“He can’t have any very big hold,” said a third.  “It’s only that trial which has given him a temporary popularity.”

“Wait and see if he goes back on Catlin, and if he does, lay for him,” remarked Green.

A pause came, and they all looked at Costell, who was smiling a certain deep smile that was almost habitual with him, and which no one had ever yet been able to read.  “No,” he said slowly.  “You might beat him, but he isn’t the kind that stays beat.  I’ll agree to outwit any man in politics, except the man who knows how to fight and to tell the people the truth.  I’ve never yet seen a man beaten in the long run who can do both those, unless he chose to think himself beaten.  Gentlemen, that Stirling is a fighter and a truth-teller, and you can’t beat him in his ward.  There’s no use having him against us, so it’s our business to see that we have him with us.  We may not be able to get him into line this time, but we must do it in the long run.  For he’s not the kind that lets go.  He’s beaten Nelson, and he’s beaten Gallagher, both of whom are old hands.  Mark my words, in five years he’ll run the sixth ward.  Drop all talk of fighting him.  He is in politics to stay, and we must make it worth his while to stay with us.”

CHAPTER XXII.

POLITICS.

Peter sat up later than was prudent that night, studying his blank wall.  Yet when he rose to go to bed, he gave his head a puzzled shake.  When he had gone through his papers, and drunk his coffee the next morning, he went back to wall-gazing again.  He was working over two conundrums not very easy to answer, which were somewhat to this effect: 

Does the best man always make the best official?

Is the honest judgment of a fellow verging on twenty-four better than the experienced opinion of many far older men?

Peter began to think life had not such clear and direct “right” and “wrong” roads as he had thought.  He had said to himself long ago that it was easy to take the right one, but he had not then discovered that it is often difficult to know which is the right, in order to follow it.  He had started in to punish Bohlmann, and had compromised.  He had disapproved of Dennis breaking the law, and had compromised his disapproval.  He had said he should not go into saloons, and had ended by going.  Now he was confronted with the problem whether the interests of his ward would be better served by the nomination of a man of good record, whom Peter personally liked, or by that of a colorless man, who would be ruled by the city’s leaders.  In the one case Peter feared no support for his measures from his own party.  In the other case he saw aid that was tantamount to success.  Finally he shook himself.

“I believe Dennis is right,” he said aloud.  “There are more ‘real’ things than ‘convictions’ in New York politics, and a ‘real’ thing is much harder to decide about in voting than a ‘conviction.’”