“I’ll have to think,” he said, “to answer you in full.  Firstly, I believe I want to go because I have some fool ideas about certain legislation which I think I can accomplish.  I believe they’ll like me better in this district, and, perhaps, in a broader way, after I have been there.  Then I want Jean to enjoy with me all the mummery and absurdity of the most mixed social conditions on the face of the civilized globe, and, besides that, I’ve been invited to take black bass with her out of a certain stream in the Shenandoah Valley, and to kill a deer or two, with headquarters at an old house up in West Virginia.”

He said this lightly, yet I knew it was not far from the full truth.  He had ideas of changes and reforms, and was prepared to fight for them.  As for Jean and the fishing and the shooting, that was a matter of course.  He must get out to nature, and he must have her with him certainly.  As for me, personally—­well, we had fought the world together for many a year, and I never knew him to fail me, and I could not very well fail him.  I worried about this battle, though we had gained steadily.  There was an element in the district, led by shrewd politicians, of the graduated saloon-keeper type, which did not lack large numbers.  Outside one ward, though we had practically beaten them, Grant had invoked everything.  He had stood up squarely on every platform, and as well in every drinking-shop and den, and almost bagnio, and explained to whom he found the nature of the contest, and told them what he wanted to do, and what all the hearings were, and told them then to conduct themselves as they pleased—­he had but put his case as it was.

And there are men among the thugs, and humanity is not altogether bad, even in the slums, and help had come to us from unexpected places.  More than one man, brutal-looking, but with lines in his countenance showing that he had once been something better, came around and worked well, and all to his future advantage, for Harlson’s memory of such things was as the memory of that cardinal—­what was his name?—­who never forgot a face or incident or figure.  We were what the politicians call “on top,” a week before election, save in that same Ninth Ward.  I had seen old Gunderson myself.  He was not what we call affable.  I had to wander through many offices, and finally to send in my card.  I found this burly man in his private room, looking over papers on his desk.  He did not look up as I came in.  I took a seat, unasked, and waited.  It was five minutes before he turned his head.  Then he muttered a “good-morning,” for we had met before.

I tried to be companionable and easy.  I returned his salutation, somewhat too effusively, it may be, and asked him about his business, and then wanted to know, in a general way, how be stood on the Congressional issue.  He hardened in a moment.

“I don’t know why I should support Harlson,” he said.