In the first and second wards² of Chicago at this time—wards including the business heart, South Clark Street, the water-front, the river-levee, and the like—were two men, Michael (alias Smiling Mike) Tiernan and Patrick (alias Emerald Pat) Kerrigan, who, for picturequeness of character and sordidness³ of atmosphere, could not be equaled elsewhere in the city, if in the nation at large. “Smiling” Mike Tiernan, proud possessor of four of the largest and filthiest⁵ saloons of this area, was a man of large and genial⁶ mold—perhaps six feet one inch in height, broad-shouldered in proportion, with a bovine⁷ head, bullet-shaped from one angle, and big, healthy, hairy hands and large feet. He had done many things from digging in a ditch to occupying a seat in the city council from this his beloved ward¹, which he sold out regularly for one purpose and another; but his chief present joy consisted in sitting behind a solid mahogany railing at a rosewood desk in the back portion of his largest Clark Street hostelry—“The Silver Moon.” Here he counted up the returns from his various properties—salons, gambling⁸ resorts, and houses of prostitution—which he manipulated with the connivance⁹ or blinking courtesy of the present administration, and listened to the pleas and demands of his henchmen and tenants¹⁰.