. The usual smooth course of the convention,
upset by this unlooked-for resistance from two quarters, staggered
helplessly, and was on the point of coming to a deadlock. It was Michael
McGrath's shrewd perception of the situation which solved the problem.
In a brief, impassioned speech he laid the claims of his faction before
the delegates, winding up with a stirring picture of the cooperation of
labor and reform, now possible, which held the convention in spellbound
silence for ten seconds after he had closed, and then set the hall
ringing to cheers and vigorously plied hands and feet. For an instant he
paused, with his arms folded, and his keen blue eyes sliding over the
faces before him, and then played his trump card. At his signal, a
banner, hastily prepared, was borne, slowly revolving, down the central
aisle, and on this were boldly lettered the words which at the same
moment McGrath was thundering from the platform:--

LABOR AND REFORM!

FOR GOVERNOR,
ELIJAH ABBOTT.

FOR LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR,
JOHN HAMILTON BARCLAY.

McGrath had no need to look toward the labor faction for support. He
knew what the name of Elijah Abbott meant in that quarter. His shifting
glance was fixed upon the seats of the reform delegates, and a little
smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, as he saw them rise with a
cheer. Barclay was the chief spirit of their movement. They had not
expected this recognition. But if, in the enthusiasm of unlooked-for
victory, they did not perceive how little, in reality, was their gain,
McGrath was far from being unaware how great was his own. Before the
cheering of the now allied forces of labor and reform had fairly died
away, he had moved that nominations were in order, and, ten minutes
later, while the partisans of the "machine" were still endeavoring to
collect their wits, the main business of the convention was an
accomplished fact, and Abbott and Barclay were declared the regular
Democratic nominees for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of the state.
In six weeks followed their election by a small plurality, and on the
first of January the two men moved into their adjoining rooms, in the
inexcusably unlovely state capitol, on the main hill of Kenton City,
wherein they were, thenceforward, separated, one from the other, by two
inches of Georgia pine and a practically infinite divers