His Robe of Honor (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI THE GUN TOTEE A STRUGGLE for the leadership of the organiza- -i. tion's rock-ribbed assembly district in the heart of old Greenwich Village ? where the streets run in circles and even the poor live in separate houses ? had been at fever heat for a month. On the program of Marcus Nordhoff, boss of the party, was inscribed the decision that Martin Dennis, who had led the district for twenty years, should sit no longer in the councils of the mighty. The autocrat's only explanation was a reference to the fact that, several times since the last primary, the Celt had " bucked over the traces." " I ain't no Russian and you ain't no Czar," had been Dennis' defiance at the time of the first revolt. " I'm free born, and all white, and ye'll keep yer hands off of me or I'll know the reason why! " Marcus Nordhoff had bided his time and the actual struggle for the command of the district might have been postponed indefinitely had not a worry arisen in his mind over his younger brother, Clifford. The latter had developed a wildness that particularly troubled the boss because it reminded him of a certain period in his own youth. He himself had only improved when a great responsibility had been thrust upon him, and he believed that the only chance to reform Cliff lay in loading him with some such burden. He had deter- mined to make his younger brother leader of the Village district in place of old man Dennis, who had long been a thorn in his imperious side. So the lines had been drawn for the bitterest factional fight the party had ever known. Martin Dennis had been vehement in his rage at the first intimation that he was to have opposition. His roars changed to snorts of disgust, however, when he learned that Clifford Nordhoff was the man picked for the contest ag...