“Tom would know if his mother ordered it.”

“No! she must not know that you are at large,” rejoins George.

“Not that I am at large?”

“I have,” interposes the young theologian, “provided a place for you.  We have a home for you, a snug little place at the house of old McArthur—­”

“Old McArthur,” interpolates Tom, smiling, “I’m not a curiosity.”

George Mullholland says he may make love to Maria, that she will once more be a sister.  Touched by the kindly act on his behalf, Tom replies saying she was always kind to him, watched over him when no one else would, and sought with tender counsels to effect his reform, to make him forget his troubles.

“Thank you!—­my heart thanks you more forcibly than my tongue can.  I feel a man.  I won’t touch drink again:  no I won’t.  You won’t find me breaking my honor this time.  A sick at heart man, like me, has no power to buffet disappointment.  I was a wretch, and like a wretch without a mother’s sympathy, found relief only in drinks—­”

“And such drinks!” interposes the old sailor, shrugging his shoulders.  “Good weather, and a cheer up, now and then, from a friend, would have saved him.”

Now there appears in the doorway, the stalwarth figure of the vote-cribber, who, with sullen face, advances mechanically toward Tom, pauses and regards him with an air of suspicion.  “You are not what you ought to be, Tom,” he says, doggedly, and turns to the young Missionary.  “Parson,” he continues, “this ’ere pupil of yourn’s a hard un.  He isn’t fit for respectable society.  Like a sponge, he soaks up all the whiskey in jail.”  The young man turns upon him a look more of pity than scorn, while the jailer shakes his head admonishingly.  The vote-cribber continues insensible to the admonition.  He, be it known, is a character of no small importance in the political world.  Having a sort of sympathy for the old jail he views his transient residences therein rather necessary than otherwise.  As a leading character is necessary to every grade of society, so also does he plume himself the aristocrat of the prison.  Persons committed for any other than offences against the election laws, he holds in utter contempt.  Indeed, he says with a good deal of truth, that as fighting is become the all necessary qualification of our Senators and Representatives to Congress, he thinks of offering himself for the next vacancy.  The only rival he fears is “handsome Charley.”

An election bully, the ugliest man in Charleston, and the deadly foe of Mingle.  The accommodations are not what they might be, but, being exempt from rent and other items necessary to a prominent politician, he accepts them as a matter of economy.

The vote-cribber is sure of being set free on the approach of an election.  We may as well confess it before the world-he is an indispensable adjunct to the creating of Legislators, Mayors, Congressmen, and Governors.  Whiskey is not more necessary to the reputation of our mob-politicians than are the physical powers of Milman Mingle to the success of the party he honors with his services.  Nor do his friends scruple at consulting him on matters of great importance to the State while in his prison sanctuary.