, judge, is to go to the convention as a delegate, and make the
nominating speech for Mr. Harkless. Will you do it?"

"Do it?" cried the old man, and he struck the table a resounding blow
with his big fist. "Do it? I'd walk from here to Rouen and back again to
do it!"

They were all on their feet at this, and they pressed forward to shake
Briscoe's hand, congratulating him and each other as though they were
already victorious. Mr. Martin bent over Helen and asked her if she
minded shaking hands with a man who had voted for Shem at the first
election in the Ark.

"I thought I'd rightly ort to thank you for finishin' off Kedge
Halloway," he added. "I made up my mind I'd never vote for him again,
the night he killed that intellectual insect of his."

"Intellectual insect, Mr. Martin?" she asked, puzzled.

He sighed. "The recollection never quits ha'ntin' me. I reckon I haven't
had a restful night since June. Maybe you don't remember his lecture."

"Oh, but I do," she laughed; "and I remember the story of the fly,
vividly."

"I never was jest what you might exactly call gushin' over Kedge,"
Mr. Martin drawled. "He doesn't strike me as havin' many ideas,
precisely--he had kind of a symptom of one once, that he caught from
Harkless, but it didn't take; it sloshed around in his mind and never
really come out on him. I always thought his brain was sort of syrupy.
Harkless thought there was fruit in it, and I reckon there is; but some
way it never seems to jell."

"Go on," said Helen gayly. "I want to hear him abused. It helps me to
feel less mean about the way we are treating him."

"Yes; I'm slickin' over my conscience, too. I feel awnrier about it
because he done me a good turn once, in the Hayes and Wheeler campaign.
I went to a meetin' to hear him speak, and he got sick and couldn't."

Warren Smith addressed the company. "Well, is this all for the present?"
he asked. "Is everything settled?"

"Wait a minute," said Keating. "I'd like to hear from the 'Herald' about
its policy, if Miss Sherwood will tell us."

"Yes, indeed," she answered. "It will be very simple. Don't you think
there is only one course to pursue? We will advocate no one very
energetically, but we will print as much of the truth about Mr. McCune
as we can, with delicacy and honor, in this case, but, as I understand
it, the work is almost all to be done amongst the delegates. We shall
not mention our plan at all--but--but, when the convention is