He said it very well--not defiantly, but as a plain, necessary statement of fact.
Aunt Mary turned in her chair to look at him.
"Ah!" she said.
He felt that he was colouring under her gaze. Perhaps that colour answered her obvious next question as to why he had done so. She did not ask that question, but turned back to the Mayor:
"I overheard a little of your conversation from the doorway before I spoke. Mr. Rockwell was saying he thought that, as things stand now, it would be best for you to sign the Ordinance. I think so too."
The Mayor would have interrupted, but she waved her little cigar at him.
"You can, of course," she continued, "explain that you were tricked. But how much would that help you with Mr. Crockett or any of his cronies and allies? They would only think the worse of you and throw you over the more quickly. A man of your age and standing cannot afford to be tricked. If he is, he had better conceal the fact. And how about the people of Chicago, before whom you come up for reëlection in the fall? Will their sympathies be with you or with the persons who tricked you into giving them the Ordinance they wanted? The American people love a clever trick. And a trick is clever if it succeeds. As for the illegality, they won't care a picayune for that. You said you would fight it in the courts. Well, you might. But it would be a long fight. You yourself mentioned the Supreme Court. And in the meantime it is a law and goes into effect at once. Unless, of course, you take out an injunction. And if you do that, you will make yourself so unpopular that you can never even be nominated again. Let us suppose it goes into effect. Then by the time your fight was won, if you won it, the new conditions would be established, and nobody would dare try to unscramble the eggs. The Council would simply have to pass it over again, and you--or your successor, rather, for you would be out by then--would promptly sign it. No, my friend, there is no road for you in that direction. You would lose out both ways--with the bosses, who would have no more use for a man who had allowed himself to be fooled at a critical juncture, and with the people. Your only chance--unless you wish to retire quickly and ignominiously to private life--is to cut loose from the bosses and throw in your lot with the people--sign the Ordinance, claim the credit, join forces with Rockwell here, defy Crockett, and come out as the people's champion!"
The Mayor was not smoking. He was looking hard at Aunt Mary, as one man looks at another. (Her little cigar had effected that.) There was aroused interest in his eyes.
"Wouldn't you rather like to go into politics as your own boss for a change?" Aunt Mary asked. "Rather than as one miserable little cog in a big, dirty machine?"
The Mayor flushed a little and took refuge behind a puff of smoke.