-for this arose from resentment, not from belief. It was
impossible to live in the atmosphere created by the men with whom I
associated--especially at such a time--without imbibing something of the
emotions animating them,--even though I had been free from these emotions
myself. I, too, had begun to be filled with a desire for revenge; and
when this desire was upon me I did not have in my mind a pack of
reformers, or even the writer of the article in Yardley's. I thought of
Hermann Krebs. He was my persecutor; it seemed to me that he always had
been....

"Well, I'll make speeches if you like," I said to Dickinson.

"I'm glad," he replied. "We're all agreed, Gorse and the rest of us, that
you ought to. We've got to get some ginger into this fight, and a good
deal more money, I'm afraid. Jason sends word we'll need more. By the
way, Hugh, I wish you'd drop around and talk to Jason and get his idea of
how the land lies."

I went, this time in the company of Judah B. Tallant. Naturally we didn't
expect to see Mr. Jason perturbed, nor was he. He seemed to be in an odd,
rather exultant mood--if he can be imagined as exultant. We were not long
in finding out what pleased him--nothing less than the fact that Mr.
Krebs had proposed him for mayor!

"D--d if I wouldn't make a good one, too," he said. "D--d if I wouldn't
show 'em what a real mayor is!"

"I guess there's no danger of your ever being mayor, Judd," Tallant
observed, with a somewhat uneasy jocularity.

"I guess there isn't, Judah," replied the boss, quickly, but with a
peculiar violet flash in his eyes. "They won't ever make you mayor,
either, if I can help it. And I've a notion I can. I'd rather see Krebs
mayor."

"You don't think he meant to propose you seriously," Tallant exclaimed.

"I'm not a d--d fool," said the boss. "But I'll say this, that he half
meant it. Krebs has a head-piece on him, and I tell you if any of this
reform dope is worth anything his is. There's some sense in what he's
talking, and if all the voters was like him you might get a man like me
for mayor. But they're not, and I guess they never will be."

"Sure," said Mr. Jason. "The people are dotty--there ain't one in ten
thousand understands what he's driving at when he gets off things like
that. They take it on the level."

Tallant reflected.

"By gum, I believe you're right," he said. "You think they will blow up?"
he added.

"Krebs is the whole show, I tell you. They wouldn't b