t year? It's
still pending, you know. Well, I've reason to think the Mayor was in on
it--and Burke--for no end of boodle. That's why he wanted to be mayor.
So you see, 'there's a reason' why a man like you should be willing to
take the job of street commissioner this year. It will be no 'plum' this
time, I can assure you. It looks now, as if it would be a fight
instead--and perhaps a good hot one."

"That puts a different look to it," said Jack. "You know I'm not afraid
of a fight--a good one."

"Don't I know it?" retorted Bailey. "Haven't I gone to bed sore and
stiff, too many times, as a boy, to forget it? It's because you are a
fair fighter and not a boodler that we want you at the head of the
street department now. Come, Jack, will you do it?"

"You can be sure of it, Bailey," returned Allingham. "I'll accept at
once. Tell me more of what you are finding out. That is, if you think
she won't mind."

"She won't mind your knowing some of it anyhow, because you'll be
expected to help us look into certain matters," said Bailey.

They talked together for an hour or so, and when John Allingham finally
departed he felt a deeper interest in city reform than ever, and
believed the time had come when he could be of real use to his
community.

"By the way, Jack," said Armstrong, as he was leaving, "have you found
out anything more about the originators of your strange ride the night
before election?"

"I have detectives working on it now--or pretending to," replied Jack,
"but they don't seem to get anywhere. Whoever was behind the scheme
covered his tracks well."

"Yes, we, too, have had a detective working," said Bailey, "though Miss
Van Deusen has called him off now. No use, she says, and thinks perhaps
any further work in that direction may hinder what she wants to do in
another."

"Perhaps she's right," responded Allingham. "All we have been able to
discover is that two electric cabs, both provided with outside means of
locking the doors and windows, took the opposing candidates and went off
twenty miles or so into the country, on the night before election,
breaking up an important debate that might have turned the current of
affairs in another direction--"

"--Um, perhaps," interrupted Bailey. "Perhaps not. Anyway, all this we
knew before midnight, the evening it happened."

"Yes. And while there are no electric cabs in Roma, there are plenty of
them within a radius of twenty-five miles of us. And the Burke