ton,
they decided otherwise. "The President must have asked him to
interfere," was their whispered conclusion, "but it's too late now. It's
all cut and dried."

Peter found, as this remark suggested, that his two months' devotion to
the dearest of eyes and sweetest of lips, had had serious results. As
with Mutineer once, he had dropped his bridle, but there was no use in
uttering, as he had, then, the trisyllable which had reduced the horse
to order. He had a very different kind of a creature with which to deal,
than a Kentucky gentleman of lengthy lineage, a creature called
sometimes a "tiger." Yet curiously enough, the same firm voice, and the
same firm manner, and a "mutineer," though this time a man instead of a
horse, was effective here. All New York knew that something had been
done, and wanted to know what. There was not a newspaper in the city
that would have refused to give five thousand dollars for an authentic
stenographic report of what actually was said in a space of time not
longer than three hours in all. Indeed, so intensely were people
interested, that several papers felt called upon to fabricate and print
most absurd versions of what did occur, all the accounts reaching
conclusions as absolutely different as the press portraits of
celebrities. From three of them it is a temptation to quote the display
headlines or "scare-heads," which ushered these reports to the world.
The first read:

"THE BOSSES AT WAR!"

* * * * *

"HOT WORDS AND LOOKS."

* * * * *

"BUT THEY'LL CRAWL LATER."

"There's beauty in the bellow of the blast,
There's grandeur in the growling of the gale;
But there's eloquence-appalling, when Stirling is aroaring,
And the Tiger's getting modest with his tail"

That was a Republican account. The second was:

"MAGUIRE ON TOP!"

* * * * *

"The Old Man is Friendly. A Peace-making Dinner at the Manhattan
Club. Friends in Council. Labor and Democracy Shoulder to
Shoulder. A United Front to the Enemy."

The third, printed in an insignificant little penny paper, never read
and almost unknown by reading people, yet which had more city
advertising than all the other papers put together, and a circulation to
match the largest, announced:

"TACITURNITY JUNIOR'S"

* * * * *

"ONCE MORE