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Show 98 there was a gang of voters over here at this house. And if that didn't lead to Hugo becomin* chief of the police. God in Glory, this calls for a celebration!" "Get Mayo a glass of beer, Karl," Hugo said, smiling broadly. "To hell with the euchre game," Jack Kratzer yelled. "Let's drink to Police Chief Hugo Kerner!" Smiling even wider, Hugo said, "Never mind, Karl, I'll get Mayo his beer. You go bring me my harmonica." The cards and matchsticks were swept aside on the tabletop. Kathleen helped Maggie Rose carry platters of sliced ham, cheese, bread, pickles, crackers and hard-boiled eggs to set on the table as the men took turns at the keg, refilling their beer steins. Holding his glass in his left hand, because his right hand had been crippled years earlier in a mill accident, Mayo Culley drank all the beer in one long quaff, then lined up to refill at the keg. When Hugo began to play a waltz on his harmonica, the boistrous men jumped to their feet to dance with one another, as they always did after the cardplaying ended at the Kerner house. Since most of them were middle-aged and had bellies that protruded almost as much as President William Howard Taft's, the force of their combined weights, as they stomped and whirled around the kitchen, made the floorboards sink and heave alarmingly. "Here, Karl, you play," Hugo said, thrusting the harmonica into Karl's hands. "I'm going to dance with your mother." Karl would rather have played the piano, but since the piano was in the parlor and would hardly be heard over the din in the kitchen, |