But it was astonishing the amount of work he did, the amount of reading he got through, the amount of politics he bossed, and the cigars he smoked, between the first of June, and the middle of August The party-leaders had come to the conclusion that Peter did not intend to take a hand in this campaign, but, after his return from Washington, they decided otherwise.  “The President must have asked him to interfere,” was their whispered conclusion, “but it’s too late now.  It’s all cut and dried.”

Peter found, as this remark suggested, that his two months’ devotion to the dearest of eyes and sweetest of lips, had had serious results.  As with Mutineer once, he had dropped his bridle, but there was no use in uttering, as he had, then, the trisyllable which had reduced the horse to order.  He had a very different kind of a creature with which to deal, than a Kentucky gentleman of lengthy lineage, a creature called sometimes a “tiger.”  Yet curiously enough, the same firm voice, and the same firm manner, and a “mutineer,” though this time a man instead of a horse, was effective here.  All New York knew that something had been done, and wanted to know what There was not a newspaper in the city that would have refused to give five thousand dollars for an authentic stenographic report of what actually was said in a space of time not longer than three hours in all.  Indeed, so intensely were people interested, that several papers felt called upon to fabricate and print most absurd versions of what did occur, all the accounts reaching conclusions as absolutely different as the press portraits of celebrities.  From three of them it is a temptation to quote the display headlines or “scare-heads,” which ushered these reports to the world.  The first read: 

“THE BOSSES AT WAR!”

* * * * *

“HOT WORDS AND LOOKS.”

* * * * *

“BUT THEY’LL CRAWL LATER.”

“There’s beauty in the bellow of the blast,
There’s grandeur in the growling of the gale;
But there’s eloquence-appalling, when Stirling is aroaring,
And the Tiger’s getting modest with his tail”

That was a Republican account.  The second was: 

    “MAGUIRE ON TOP!”

* * * * *

    “The Old Man is Friendly.  A Peace-making Dinner at the Manhattan
    Club.  Friends in Council.  Labor and Democracy Shoulder to
    Shoulder.  A United Front to the Enemy.”

The third, printed in an insignificant little penny paper, never read and almost unknown by reading people, yet which had more city advertising than all the other papers put together, and a circulation to match the largest, announced: 

“TACITURNITY JUNIOR’S”

* * * * *

“ONCE MORE AT THE BAT!”

* * * * *

“NO MORE NONSENSE.”

* * * * *