“You’re damned right,” replied the little politician, cheerfully.
They went to the dinner separately, so as not to appear to have conferred before, and greeted each other on arriving as though they had not seen each other for days.
“How’s business, Mike?”
“Oh, fair, Pat. How’s things with you?”
“So so.”
“Things lookin’ all right in your ward for November?”
Mr. Tiernan wrinkled a fat forehead. “Can’t tell yet.” All this was for the benefit of Mr. McKenty, who did not suspect rank party disloyalty.
Nothing much came of this conference, except that they sat about discussing in a general way wards, pluralities, what Zeigler was likely to do with the twelfth, whether Pinski could make it in the sixth, Schlumbohm in the twentieth, and so on. New Republican contestants in old, safe Democratic wards were making things look dubious.
“And how about the first, Kerrigan?” inquired Ungerich, a thin, reflective German-American of shrewd presence. Ungerich was one who had hitherto wormed himself higher in McKenty’s favor than either Kerrigan or Tiernan.
“Oh, the first’s all right,” replied Kerrigan, archly. “Of course you never can tell. This fellow Scully may do something, but I don’t think it will be much. If we have the same police protection—”