Then he cursed the laggard Italians, and mourned that a year and a half must pass before he could sell their votes again.

Bolles contracted for Italian labor and controlled something more than eight hundred votes.

McQuade sublet various small contracts to him, and in return used the Italians during elections.
That jump, harmless enough in itself, was to prove a bad inspiration on Warrington's part.

But it is always these seemingly inconsequent things that bear the heaviest reckoning.
Half a mile onward they drew down to a walk, flushed and breathless.
"Perhaps we oughtn't to have done that," she said doubtfully, working the numbness from her fingers.

"No thoroughfare" had hitherto been religiously respected by her; this was her first transgression, and she wasn't entirely satisfied with herself.
"Pshaw! There's no harm done.