ut this thing.
Er--good night, Adam."

"Hold on!" cried Mr. Hunt, as a new phase of the matter struck him. "Why,
if I got out--"

"What then?" said Mr. Vane, turning around.

"Oh, I won't get out," said Mr. Hunt, "but if I did,--why, there
wouldn't, according to your way of thinking, be any chance for a dark
horse."

"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Vane.

"Now don't get mad, Hilary. I guess, and you know, that Flint hasn't
treated you decently this summer after all you've done for him, and I
admire the way you're standing by him. I wouldn't do it. I just wanted to
say," Mr. Hunt added slowly, "that I respect you all the more for trying
to get me out. If--always according to your notion of the convention--if
I don't get out, and haven't any chance, they tell me on pretty good
authority Austen Vane will get the nomination."

Hilary Vane walked to the door, opened it and went out, and slammed it
behind him.

It is morning,--a hot morning, as so many recall,--and the partisans of
the three leaders are early astir, and at seven-thirty Mr. Tooting
discovers something going on briskly which he terms "dealing in futures."
My vote is yours as long as you are in the race, but after that I have
something negotiable. The Honourable Adam Hunt strolls into the rotunda
after an early breakfast, with a toothpick in his mouth, and is pointed
out by the sophisticated to new arrivals as the man who spent seven
thousand dollars over night, much of which is said to have stuck in the
pockets of two feudal chiefs who could be named. Is it possible that
there is a split in the feudal system at last? that the two feudal chiefs
(who could be named) are rebels against highest authority? A smile from
the sophisticated one. This duke and baron have merely stopped to pluck a
bird; it matters not whether or not the bird is an erstwhile friend--he
has been outlawed by highest authority, and is fair game. The bird (with
the toothpick in his mouth) creates a smile from other chiefs of the
system in good standing who are not too busy to look at him. They have
ceased all attempts to buttonhole him, for he is unapproachable.

The other bird, the rebel of Leith, who has never been in the feudal
system at all, they have stopped laughing at. It is he who has brought
the Empire to its most precarious state.

And now, while strangers from near and far throng into town, drawn by the
sensational struggle which is to culminate in battle to-day, Mr. Cre