hadn't thought it was our only hope. Gorgett was too strong, and he
handled the darkeys better than any man I ever knew. He had an
organization for it which we couldn't break; and the coloured voters
really held the balance of power with us, you know, as they do so many
other places near the same size, They were getting pretty well on to
it, too, and cost more every election. Our best chance seemed to be in
so satisfying the "law-and-order" people that they'd do something to
counterbalance this vote--which they never did.

Well, sir, it was a mighty curious campaign. There never really was a
day when we could tell where we stood, for certain. As anybody knows,
the "better element" can't be depended on. There's too many of 'em
forget to vote, and if the weather isn't just right they won't go to
the polls. Some of 'em won't go anyway--act as if they looked down on
politics; say it's only helping one boodler against another. So your
true aristocrat won't vote for either. The real truth is, he don't
_care_. Don't care as much about the management of his city,
State, and country as about the way his club is run. Or he's ignorant
about the whole business, and what between ignorance and indifference
the worse and smarter of the two rings gets in again and old Mr.
Aristocrat gets soaked some more on his sewer assessments. _Then_
he'll holler like a stabbed hand-organ; but he'll keep on talking
about politics being too low a business for a gentleman to mix in,
just the same!

Somebody said a pessimist is a man who has a choice of two evils, and
takes both. There's your man that don't vote.

And the best-dressed wards are the ones that fool us oftenest. We're
always thinking they'll do something, and they don't. But we thought,