diment in your bozzom is a flashing
right in his eyes. Self-made men, and women too, mayn't be of much
account in England, but in New York, the aristocracy are always a trying
to make out that they were born next door to the alms-house, and started
life with just twenty-five cents in their pockets, so you and I needn't
be ashamed."

Hepworth was not cosmopolitan, and managed to get the truth out of this
confusion of cockney, Irish, and Yankee dialect. In fact, at the first
moment, he had recognized Matthew Stacy and Harriet Long in the persons
who claimed his acquaintance, and they stung his memory like a nest of
serpents.

"You'll be glad to know," said Stacy, "that Harriet has been, in all
respects, up to the 'casion whenever I've made a rise in the world.
There's smartness in that woman, I can tell you. When I was elected
alderman of our ward, she just went into the saloon and dealt out licker
to my constituents with her own hand. There is no telling the number of
votes she got for me by that perseeding. You'd be astonished."

Here the curtain went up with a rush, and Stacy could only make himself
heard by sharp whispers, which reached Hepworth in fragments, when the
music sank lowest.

"Got into a first-rate thing. Mayor with us--street contracts--cut
through, widened--got hold of a dead charter--revived it--stock went up
like winking--kept the Irish vote of the ward in my fist--no counting
the presents that woman got. I never took one, of course; such a woman!"

Here Olympia's voice swept through the house, with an outpouring of
melody that brought the audience to its feet, but when the tumult
subsided, Hepworth found that the man had been talking on and on, with
an under-tow of political gossip, that reached him in words at last.

"They wanted the Legislature, which wasn't to be had without money, you
know; two or three men had been seen--nothing less than a hundred
thousand would do it. I was president of the board, went up myself, saw
the members, who sent me to their confidential men--jackals we call 'em,
ha! ha!--got it done for sixty thousand--said nothing, but divided the
rest--jackals got twenty, the other twenty--you understand. She got an
Inger shawl out of that operation, the very one she has on."

"No, it isn't nothing of the sort. This one was the other," whispered
Mrs. Stacy, holding up a corner of the magnificent shawl she wore.

Hepworth turned and gazed upon the shawl until his face grew w