grudge agin Boozy, an if you wants me ter ask him ter drop in yere an hev a talk wid ye, I'll do it."
Mr. Bockerheisen did not fail to express the satisfaction he would have in seeing Mr. McCafferty, and Mr. McCafferty did not fail to give him that happiness. The association sprang quickly into being, and its rolls soon showed a membership of nearly 700 voters. Two copies of the rolls were taken, one for submission to Alderman Boozy and one to Mr. Bockerheisen. This was in the nature of tangible evidence that the association was in actual existence. In further proof of this important fact, the association with banners representing it to be the Michael J. Boozy Campaign Club marched past the saloon of Mr. Bockerheisen every other night, and the next night, avoiding Mr. Bockerheisen's, it was led in gorgeous array past the saloon of Colonel Boozy, labeled the Karl Augustus Bockerheisen Club. As Mr. Bockerheisen looked out and saw Colonel Boozy's association, and realized that whereas Boozy was planting and McCafferty was watering, yet he was to gather the increase, a High German smile would come upon his poetic countenance, and he would bite his finger-nails rapturously. And, on the other hand, as Colonel Boozy heard the drums and fifes of the Bockerheisen Club, and saw its transparency glowing in the street, he would summon all his friends to the bar to take a drink with him. It is said that even before election day, however, the relations between Dennie and the Colonel on the one hand, and between The Croak and Bockerheisen, on the other, became painfully strained. It is said that Boozy was compelled to mortgage two of his houses to support Bockerheisen's club, and that Bockerheisen's wife had to borrow nearly $10,000 from her brother, a rich brewer, before Bockerheisen's wild anxiety to pay the expenses of Boozy's club was satisfied. Dennie acknowledged to the Colonel a couple of days before the election that he had found The Croak a hard man to deal with, and that it had been vastly more expensive to make the arrangement than he had supposed it would be. The Croak's manner, as I have said, was always subdued, if not actually sad, and in the presence of Bockerheisen, as the election drew near, he seemed to be so utterly woe-begone and discouraged that the German told his wife he hadn't the heart to quarrel with him about having let McCafferty cost so much money. Besides, as the Colonel remarked to Mrs. Boozy on the night before election, when she told him he had let that bad man, McCafferty, ruin him entirely, and as Bockerheisen said to Mrs. Bockerheisen when she warned him that that ugly-looking Croak would be calling for her watch and weddingring next—as they both remarked, "What is the difference if I get the votes of the association? Business will be good in the Board of Aldermen next year, and I can make it up."
Who did get the votes of the association I'm sure I can't say. All I know is that the Republican candidate was elected, and a Central Office detective who haunts the Forty-second Street depot reported at Headquarters on Election Day night that he had seen Dennie McCafferty, wearing evening dress and a single glass in his left eye, and Tozie Monks, The Croak, dressed as Dennie's valet, board the six o'clock train for Chicago and the West.