Tom's glance swept the room. All was in readiness for the election. The floor was cleared of its folding chairs, they being now stacked at the rear of the room; down the hall's middle ran a row of tables, set end to end, with chairs on either side; Bill Jackson, one of his supporters, was at Hogan's elbow, ready to hand out the ballots as the men were admitted; the five tellers—Barry, Pete, Jake and two other Foley men—were smoking at the front of the room, Jake lolling on the piano, and the other four on the platform where the officers sat at the regular meetings.
Tom joined Pete and Barry, and the three drew to one side to await the opening of the door. "Anything new?" Tom asked.
"Nothin'," answered Pete. "But say, Tom, that letter was certainly hot stuff! I've heard some o' the boys talkin' about it. They think it's great. It's bringin' a lot o' them out."
"That's good."
"An' we're goin' to win, sure."
Tom nodded. "If Foley don't work some of his tricks."
"Oh, we'll look out for that," said Pete confidently.
Promptly at seven o'clock Hogan unlocked the door. The men began to mount the stairway. As each man came to the door Hogan examined his membership card, and, if it showed the holder to be in good standing, admitted him. Jackson then handed him a ballot, on which the names of all the candidates were printed in a vertical row, and he walked to one of the tables and made crosses before the names of the men for whom he desired to vote.
Five minutes after the door had been opened there were thirty or forty men in the room, an equal number of each party, Foley among them. Jake, who was chief teller, rose at the center table on the platform to discharge the formality of offering the ballot-box for inspection. He unlocked the box, which was about twelve inches square, and performing a slow arc presented the open side to the eyes of the tellers and the waiting members. The box was empty.
"All right?" he asked.