"What figure does it cut?" sneered Goldberg. "What do you care? You've got good organs of your own."
"I'd give the lot of 'em, pro and con," responded Shaughnessy reflectively, "if I could either switch that sheet onto my line or work it for a neutral sidetrack. It's got more real, solid influence than the lot of 'em put together. It's always been against me, more or less, said I was 'some' back in the days when the other papers gave it the laugh. Last election it let up a little. I was beginning to get in. Then old Westlake bought up the controlling interest unexpectedly a while ago, and they're getting ready to lam it to us this fall, boys, and don't you forget it. We can't do anything with Westlake. You know I was trying, through sources that ought to have been influential, to get in an entering wedge by practically throwing the whole batch of city printing at Westlake's head. Well, what do you think? Westlake was on all right and it's a case of no compromise. Matter went to the business office and was referred directly to him, as a matter of course. He sent back word that the Courier was planning to print a great deal about the city "gov." during the next few months that it wouldn't charge anything for."
"Well," inquired Goldberg, after a moment's silence, "what good is that going to do him?"
"Nothing yet," replied Shaughnessy, the light of battle kindling in his strange eyes. "He's got nothing that'll do us any real harm, and I think we can see to it that there'll be no leaking on anything that will. It's up to us just to pull down the blinds, and keep 'em pulled, and then let Westlake howl about what he suspects; he won't know anything. We've got respectable papers," with an ugly sneer, "controlled by respectable men on our side, too. If Westlake or any man of Westlake's can dig up anything after we've nailed it down, why, he's welcome to it. But now let's get busy and talk things over."
A colloquy followed which would have electrified the citizens of this community, could they have heard it. Ancient, mysterious skeletons were exhumed in that talk, skeletons which had been in the flesh the source of much speculation. There were recent dark issues, too, and there was a murky present and a future that would be murkier, did things go well. All told, an opportunity to listen to that conversation would have benefited the adherents of municipal decency.
After two hours of reminiscence, of planning for the campaign and speculating on the future, Shaughnessy rose with a yawn. "Get a good night's sleep, boys," he suggested dryly, "and then don't sleep again till the day after we do the old ladies at the polls." They laughed as they followed him out of the private room and down stairs.
There was a slight stir in a corner of the room. It subsided as a waiter entered to clear and tidy the table. With the receding steps of the servitor down the stairs, from behind the sideboard in the corner softly stepped a man. He looked cautiously about him, then, walking to the window, he quietly withdrew the screen, and, gaining a convenient roof outside, replaced the screen carefully. Upon the roof his stealthily receding footsteps were audible.
CHAPTER II
AN ARRIVAL
