JULIA. The same. I went straight into his saloon. "Lady," says he,
"the goil's nutty! You got a bughouse patient on your bands! This here
talk about the white- slave traffic, ma'am . . . it's all the work o'
these magazine muckrakers!" "Meaning myself, Mr. Leary?" said I, and
he looked kind of puzzled. I don't think he knew who I was.

MONTAGUE. All the work of the muckrakers! I see Boss Grimes is out to
that effect also.

JACK. And I see that half a dozen clergymen sat down to a public
banquet with him the other day. That's what we've come to in New York!
Bob Grimes, with his hands on every string of the whole infamous
system . . . with his paws in every filthy graft-pot in the city! Bob
Grimes, the type and symbol of it all! Every time I see a picture of
that bulldog face, it seems to me as if I were confronting all the
horrors that I've ever fought in my life!

JULIA. It's curious to note how much less denunciation of Tammany one
hears now than in the old days.

MONTAGUE. Tammany's getting respectable.

JACK. The big interests have found out how to use it. The traction
gang, especially . . .

[He stops abruptly; a tense pause.]

LAURA. [Leaning toward him, with great earnestness.] Mr. Bullen, is
that really true?