."

"I reckon," said I.

"Well," said he, "the news is that they're about to oust you from the
chairmanship of the national committee and from control in this state."

"Really?" said I, in an indifferent tone--though I felt anything but
indifferent.

"Really," said he. "Burbank is throwing out our people throughout the
country and is putting Goodrich men in place of 'em--wherever our
fellows won't turn traitor. And they've got hold of Roebuck. He's giving
a dinner at the Auditorium to-morrow night. It's a dinner of eleven
covers. I think you can guess who ten of 'em are for. The eleventh is
for Dominick!"

That was enough. I grasped the situation instantly. The one weak spot in
my control of my state was my having left the city bosses their local
power, instead of myself ruling the cities from the state capital. Why
had I done this? Perhaps the bottom reason was that I shrank from
permitting any part of the machine for which I was directly responsible
to be financed by collections from vice and crime. I admit that the
distinction between corporate privilege and plunder and the pickings and
stealings and prostitutions of individuals is more apparent than real. I
admit that the kinds of vice and crime I tolerated are far more harmful
than the other sorts which are petty and make loathed outcasts of their
wretched practitioners. Still, I was snob or Pharisee or Puritan enough
to feel and to act upon the imaginary distinction. And so, I had left
the city bosses locally independent--for, without the revenues and other
aids from vice and crime, what city political machine could be kept up?

"Dominick!" I exclaimed.

"Exactly!" said Woodruff. "Now, Mr. Sayler, the point is just here. I
don't blame you for wanting to get out. If I had any other game, I'd get
out myself. But what's to become of us--of all your friends, not only in
this state but throughout the country? Are you going to stand by and see
them slaughtered and not lift a finger to help 'em?"

There was no answering him. Yet the spur of vanity, which clipped into
me at thought of myself thrown down and out by these cheap ingrates and
scoundrels, had almost instantly ceased to sting; and my sense of weary
disgust had returned. If I went into the battle again, what work faced
me? The same old monotonous round. To outflank Burbank and Goodrich by
tricks as old as war and politics, and effective only because human
stupidity is infinite and unteachable. To beat d