It was his wonted mask of impassive features and lustreless eyes that long caused Shaughnessy to be surprisingly and generally
underestimated. Men chose not to believe that one whose general appearance so lacked significance was capable of the stealth
and finesse in large, dark matters that a portion of the press emphatically but rather gropingly attributed to Shaughnessy. So it was Shaughnessy's good fortune, for his nefarious ends, that most men refused to take him too seriously. The majority chanced never to rouse his interest; hence, never saw the optical gleam. For the minority who did, Shaughnessy was a man transformed, invested with power, genuine and unmistakable.
Following the leader's entrance, the company waited silently for him to speak. He favored them with a moment's[14] reflective stare, puffing billowing smoke clouds. Then he spoke, and his voice was as cold and impersonal as his white face.
"I called you together, boys," said he, "because there's work ahead for us." There was a significant nod from Goldberg. "It doesn't look bad at a first glance," continued Shaughnessy, "but a look-in will show you that it will pay to hump some. There's nothing open yet, but we've got to face the hottest fight we have had. Well," with a grim smile, "we'll do it and we'll win out. We've got to."
"Yes," remarked Peterson, with a deep sigh. "We've got to, all right, governor."
"That's what I was tellin' 'em, Shaughnessy," put in Goldberg, rolling his cigar to the lee corner of his mouth. "They wanted to give me the laugh. Thought everything was lovely. They'll know when they've sidestepped the shivers as often as we have. I tell you, the clearest day is the one you want to have your umbrella ready for, and that's no lie."
"No," assented Shaughnessy, "that's no lie. It's going to rain votes this fall and we've got to get busy in mortgaging the majority of
'em. If we don't, we get caught napping, that's all, and it's us to the woods. I needn't tell you, of course, that as late as a year ago we could have defied 'em to put the hooks on us, even if they'd got a look-in at the polls. We had things tied up so they couldn't have touched us; we could have stayed right on. But there've been some bad mistakes made; some instructions exceeded and some things we couldn't help, being forced into 'em. Truth is, boys, that if through any chance we're done up in this coming election, we're[15] caught right out in the open with a wagonload of goods, and there's no time to hide 'em. That's the situation we're facing and it's one that calls for cutting out sleep till after election day."
"Well, we've done it before," remarked Willie Shute, the moon-faced gentleman, as he pressed the button for another round of drinks. "What the devil is sleep, anyway? Waste of time."
"It's a waste of time in politics," assented the leader, "unless you want to wake up to find you've been buried alive with no air tube."
Willie Shute, following the laughter which greeted this grisly pleasantry, was discovered looking about him with vague apprehension. "Thought I heard someone snickerin'," he explained. "Before we did."
Peterson glanced significantly at Shute's whisky glass. "Preliminary to the main event," he commented. "Saw off, or you'll be hearing
3
bands of music in the morning."
Shaughnessy leaned forward upon the table. "Well, let's get down to business," he remarked. "Let's talk things over, look at all we've got to buck against and plan to buck it in the good old way. Give us another whack at this and in the next two years we'll be ready
to retire with a trail blinder than an eyeless fish in the Mammoth Cave. But it would be all day with us to lose just now; we can't afford it. In some ways we're better fixed for the fight than we've been before. We own one newspaper body and soul, though we're not advertising it. We've practically clinched another of 'em, there's a couple that don't count anyway, and then, there's that damned Courier."
"What figure does it cut?" sneered Goldberg. "What[16] do you care? You've got good organs of your own."
"I'd give the lot of 'em, pro and con," responded Shaughnessy reflectively, "if I could either switch that sheet onto my line or work
it for a neutral sidetrack. It's got more real, solid influence than the lot of 'em put together. It's always been against me, more or less, said I was 'some' back in the days when the other papers gave it the laugh. Last election it let up a little. I was beginning to get in. Then old Westlake bought up the controlling interest unexpectedly a while ago, and they're getting ready to lam it to us this fall, boys, and don't you forget it. We can't do anything with Westlake. You know I was trying, through sources that ought to have been influen-tial, to get in an entering wedge by practically throwing the whole batch of city printing at Westlake's head. Well, what do you think? Westlake was on all right and it's a case of no compromise. Matter went to the business office and was referred directly to him, as
a matter of course. He sent back word that the Courier was planning to print a great deal about the city "gov." during the next few months that it wouldn't charge anything for."
"Well," inquired Goldberg, after a moment's silence, "what good is that going to do him?"
"Nothing yet," replied Shaughnessy, the light of battle kindling in his strange eyes. "He's got nothing that'll do us any real harm, and
I think we can see to it that there'll be no leaking on anything that will. It's up to us just to pull down the blinds, and keep 'em pulled, and then let Westlake howl about what he suspects; he won't know anything. We've got respectable papers," with an ugly sneer, "controlled by respectable men on our side,[17] too. If Westlake or any man of Westlake's can dig up anything after we've nailed it down, why, he's welcome to it. But now let's get busy and talk things over."
A colloquy followed which would have electrified the citizens of this community, could they have heard it. Ancient, mysterious skeletons were exhumed in that talk, skeletons which had been in the flesh the source of much speculation. There were recent dark issues, too, and there was a murky present and a future that would be murkier, did things go well. All told, an opportunity to listen to that conversation would have benefited the adherents of municipal decency.
After two hours of reminiscence, of planning for the campaign and speculating on the future, Shaughnessy rose with a yawn. "Get a good night's sleep, boys," he suggested dryly, "and then don't sleep again till the day after we do the old ladies at the polls." They laughed as they followed him out of the private room and down stairs.
There was a slight stir in a corner of the room. It subsided as a waiter entered to clear and tidy the table. With the receding steps of the servitor down the stairs, from behind the sideboard in the corner softly stepped a man. He looked cautiously about him, then, walking to the window, he quietly withdrew the screen, and, gaining a convenient roof outside, replaced the screen carefully. Upon the roof his stealthily receding footsteps were audible.
[18]CHAPTER II AN ARRIVAL
AMBITION is an itch for something you haven't got and never expect to get," remarked Peters, rapping his pipe bowl against the edge of the desk and reaching for Mead's tobacco box. He owned none of his own and the rest of the force formed a convenient and interminable tobacco trust for him.
"You might add to that observation the clause 'but others have,' Pete," put in Charlie Kirk, while Mead resignedly watched Peters jamming an unwieldy wad of the weed into the bowl with his thumb, to brazenly reach for more the next instant. "Besides, that remark isn't original. It's gone the rounds of the papers. I don't know where they pinched it, but I'll bet it wasn't from you."
"Your observation does you credit, Sherlock," retorted Peters, undisturbed. "If you would exercise a little of that faculty on the job,
maybe the old man would raise your attenuated wage."
4
The quiet voice of the city editor broke in upon the amiable colloquy. "Here, Kirk," said he, "and you, Peters,