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Arthur Hardy Jr., the homeless man who signed all those nominating petitions for James Meeks and Rob Halpin, sat down with me for a couple of hours Wednesday to tell his side of the story.

Hardy said he didn't gather those 7,000 signatures himself, only a small portion of them, despite signing the sworn statement at the bottom of each petition declaring that all the signatures were signed in his presence.

That's against the law, but for reasons that should become easier to understand as we continue, let me say right up front that I certainly hope that if any law enforcement agencies take an interest in this matter that they aim a little higher than a homeless man trying to make some chump change.

Hardy said the rest of the petitions were circulated by a group of other mostly homeless people that he recruited for that purpose. The signatures were legitimate, he said.

Hardy said the individual who recruited him to work on behalf of both Meeks' and Halpin's campaigns is Bishop C.L. Sparks, a West Side minister who operates a consulting business on the side, Sparks Group LLC, that dabbles in politics and I would surmise anything else that pays a buck.

Meeks confirmed he had contracted with Sparks to circulate petitions for himself, but said he had no knowledge of -- or connection to -- any petitions circulated on Halpin's behalf. I couldn't reach Halpin.

Hardy told me it was Sparks who instructed him to sign his name to all the petitions, which he said he did in the office of Sparks' church on Chicago Avenue. He said he didn't realize that was wrong.

He said two African-American men were there to notarize the petitions, neither of them resembling the Latino woman, Maricela Rodriguez, who has already told Sun-Times reporters that somebody forged her signature on Halpin's petitions as the notary. That, of course, would be against the law, too, and possibly a more useful avenue of criminal inquiry.

I also spent some quality time Wednesday with Sparks, but he insisted our conversation be off-the-record, so I can't even tell you whether he disputes Hardy's story, but after going round and round with him on the phone later, I believe he intended this one statement for public consumption:

"I have not circulated one petition. I have not touched one petition," Sparks said.

Hardy said he and the others were promised money by Sparks for circulating the petitions. As of this writing, he said they still haven't been paid -- except for a $50 bill he says Sparks slipped him under the table Wednesday morning at Wallace's Catfish Corner after he went there to confront him.

Their rather loud confrontation got back to me, leading me to pay my own visit Wednesday to the restaurant that is owned by Wallace Davis Jr., the former 27th Ward alderman. With some help from Davis, Hardy eventually agreed to speak with me.

Hardy was very angry at first. He said he hadn't slept in three days since reporters started pursuing him Monday. He said he has spent his nights riding the CTA.

"It's been hell for me, man. I thought this was just a job," said Hardy, who told me he grew up on the South Side and that his godmother was the late Ald. Anna Langford. "The only thing I was trying to do was make some money."

Hardy blamed me and the rest of the news media for dragging his criminal record into this. I feel bad about that part of it. If we're going to start running criminal background checks on everybody who circulates petitions, then we're going to need to pick on a whole bunch of other candidates, too.

That really shouldn't be the issue. This started as an effort to figure out whether there is some nexus between the Halpin campaign and any of the other mayoral hopefuls, given Halpin's strange situation as the candidate who decided he deserved to be mayor because he's renting Rahm Emanuel's house and won't let him break the lease to move back.

The nexus is Sparks. But as angry as Hardy is with Sparks, he told me he doesn't believe either Meeks or his campaign had anything to do with connecting Halpin with Sparks' petition-gathering force.

He says Sparks is plenty smart enough to figure out on his own who needs signatures and how to hustle the business.

"You ain't dealing with no ordinary dummy. He's a smart dummy," Hardy said.

Still, there's an unanswered question of how they actually did connect.

Bryan Zises, a spokesman for Meeks, said their campaign had contracted with Sparks and Tyrone Tucker to supplement their volunteer petition-gathering efforts.

"They provided notarized signatures, and we paid them," Zises said.

Hardy produced a business card from Tucker, which identifies him as president of A-Team Political Campaign Unit, "circulators of petitions, canvassing and posterizing." He said Tucker was present when the petitions were notarized. I couldn't reach Tucker either.

Hardy said Sparks sent him to Meeks' office to collect the payment, because Sparks was out of town attending a funeral. He said an aide to Meeks gave him a check for "$540-something and change" along with four crisp $100 bills. He said he put the check and the cash in an envelope and delivered it to Sparks' church.

He calculates Sparks owes him $460. He said he was tempted to pocket the cash from Meeks but didn't.

In case there's any confusion, it's legal to pay people to circulate nominating petitions, and a lot of candidates do it.

I can't prove everything Hardy told me, but I tend to believe most of it.