Some of these "stretcher men," as Blount contemptuously called
them, had been employed in past campaigns; others were still the
beneficiaries of the railroad, holding pay-roll places which Blount
acutely suspected were chiefly sinecures.
Latterly, this contingent of strikers and heelers had been greatly
augmented, and it was beginning to make its demands more emphatic. A
dozen times a day Blount had the worn phrase, "nothing for nothing,"
dinned into his ears, and he was beginning to harbor a suspicion that
his office had been made a dumping-ground for all the other departments.
Seeing Gantry at madam the governor's lady's reception, Blount took an
early opportunity of cornering the traffic manager in one of the
otherwise deserted smoking-dens, and when he had made sure there were no
eavesdroppers plunged at once into the middle of things.
"See here, Dick," he began, "you fellows downtown are making my office a
cesspool, and I won't stand for it. Garrigan, that saloon-keeper in the
second ward, came up to-day to ask for a free ticket to Worthington and
return; and when I pinned him down he admitted that you'd sent him to
me."
"I did," said Gantry, grinning. "Why otherwise have we got a
post-graduate, double-certificated political manager, I'd like to know?"
Blount dropped into a chair and felt in his pockets for his cigar-case.
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