While Heney lay upon the operating table of a San Francisco hospital, three prominent attorneys volunteered to take his place.  They were Hiram Johnson, Matt I. Sullivan and J.J.  Dwyer.  Ruef’s trial went on with renewed vigor three days after the attempted killing, though the defendant’s attorneys exhausted every expedient for delay.  It was a case so thorough and complete that nothing could save the prisoner.  He was found guilty of bribing a Supervisor in the overhead trolley transaction and sentenced to serve fourteen years in San Quentin penitentiary.

Frank was in the court-room when Ruef’s sentence was imposed.  The Little Boss seemed oddly aged and nerveless; the old look of power was gone from his eyes.  Frank recalled Ruef’s plan of a political Utopia.  The man had started with a golden dream, a genius for organization which might have achieved great things.  But his lower self had conquered.  He had sold his dream for gold.  And retribution was upon him.

Frank thought of Patrick Calhoun, large, blustering, arrogant with the pride of an old Southern family; the power of limitless wealth between him and punishment; a masterful figure who had broken a labor union and who scoffed at Law.  And Eugene Schmitz, once happy as a fiddler.  Schmitz was trying to face it out in the community.  Frank could not tell if that was courage or a sort of impudence.

During the holidays Frank visited his parents in San Diego.  His granduncle, Benito Windham, had died abroad.  And his mother was ailing.  Frank and his father discussed the Prosecution.

“It has had its day,” the elder Stanley said.  “Your public is listless, sick of the whole rotten mess.  They’ve lost the moral perspective.  All they want is to have it over.”

“I guess I feel the same way.”  Frank’s eyes were downcast.

* * * * *

Sometimes Frank met Norah France at Aleta’s apartment, but she carefully avoided further mention of the topic they had talked of on election night.  Frank liked her poetry.  With a spirit less morbid she would have made a name for herself he thought.

Aleta was doing more and more settlement work.  She had been playing second lead at the theater and had had a New York offer.  Frank could not understand why she refused it.  But Norah did, though she kept the secret from Frank.

“Do you know how many talesmen have been called in the Calhoun trial?” Aleta asked, looking up from the newspaper.  “There were nearly 1500 in the Ruef case.  They called that a record.”  She laughed.

“Of course Pat Calhoun would wish to outdo Abe Ruef,” said Frank.  “That’s only to be expected.  He’s had close to 2500, I reckon.”

“Not quite,” Aleta referred to the printed sheet.  “Your paper says 2370 veniremen were called into court.  That’s what money can do.  If he’d been some poor devil charged with stealing a bottle of milk from the doorstep, how long would it take to convict him?”