and police to be obtained for money; and, by and by, a grateful machine
will make him mayor, or send him to the Legislature, very likely
to Congress, where he will misrepresent the honest State of Iowa.
Then he will bloom out in a social way, and marry a gentlewoman,
and they will snub the old people who are so proud of him."

"Well, we shall see," said Mrs. Lossing; "I think better things of Tommy.
So does Harry."

Part of the prophecy was to be speedily fulfilled.
Two years later, the Honorable Thomas Fitzmaurice was
elected mayor of his city, elected by the reform party,
on account of his eminent services--and because he was the only
man in sight who had the ghost of a chance of winning.
Harry's version was: "Tommy jests at his new principles,
but that is simply because he doesn't comprehend what they are.
He laughs at reform in the abstract; but every concrete,
practical reform he is as anxious as I or anybody to bring about.
And he will get them here, too."

He was as good as his word; he gave the city an admirable
administration, with neither fear nor favor. Some of the "boys"
still clung to him; these, according to Harry, were the better "boys,"
who had the seeds of good in them and only needed opportunity
and a leader. Tommy did not flag in zeal; rather, as the time
went on and he soared out of the criminal courts into big
civil cases involving property, he grew up to the level
of his admirers' praises. "Tommy," wrote Mr. Lossing,
presently, "is beginning to take himself seriously.
He has been told so often that he is a young lion of reform,