Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/286

 desk, but had left him to sit beside the candles at her wake, with lonesome little Nora crying at his knee. He felt that he had earned a rest. He had worked hard, mastered the intricate details of the water office and the special assessment bureau; he had done his part in making a town of wooden sidewalks a city of steel and stone; he had never betrayed his party or his friend. As for certain of his methods, well—if he thought of them at all—they were direct, and they won. So now that Nora was grown and had finished her education at St. Aloysius, he had decided to retire and take her with him on the long-dreamed-of trip back to Ireland—Ireland, where it was really spring that very morning.

But he wished to retire gracefully, to name his successor before he went, and how could he do this with the reformers making the fight of their lives against him? It would take Malachi Nolan some time to decide a question like that. He must think. Nora was young; after all, another term would make little difference; if he concluded to give some more lessons in practical politics to the reformers, she could take some more lessons on the piano.