Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/284

 flashing other diamonds, this counterfeit presentment of Malachi Nolan was trying to protect the First Ward—peeping on a ballot from his waistcoat pocket—from a gentleman with high hat, side whiskers, gloves and cane, who, labeled "Citizen," obviously impersonated the better element. The point of the cartoon was that the Municipal Reform League had resolved that Malachi Nolan be retired from public life. The League had had a banquet, and the speeches had breathed a zeal of reform such as only champagne and truffles can inspire. The resolutions rang like a declaration of independence; if the reform candidate, a gentleman of prominent probity, were beaten in regular convention, they would nominate him by petition.

Malachi studied the cartoon a long time, never changing expression, and when he finished, he folded the paper carefully and laid it on his desk, bestowed his spectacles in his waistcoat pocket, and then, placing a hand on each knee, sat and stared with widening eyes straight before him.

It was not a new experience to be thus caricatured. He had long since acquired a politician's stoicism and could affect a reassuring indifference to attacks