ly for. It indicated that he
suspected but did not realize fully how deeply Spinney was in the toils.

"Explain!" shouted Presson, standing on tiptoe to thrust features
convulsed with rage into the young man's face.

"General Waymouth is waiting to explain, sir. He's across the stage,
there! And Mr. Spinney is with him. I'd advise you to hurry."

"I don't need any of your advice! If you've got him on exhibition at
last where the public can be admitted, I can't get there any too quick."

He rushed out, charging like a bull, and the others followed.

The State committeeman who closed file with Harlan did not appreciate
the gravity of the situation.

"You seem to be introducing new features into a State Convention to-day,
cap'n," he observed, sarcastically. "The way you're handling Brother
Spinney is like the song about

"'Old Jud Cole, who went by freight To Newry Corner in this State;
Packed him in a crate to get him there, With a two-cent stamp to
pay his fare.'"

He added, "Spinney is light enough to travel on that tariff, but you're
going to find he's got friends that are heavier."

Young Thornton waited till all had entered the anteroom, and again took
his post as guard on the inside of the door.

General Waymouth checked Presson at the first yelp of the outburst with
which he had stormed into the room. Probably there was not another man
in the State who could have prevailed by sheer force of dignity and
carriage in that moment when the passions of his opponents were so
white-hot. But he was, in intellect, birth, breeding, and position,
above them all, and they knew it. There, boxed in that little room, they
faced him, and anger, rancor, spite, itch for revenge gave way before
his stern, cold, inexorable determination to prevail in the name of the
right.

"Gentlemen, I haven't called you here for the purpose of arguing or
wrangling. You'll waste time by trying to do either. You are here to
listen to what _must_ be done. You represent the warring factions. There
are enough of us to straighten the matter out. There are not so many
that the secret of this shameful mess cannot be kept, and our party
saved at the polls."

He paused to draw the fateful documents from his pocket.

In the hush of the little room they heard Senator Pownal declaiming:
"And it is upon these firm principles, bedrock of inalienable rights
guaranteed to the people, upon the broad issues of reform, inculcation
of temperance, and the