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 especially those who owned property fronting on the streets to be improved: they had helped the appropriation through the finance committee. McGaw, too, had known about it from the first day of its discussion before the board. Those who were inside the ring had decided then that he would be the best man to haul the stone. The “steal,” they knew, could best be arranged in the tally of the carts—the final check on the scow measurement. They knew that McGaw's accounts could be controlled, and the total result easily “fixed.” The stone itself had been purchased of the manufacturers the year before, but there were not funds enough to put it on the roads at that time.

Here, then, was McGaw's chance. His triumph at obtaining the brewery contract was but short-lived. Schwartz had given him the work, but at Tom's price, not at his own. McGaw had accepted it, hoping for profits that would help him with his chattel mortgage. After he had been at work for a month, however, he found that he ran behind. He began to see that, in spite of its boastings, the Union had really done nothing