e through the nostrils of that effigy! Gentlemen,
you ought to be ashamed of yourselves!"

Colonel Dodd snorted emphatic approval.

"You are talking like children. Guff and growls can't carry this
convention. That crowd hasn't even got a candidate for governor. Have
you heard one mentioned?"

"I don't suppose they would dare to go as far as that," said one of
the committeemen. "Governor Harwood, by party usage, is entitled to a
renomination, of course. What they figure on is a new state committee
and a platform that will include reforms."

"Huh! Yes! So much striped candy! Give it to 'em. Then we've got only
twenty-four men to handle in the way we have always handled state
committees--and even that crowd can't find saints and archangels for
their candidates! And as for a political platform--bah!"

It was the practical politician's caustic estimate of conditions.

Then the chairman joined in, bolstering this supercilious view: "As for
that legislature--how many bills were ever passed in our legislature
over a governor's veto after we had got in our work? We are going to
have a safe man for governor. That band's lungs won't last for ever.
Colonel Dodd, are you ready?"

If revolt and the spirit of resentment and rebellion did exist in that
assemblage, which the magnates of the party faced when they marched
upon the platform, the tumult of applause covered all sinister outward
aspects. The routine of the convention was entered upon: the secretary
read the convention call, the organization was perfected without
protest, and the orator of the day, as president pro tem, a conservative
United States Senator, began his "key-note speech." It was a document
which had been in proof slips for a week, and which all the party
workers from Colonel Dodd down had read and approved. Therefore, when
Richard Dodd entered from one of the side doors and came tiptoeing
across the platform and touched the colonel's arm and jerked energetic
request for the colonel to follow, the colonel followed, glad of an
excuse to be absent while the Senator fulminated.

Young Dodd's face was flushed and working with excitement. He hurried
his uncle into a small retiring-room and locked the door.

"I've got your man, uncle," he declared.

"What man?" The colonel was grouchy and indifferent.

"Your man Farr."

"I don't claim him."

"But you said you wanted him. You said you wanted to hang him like a
dead crow in the political bean-patch."

"M