“It’s a fine way he has wid the b’ys,” Dennis told his mother.  “He makes them feel that he’s just the likes av them, an’ that he wants their minds an’ opinions to help him.  Shure, they’d rather smoke one pipe av his tobaccy than drink ten times at Gallagher’s expense.”

After Peter had listened carefully and lengthily, he wrote to “The Honorable Lemuel Porter, Hudson, N.Y.,” asking him if he could give him an hour’s talk some day.  The reply was prompt, and told Peter that Porter would be glad to see him any time that should suit his convenience.  So Peter took a day off and ran up to Hudson.

“I am trying to find out for whom I should vote,” he explained to Porter.  “I’m a new man at this sort of thing, and, not having met any of the men talked of, I preferred to see them before going to the convention.”

Porter found that Peter had taken the trouble to go over a back file of papers, and read some of his speeches.

“Of course,” Peter explained, “I want, as far as possible, to know what you think of questions likely to be matters for legislation.”

“The difficulty in doing that, Mr. Stirling,” he was told, “is that every nominee is bound to surrender his opinions in a certain degree to the party platform, while other opinions have to be modified to new conditions.”

“I can see that,” said Peter.  “I do not for a moment expect that what you say to-day is in any sense a pledge.  If a man’s honest, the poorest thing we can do to him is to tie him fast to one course of action, when the conditions are constantly changing.  But, of course, you have opinions for the present state of things?”

Something in Peter’s explanation or face pleased Mr. Porter.  He demurred no more, and, for an hour before lunch, and during that meal, he talked with the utmost freedom.

“I’m not easily fooled on men,” he told his secretary afterwards, “and you can say what you wish to that Stirling without danger of its being used unfairly or to injure one.  And he’s the kind of man to be won by square dealing.”

Peter had spoken of his own district “I think,” he said, “that some good can be done in the way of non-partisan legislation.  I’ve been studying the food supplies of the city, and, if I can, I shall try to get a bill introduced this winter to have official inspections systematized.”

“That will receive my approval if it is properly drawn.  But you’ll probably find the Health Board fighting you.  It’s a nest of politicians.”

“If they won’t yield, I shall have to antagonize them, but I have had some talks with the men there, in connection with the ‘swill-milk’ investigations, and I think I can frame a bill that will do what I want, yet which they will not oppose.  I shall try to make them help me in the drafting, for they can make it much better through their practical experience.”

“If you do that, the opposition ought not to be troublesome.  What else do you want?”