ng my views and
decisions was, as the saying goes, getting a little "on my nerves": that
she of all women should have developed it was a recurring and unpleasant
surprise. I began at times to pity myself a little, to feel the need of
sympathetic companionship--feminine companionship....

I shall not go into the details of the procurement of what became known
as the Riverside Franchise. In spite of the Maplewood residents, of the
City Improvement League and individual protests, we obtained it with
absurd ease. Indeed Perry Blackwood himself appeared before the Public
Utilities Committee of the Board of Aldermen, and was listened to
with deference and gravity while he discoursed on the defacement of a
beautiful boulevard to satisfy the greed of certain private individuals.
Mr. Otto Bitter and myself, who appeared for the petitioners, had
a similar reception. That struggle was a tempest in a tea-pot. The
reformer raged, but he was feeble in those days, and the great public
believed what it read in the respectable newspapers. In Mr. Judah
B. Tallant's newspaper, for instance, the Morning Era, there were
semi-playful editorials about "obstructionists." Mr. Perry Blackwood
was a well-meaning, able gentleman of an old family, etc., but with a
sentiment for horse-cars. The Era published also the resolutions which
(with interesting spontaneity!) had been passed by our Board of Trade
and Chamber of Commerce and other influential bodies in favour of the
franchise; the idea--unknown to the public--of Mr. Hugh Paret, who
wrote drafts of the resolutions and suggested privately to Mr. Leonard
Dickinson that a little enthusiasm from these organizations might be
helpful. Mr. Dickinson accepted the suggestion eagerly, wondering why he
hadn't thought of it himself. The resolutions carried some weight with a
public that did not know its right hand from its left.

After fitting deliberation, one evening in February the Board of
Aldermen met and granted the franchise. Not unanimously, oh, no! Mr.
Jason was not so simple as that! No further visits to Monahan's saloon
on my part, in this connection were necessary; but Mr. Otto Bitter met
me one day in the hotel with a significant message from the boss.

"It's all fixed," he informed me. "Murphy and Scott and Ottheimer and
Grady and Loth are the decoys. You understand?"

"I think I gather your meaning," I said.

Mr. Bitter smiled by pulling down one corner of a crooked mouth.

"They'll vo