"Whom?"

"With the Honorable, or by courtesy dubbed Honorable, William Barry,"

Dick replied triumphantly.

"'Piggy' Barry?" ejaculated Ellery, turning on Dick in surprise.

"Alderman Barry? The boss?"

"'Piggy' does somehow sound more appropriate than 'Honorable'," Dick

said meditatively.

"And is he one of the people you like?" questioned Ellery with unfeigned

surprise.

"For business purposes, yes. If I'm going to get into politics some day,

it becomes me to cultivate local statesmen, doesn't it? I took the great

man to the theater, or at least to something that called itself the

theater, and I gave him an excellent supper afterward. He seemed to

appreciate it and my society."

"I dare say you made yourself agreeable. Do you expect he will help you

in your public career?"

"Not voluntarily, perhaps; but I wanted to know him, better and better.

Under benign influences, he is indiscreet. He reminded me last night of

Louis XIV. He might have said, 'St. Etienne, it is I,' but in his

simpler and less sophisticated language, he was content to remark, 'I'm

the whole damn show, see?'"

"I'm glad he knew enough to put the appropriate adjective before show,"

said Ellery grimly.

"And yet I suspect that, even in that statement, he lied," Dick went on.

"I studied him last night. You'll never persuade me that that man, whose

head is all face and neck, does the intricate planning and wire-pulling

that runs this city. I've an idea Barry is only the two placards on each

side of the sandwich-man. He may be the adjective show, but I doubt if

he's the man."

"Have you discovered who is the real sandwich-man?"

"No, I haven't. My reasoning is inductive. I see numerous little holes

with small tips of threads sticking through them, but when I try to get

hold of the threads to pull them out and examine them, the ends are too

short or my fingers are too big. But get hold of them I shall, sooner or

later, by hook or crook. If I don't give some of those fellows the

slugging of their lives, my name isn't Richard Percival."

"I suspect that it is Richard Percival," said Ellery with a whimsical

glance of affection.

"This, as I read it, is the history," Dick went on. "Six years ago, when

you and I were sub-freshmen, and unable to take an active part, there

was a brief spasm of reform. It was a short episode of fisticuffs and

fighting, which is for a day--a very different thing from governing,

which goes steadily on from year to year. But this reform movement did

result in giving the city a good charter."

"The Garden of Eden was once fitted out with an excellent system of

government."

"Exactly. Charters, left to themselves, do not regulate human nature.

The good citizens of St. Etienne went their own busy business way and

left the less occupied bad citizens to adapt the charter to the needs of

life; and that was an easy job, so easy that it has apparently been

possible for one man to manage it. The charter put great power into the

hands of the mayor. There have been three mayors elected under it, and

they have all been 'friends' of Billy Barry."




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