A Light in the West Goes Down

"No," said Dick slowly. "You are a lucky fellow, Ellery. You're going to
get away ahead of me in the long run. Preston said yesterday that the
honors of this campaign were yours. He has been a fine figure-head, and
I have hollered loud, but you've hollered deepest, and the public knows
it. I guess that's the real reason that you've been shoved ahead on the
staff. Here's your boarding-house. Good night, old fellow. To-morrow
night our labors will be over."

"I hope yours will have just begun, Mr. Alderman," Norris retorted.

The polls closed in uncertainty and for three days speculation filled
the papers, and election bets remained unpaid. Then the decks cleared.
Mr. Preston was elected mayor by a narrow plurality; and out of the
eighteen aldermen, the reform element had carried seven, Dick Percival
among them, to victory. The Municipal Club counted its gains and was
jubilant, for this meant that, if the city council passed any
objectionable measure, their iniquity could be vetoed by the mayor, and
the bad men of the city fathers lacked one of the two-thirds majority
which they would need to carry their legislation over the executive's
veto.

Dick took Lena and went away for a fortnight's rest, but came back
looking old and dissatisfied.

It was understood that the first battle in the new council would be over
the lighting franchise, which was about to expire and which the company
in power wished to renew. There had been some talk of an attempt to
force it through before the old council went out of power, but even
Billy Barry's henchmen refused to commit themselves to so unpopular a
measure on the very eve of election; for St. Etienne had been paying a
notoriously high price for notably bad lighting, and the citizen,
usually a meek animal, had been stirred to a realization of his injuries
by wholesale exposition of the truth.