So the proviso was tacked on, that two a day was the minimum wage to be allowed, and the contracts passed.
The mayor's followers were exceedingly jubilant at this, more so than he, who was of a more cautious and less hopeful temperament.
"Not out of the woods yet, gentlemen," he remarked to a group of his adherents at the reform club. "We have to do a great many things sensibly if we expect to keep the people's confidence and 'win again.'"
Under the old system of letting contracts, whenever there was a wage rate stipulated, men were paid little or nothing, and the work was not done. There was no pretense of doing it. Garbage and ashes accumulated, and papers littered the streets. The old contractor who had pocketed the appropriated sum thought to do so again.
"I hear the citizens are complaining as much as ever," said the mayor to this individual one morning. "You will have to keep the streets clean."
The contractor, a robust, thick-necked, heavy-jawed Irishman, of just so much refinement as the sudden acquisition of a comfortable fortune would allow, looked him quizzically over, wondering whether he was "out" for a portion of the appropriation or whether he was really serious.
"We can fix that between us," he said.
"There's nothing to fix," replied the mayor. "All I want you to do is to clean the streets."
The contractor went away and for a few days after the streets were really clean, but it was only for a few days.
In his walks about the city the mayor himself found garbage and paper uncollected, and then called upon his new acquaintance again.