nd
perspiring, into the blazing sunshine that filled the little street.
Once outside, they opened their lungs to the warm air in an attempt to
banish the tainted atmosphere of the interior; but the original motive
of expansion was lost in a flow of words. On the sidewalk the crowd
divided into streams, pulsing in opposite directions. Heated, noisy,
pervasive, it surged to dinners in hotels and boarding-houses, and
overflowed where Moloney's restaurant displayed its bill of fare. It
came out talking, it divided talking; still talking, it swept, a roaring
sea of flesh, into the far-off buzz of the distance. In a group of three
men passing into the lobby of the largest hotel, there was a slender man
of fifty years, with a well-knit figure, half closed, indifferent eyes,
and an emphatic mouth. In the insistent hum of words about him, his
voice sounded in a brisk utterance that carried a hint of important
issues.

"Oh, I don't think Hartley's much account," he was saying. "I'd bet on a
close shave between Webb and Crutchfield, with Webb in the lead. Small
will get the lieutenant-governorship, of course. Davis ought to be
attorney-general, but he'll be beaten by Wray. It's the party reward.
Davis is the better lawyer, by long odds, but Wray has stuck to the
party like a burr--I don't mean a pun, if you please."

The younger of his two companions, a spirited youth with high-standing
auburn hair, laughed uproariously.

"The trouble is they're afraid Burr won't stick to the party," he
protested. "Major Simms, who is marshalling Crutchfield's forces, you
know, said to me last night--'Oh, Burr's all right when you let him
lead, but he's damned mulish if you begin to pull the other way.'"

The third man, a sunburned farmer, with a dogged mouth overhung by a
tobacco-stained mustache, assented with a nod.

"There's not a better Democrat in Virginia than Nick Burr," he said. "If
the party's got anything against him it had better out with it at once.
He made the most successful chairman the State ever had--and he's
honest--there's not a more honest man in politics or out."

"Oh, I know all that," broke in the auburn-haired young fellow, whose
name was Dickson; "I'd back Burr against any candidate in the field, and
I'm sorry he kept out of it. I hoped he'd come forward with you to
manage his campaign, Mr. Galt," he said to the first speaker.

Galt waived the remark.

"Perhaps he thought his chances too slim for a walkover," he