“He tried to make a fool of me—McPherson of Chicago—the millionaire—one of the capitalist kings—he tried to bribe me and my party.”
In the crowd the old carpenter was dancing in the road and rubbing his hands together. With the feeling of a man who had finished a piece of work or turned the last leaf of a book, Sam went back to his hotel.
“In the morning I shall be on my way,” he thought.
A knock came at the door and the red-haired man came in. He closed the door softly and winked at Sam.
“Ed made a mistake,” he said, and laughed. “The old man told him you were a socialist and he thought you were trying to spoil the graft. He is scared about that beating you got and mighty sorry. He’s all right—Ed is—and he and Bill and I have got the votes. What made you stay under cover so long? Why didn’t you tell us you were McPherson?”
Sam saw the hopelessness of any attempt to explain. Jake had evidently sold out the men. Sam wondered how.
“How do you know you can deliver the votes?’” he asked, trying to lead Jake on.
Jake rolled the quid in his mouth and winked again.
“It was easy enough to fix the men when Ed, Bill and I got together,” he said. “You know about the other. There’s a clause in the act authorising the bond issue, a sleeper, Bill calls it. You know more about that than I do. Anyway the power will be turned over to the man we say.”
“But how do I know you can deliver the votes?”