De Voe forgot that she had
said Peter was a gentleman.

If Peter had found himself a marked man in the trip up, he was doubly so
on the return train. He sat most of the time by himself, pondering on
what had happened, but he could not be unconscious of the number of
people to whom he was pointed out. He was conscious too, that his course
had not been understood, and that many of those who looked at him with
interest, did so without approbation. He was not buoyed up either, by a
sense that he had succeeded in doing the best. He had certainly hurt
Porter, and had made enemies of Maguire and Kennedy. Except for the fact
that he had tried to do right, he could see no compensating balance.

Naturally the newspapers the next morning did not cheer him, though
perhaps he cared less for what they said than he ought. He sent them,
good, bad, and indifferent, to his mother, writing her at the same time
a long letter, telling her how and why he had taken this course. He
wrote also a long letter to Porter, explaining his conduct. Porter had
already been told that Peter was largely responsible for his defeat, but
after reading Peter's letter, he wrote him a very kind reply, thanking
him for his support and for his letter. "It is not always easy to do
what one wants in politics," he wrote, "but if one tries with high
motives, for high things, even defeat loses its bitterness. I shall not
be able to help you, in your wished-for reforms as greatly as I hoped,
but I am not quite a nonentity in politics even now, and if at any time
you think my aid worth the asking, do not hesitate to call on me for
it. I shall always be glad to see you at my house for a meal or a night,
whether you come on political matters or merely for a chat."

Peter found his constituents torn with dissensions over his and
Kennedy's course in the convention. He did not answer in kind the blame
and criticism industriously sowed by Kennedy; but he dropped into a
half-a-dozen saloons in the next few days, and told "the b'ys" a pretty
full history of the "behind-the-scenes" part.

"I'm afraid I made mistakes," he frankly acknowledged, "yet even now I
don't see how I could have done differently. I certainly thought I was
doing right."

"An' so yez were," shouted Dennis. "An' if that dirty beast Kennedy
shows his dirty face inside these doors, it's a washin' it will get wid
the drainin' av the beer-glasses. We wants none av his dirty bargains
here."

"I don't know t