“Then he’s a man we don’t need to conciliate, if he won’t behave?”
“No. I can’t say that. He’s made himself very popular round here by that case and by being friendly to people. I don’t think, if he’s going into politics, that it will do to fight him.”
“He’s such a green hand that we ought to be able to down him.”
“He’s new, but he’s a pretty cool, knowing chap, I think. I had one experience with him, which showed me that any man who picked him up for a fool would drop him quick.” Then he told how Dennis’s fine had been remitted.
In the next few weeks Peter met a good many men who wanted to talk politics with him. Gallagher brought some; Dennis others; his fellow-ward delegates, more. But Peter could not be induced to commit himself. He would talk candidates and principles endlessly, but without expressing his own mind. Twice he was asked point blank, “Who’s your man?” but he promptly answered that he had not yet decided. He had always read a Democratic paper, but now he read two, and a Republican organ as well. His other reading lessened markedly, and the time gained was spent in talking with men in the “district.” He even went into the saloons and listened to the discussions.
“I don’t drink,” he had to explain several times, “because my mother doesn’t like it.” For some reason this explanation seemed to be perfectly satisfactory. One man alone sneered at him. “Does she feed yer still on milk, sonny?” he asked. “No,” said Peter, “but everything I have comes from her, and that’s the kind of a mother a fellow wants to please; don’t you think so?” The sneerer hesitated, and finally said he “guessed it was.” So Peter was made one of them, and smoked and listened. He said very little, but that little was sound, good sense, and, if he did not talk, he made others do so; and, after the men had argued over something, they often looked at Peter, rather than at their opponents, to see if he seemed to approve of their opinions.
“It’s a fine way he has wid the b’ys,” Dennis told his mother. “He makes them feel that he’s just the likes av them, an’ that he wants their minds an’ opinions to help him. Shure, they’d rather smoke one pipe av his tobaccy than drink ten times at Gallagher’s expense.”
After Peter had listened carefully and lengthily, he wrote to “The Honorable Lemuel Porter, Hudson, N.Y.,” asking him if he could give him an hour’s talk some day. The reply was prompt, and told Peter that Porter would be glad to see him any time that should suit his convenience. So Peter took a day off and ran up to Hudson.
“I am trying to find out for whom I should vote,” he explained to Porter. “I’m a new man at this sort of thing, and, not having met any of the men talked of, I preferred to see them before going to the convention.”
Porter found that Peter had taken the trouble to go over a back file of papers, and read some of his speeches.