pported by
the bar against which they were standing, slowly closed one eye, and
murmured, "Yah-ah-ah."

"I t'ought you'd see de p'int w'en I got it out right," said The Croak.

"How you do somedings like dot?"

"Dat aint fer me to say," The Croak diffidently remarked. "But dey do
tell me dat dat McCafferty has a grudge agin Boozy, an if you wants me
ter ask him ter drop in yere an hev a talk wid ye, I'll do it."

Mr. Bockerheisen did not fail to express the satisfaction he would have
in seeing Mr. McCafferty, and Mr. McCafferty did not fail to give him
that happiness. The association sprang quickly into being, and its rolls
soon showed a membership of nearly 700 voters. Two copies of the rolls
were taken, one for submission to Alderman Boozy and one to Mr.
Bockerheisen. This was in the nature of tangible evidence that the
association was in actual existence. In further proof of this important
fact, the association with banners representing it to be the Michael J.
Boozy Campaign Club marched past the saloon of Mr. Bockerheisen every
other night, and the next night, avoiding Mr. Bockerheisen's, it was led
in gorgeous array past the saloon of Colonel Boozy, labeled the Karl
Augustus Bockerheisen Club. As Mr. Bockerheisen looked out and saw
Colonel Boozy's association, and realized that whereas Boozy was
planting and McCafferty was watering, yet he was to gather the increase,
a High German smile would come upon his poetic countenance, and he would
bite his finger-nails rapturously. And, on the other hand, as Colonel
Boozy heard the drums and fifes of the Bockerheisen Club, and saw its
transparency glowing in the street, he would summon all his friends to
the bar to take a drink with him. It is said that even before election
day, however, the relations between Dennie and the Colonel on the one
hand, and between The Croak and Bockerheisen, on the other, became
painfully strained. It is said that Boozy was compelled to mortgage two
of his houses to support Bockerheisen's club, and that Bockerheisen's
wife had to borrow nearly $10,000 from her brother, a rich brewer,
before Bockerheisen's wild anxiety to pay the expenses of Boozy's club
was satisfied. Dennie acknowledged to the Colonel a couple of days
before the election that he had found The Croak a hard man to deal with,
and that it had been vastly more expensive to make the arrangement than
he had supposed it would be. The Croak's manner, as I have said, was
always subd