FullReads

“Vote a Republican,” said Toby politely.

A look of pain appeared upon the brow of the committee-man.

“I reckon I ain’t hardly made myself clear,” he observed, somewhat plaintively. “Now here, you listen: I reckon it would be kind of resky to trust you boys to scratch the ticket–it’s a mixed up business, anyway–“

“Vote a straight!” cried Pietro, nodding his head, cheerfully. “Yess! I teach Leo; yess, teach all these”–he waved his hands to indicate the melancholy listeners–“teach them all. Stamp in a circle by that eagle. Vote a Republican!”

“What I was goin’ to say,” went on the official, exhibiting tokens of impatience and perturbation, “was that if we should make any switch this year, I guess you boys would have to switch straight.”

“‘Tis true!” was the hearty response. “Vote a straight Republican. Republican eternall!”

Pixley wiped his forehead with a dirty handkerchief, and scratched his head. “See here,” he said, after a pause, to Toby. “I’ve got to go down to Collins’s saloon, and I’d like to have you come along. Feel like going?”

“Certumalee,” answered Toby with alacrity, reaching for his hat.

But no one could have been more surprised than the chestnut vender when, on reaching the vacant street, his companion glancing cautiously about, beckoned him into the darkness of an alley-way, and, noiselessly upsetting a barrel, indicated it as a seat for both.

“Here,” said Pixley, “I reckon this is better. Jest two men by theirselves kin fix up a thing like this a lot quicker, and I seen you didn’t want to talk too much before them. You make your own deal with ’em afterwards, or none at all, jest as you like! They’ll do whatever you say, anyway. I sized you up to run that bunch, first time I ever laid eyes on the outfit. Now see here, Pete, you listen to me. I reckon I kin turn a little trick here that’ll do you some good. You kin bet I see that the men I pick fer my leaders–like you, Pete–git their rights! Now here: there’s you and the other six, that’s seven; it’ll be three dollars in your pocket if you deliver the goods.”

“No! no!” said Pietro in earnest protestation. “We seven a good Republican. We vote a Republican–same las’ time, all a time. Eesa not a need to pay us to vote a Republican. You save that a money, Meesa Peaslay.”

“You don’t understand,” groaned Pixley, with an inclination to weep over the foreigner’s thick-headedness. “There’s a chance fer a big deal here for all the boys in the precinck. Gil. Maxim’s backers’ll pay big fer votes enough to swing it. The best of ’em don’t know where they’re at, I tell you. Now here, you see here”–he took an affectionate grip of Pietro’s collar–“I’m goin’ to have a talk with Maxim’s manager to-morrow, I’ve had one or two a’ready, and I’ll put up the price all round on them people. It’s no more’n right, when you count up what we’re doin’ fer them. Look here, you swing them six in line and march ’em up, and all of ye stamp the rooster instead of the eagle this time, and help me to show Maxim that Frank Pixley’s there with the goods, and I’ll hand you a five-dollar bill and a full box o’ cigars, see?”

Pietro nodded and smiled through the darkness. “Stamp that eagle!” he answered, “Eesa all right, Meesa Peasley. Don’t you have afraid. We all seven a good Republican! Stamp that eagle! Hoor-r-ra! Republican eternall!”

Pixley was left sitting on the barrel, looking after the light figure of the young man joyously tripping back to the cellar, and turning to wave a hand in farewell from the street.

“Well, I am damned!” the politician remarked, with unwitting veracity. “Did the dern Dago bluff me, does he want more, er did he reely didn’t un’erstand fer honest?” Then, as he took up his way, crossing the street at the warning of some red and green smallpox lanterns, “I’ll git those seven votes, though, someway. I’m out fer a record this time, and I’ll git ’em!”