“I guess there’s no danger of your ever being mayor, Judd,” Tallant observed, with a somewhat uneasy jocularity.

“I guess there isn’t, Judah,” replied the boss, quickly, but with a peculiar violet flash in his eyes.  “They won’t ever make you mayor, either, if I can help it.  And I’ve a notion I can.  I’d rather see Krebs mayor.”

“You don’t think he meant to propose you seriously,” Tallant exclaimed.

“I’m not a d—­d fool,” said the boss.  “But I’ll say this, that he half meant it.  Krebs has a head-piece on him, and I tell you if any of this reform dope is worth anything his is.  There’s some sense in what he’s talking, and if all the voters was like him you might get a man like me for mayor.  But they’re not, and I guess they never will be.”

“Sure,” said Mr. Jason.  “The people are dotty—­there ain’t one in ten thousand understands what he’s driving at when he gets off things like that.  They take it on the level.”

Tallant reflected.

“By gum, I believe you’re right,” he said.  “You think they will blow up?” he added.

“Krebs is the whole show, I tell you.  They wouldn’t be anywhere without him.  The yaps that listen to him don’t understand him, but somehow he gets under their skins.  Have you seen him lately?”

“Never saw him,” replied Tallant.

“Well, if you had, you’d know he was a sick man.”

“Sick!” I exclaimed.  “How do you know?”

“It’s my business to know things,” said Judd Jason, and added to Tallant, “that your reporters don’t find out.”

“What’s the matter with him?” Tallant demanded.  A slight exultation in his tone did not escape me.

“You’ve got me there,” said Jason, “but I have it pretty straight.  Any one of your reporters will tell you that he looks sick."....

The Era took Mr. Jason’s advice and began to publish those portions of Krebs’s speeches that were seemingly detrimental to his own cause.  Other conservative newspapers followed suit....

Both Tallant and I were surprised to hear these sentiments out of the mouth of Mr. Jason.

“You don’t think that crowd’s going to win, do you?” asked the owner of the Era, a trifle uneasily.

“Win!” exclaimed the boss contemptuously.  “They’ll blow up, and you’ll never hear of ’em.  I’m not saying we won’t need a little—­powder,” he added—­which was one of the matters we had come to talk about.  He gave us likewise a very accurate idea of the state of the campaign, mentioning certain things that ought to be done.  “You ought to print some of Krebs’s speeches, Judah, like what he said about me.  They’re talking it all around that you’re afraid to.”

“Print things like his proposal to make you mayor!”