give the excuse for
forcing the nomination upon him. And as he sat there, with that ominous
tumult about him, he was realizing how hard his task was to be.

His companions pushed him a passage through the crowds on the sidewalk
and in the lobby, and he shut himself away in the upper part of the
hotel. When we left, half an hour later, the people were packed before
that face of the hotel which displayed the banner of the Indiana
delegation, were cheering Scarborough, were clamoring--in vain--for him
to show himself.

"But won't he offend them?" asked my wife.

"A crowd loves like a woman," said I. "Indifference only excites it."

"Oh, _I_ never loved that way," protested Mrs. Sandys.

"Then," said my wife, rather sourly I thought, "you and Mr. Sandys have
something to live for."

And so we talked no more politics. There may be American women who
_really_ like to talk politics, but I never happened to know one with so
little sense. It's a pity we men do not imitate our women more closely
in one respect. In season and out of season, they never talk anything
but business--woman's one business. When other things are being
discussed, they listen, or rather, pretend to listen; in reality, their
minds are still on their business, and how they shall contrive to bring
it back into the conversation with advantage to themselves.

Next day the convention adopted a wishy-washy platform much like
Burbank's--if anything, weaker. I saw Goodrich's blight upon it. But the
victory cost him dear. That night the delegates realized what a blunder
they had made--or thought they realized it after Merriweather and his
staff had circulated among them. Few of them had been trusted by Beckett
with the secret that, with that platform and with Simpson as the
nominee, their party would have the interests behind it, would almost
certainly win. They only saw ahead a dull campaign, and no real issue
between the parties, and their candidate, if he was Simpson, much the
less attractive personality of the two.

The following morning the voting began; and after seven ballots Simpson
had thirty-nine votes less than on the first ballot. "It was like a
funeral," was the verdict of my disappointed guests that evening. A
night of debate and gloom among the politicians and other delegates, and
on the opening ballot Merriweather sprung his trap.

The first big doubtful state in the alphabetical list of states is
Illinois. When the secretary of the conven