d Silliman's men toiling in the West and South to get
Rundle delegates or uninstructed delegations. And, after our
conversation, he was reinforced by Woodruff and such men of his staff as
could be used without suspicion. Woodruff himself could permeate like an
odorless gas; you knew he was there only by the results. Nothing could
be done for Rundle in his own state; but the farther away from his home
our men got, the easier it was to induce--by purchase and otherwise--the
politicians of his party to think well of him. This the more because
they regarded Simpson as a "stuff" and a "stiff"--and they weren't far
wrong.

"It may not be Scarborough, and it probably won't be Rundle," Woodruff
said in his final report to me, "but it certainly won't be Simpson.
He's the dead one, no matter how well he does on the first ballot."

But I would not let him give me the details--the story of shrewd and
slippery plots, stratagems, surprises. "I am worn out, mind and body,"
said I in apology for my obvious weariness and indifference.

For six months I had been incessantly at work. The tax upon memory
alone, to say nothing of the other faculties, had been crushing. Easy as
political facts always were for me, I could not lightly bear the strain
of keeping constantly in mind not merely the outlines, but also hundreds
of the details, of the political organizations of forty-odd states with
all their counties. And the tax on memory was probably the least. Then
added to all my political work was business care; for while I was
absorbed in politics, Ed Ramsay had badly muddled the business. Nor had
I, like Burbank and Woodruff, the power to empty my mind as I touched
the pillow and so to get eight hours of unbroken rest each night.

Woodruff began asking me for instructions. But my judgment was
uncertain, and my imagination barren. "Do as you think best," said I. "I
must rest. I've reached my limit,"--my limit of endurance of the sights
and odors and befoulings of these sewers of politics I must in person
adventure in order to reach my goal. I must pause and rise to the
surface for a breath of decent air or I should not have the strength to
finish these menial and even vile tasks which no man can escape if he is
a practical leader in the practical activities of practical life.

XVIII

A DANGEROUS PAUSE

I took train for my friend Sandys' country place near Cleveland,
forbidding Woodruff or Burbank or my secretaries to communicate