I thought Mr. Jason smiled.  By this time I had grown accustomed to the darkness, the face and figure of the man in the bed had become discernible.  Power, I remember thinking, chooses odd houses for itself.  Here was no overbearing, full-blooded ward ruffian brimming with vitality, but a thin, sallow little man in a cotton night-shirt, with iron-grey hair and a wiry moustache; he might have been an overworked clerk behind a dry-goods counter; and yet somehow, now that I had talked to him, I realized that he never could have been.  Those extraordinary eyes of his, when they were functioning, marked his individuality as unique.  It were almost too dramatic to say that he required darkness to make his effect, but so it seemed.  I should never forget him.  He had in truth been well named the Spider.

“Of course we haven’t tried to get in touch with them.  We are leaving them to you,” I added.

“Paret,” he said suddenly, “I don’t care a damn about Grunewald—­never did.  I’d turn him down for ten cents.  But you can tell Theodore Watling for me, and Dickinson, that I guess the ‘inducement’ can be fixed.”

I felt a certain relief that the interview had come to an end, that the moment had arrived for amenities.  To my surprise, Mr. Jason anticipated me.

“I’ve been interested in you, Mr. Paret,” he observed.  “Know who you are, of course, knew you were in Watling’s office.  Then some of the boys spoke about you when you were down at the legislature on that Ribblevale matter.  Guess you had more to do with that bill than came out in the newspapers—­eh?”

I was taken off my guard.

“Oh, that’s talk,” I said.

“All right, it’s talk, then?  But I guess you and I will have some more talk after a while,—­after Theodore Watling gets to be United States Senator.  Give him my regards, and—­and come in when I can do anything for you, Mr. Paret.”

Thanking him, I groped my way downstairs and let myself out by a side door Monahan had shown me into an alleyway, thus avoiding the saloon.  As I walked slowly back to the office, seeking the shade of the awnings, the figure in the darkened room took on a sinister aspect that troubled me....

The autumn arrived, the campaign was on with a whoop, and I had my first taste of “stump” politics.  The acrid smell of red fire brings it back to me.  It was a medley of railroad travel, of committees provided with badges—­and cigars, of open carriages slowly drawn between lines of bewildered citizens, of Lincoln clubs and other clubs marching in serried ranks, uniformed and helmeted, stalwarts carrying torches and banners.  And then there were the draughty opera-houses with the sylvan scenery pushed back and plush chairs and sofas pushed forward; with an ominous table, a pitcher of water on it and a glass, near the footlights.  The houses were packed with more bewildered citizens.  What a wonderful study of mob-psychology it would have offered!  Men who