his was certainly told him on the way to his breakfast; and after the
nomination the dreamer reappeared and said: "What did I tell you,
Jim? Why, the very thing I saw in my dream last night, I saw in the
convention to-day."

The inside truth about the nomination was freely given by Mr. Blaine,
who, as the convention progressed, was studying the proceedings with
the surprisingly clear vision he possessed for the estimation of
passing events. He soon made up his mind that his nomination could
not happen, and that Sherman also was impossible. They could not unite
forces without losses. Evidently there was a crisis at hand. There is
something in a convention that always tells the competent observer,
near or far, that decisive action is about to be taken. The evidence
appears of an intolerant impatience. Mr. Conkling was relying upon
the absolute solidity of his three hundred and five. Mr. Blaine was a
wiser man about the force of a tempest in a convention, and would have
preferred Sherman to Conkling. But Conkling was quite as bitter toward
Sherman as regarding Blaine, even more so in his invective; and this
grew out of the custom-house difficulty that ultimately so deeply
affected General Arthur's fortunes. There had to be a break
somewhere--to Grant from Sherman and Blaine, or from him to them, or
a rush to Conkling, or to Garfield, whose conspicuity had constantly
suggested it; and Blaine resolved that the chance to rout the
third-termers was to sweep the convention by going for Garfield, and
overwhelming him with the rest, thus winning a double victory over
Conkling.

It is a fact, and the one that makes certain the proposition that
Sherman could not have been nominated, that the majority of the Blaine
men from New York, turned loose by breaking the unit rule--there were
nineteen of them--preferred Grant to Sherman. If the break by Blaine
from himself had been attempted, for Sherman, Grant would have been
nominated if one ballot had been decisive. But Blaine was able to
transfer every vote cast for him to Garfield, with the exception
of that of a colored delegate from Virginia; and this movement was
managed so as to overthrow all who strove to stand against it. Grant
was in the lead for thirty-four ballots, but on the thirty-fourth
there were seventeen votes for Garfield. On the thirty-fifth ballot
Garfield had three hundred and ninety-nine votes, twenty-one majority
over all. Blaine by telegraph had outgeneralled Con