tariff money and
Seward's money too."

Yarnell and I left the Richmond House on our way to look again at the
crowds. Bands of music were playing everywhere. Men were marching. Tom
Hyer, the great prize fighter, was leading a club of rough and handy
men. They were preceded by a noisy band. They shouted. The staring crowd
shouted. Hyer had come for the purpose of lifting a lusty voice for
Seward at the critical moment. He and his men had good fists too to use
in a case of doubt on a question of votes or of a right of entrance to
the hall. They pass, the band dies away; other marchers follow. Some
paraders are carrying rails bearing the banner with the words "Honest
Old Abe" That reminds me of something. We go over to the office of the
_Chicago Times_ to see in the windows some rails which Lincoln split
when he was working on the bottoms of the Sangamon River, thirty years
before.

"I should think Greeley would be for Lincoln," I said to Yarnell. "I saw
the _Tribune_ yesterday and it slants toward Edward Bates of Missouri."

"That old slicker," sneered Yarnell. "Why who can depend on him? He's
been for every one and everything, and then against them. He hates
Seward. We kept him off the New York delegation. Now he's got on the
delegation from Oregon, got some one's proxy, and he's here to make
trouble. But it won't do him any good. We will put Seward over on the
first ballot."

We came to the _Times_' window and looked at the rails. "Well," I said,
"if they nominate Lincoln, we'll have another log-cabin campaign."

"Yes, that's what it will come to. What's all this talk anyway about
Honest Old Abe? Every man is honest enough, and no man in politics much
more honest than another. We don't need that kind of dramatics to elect
Seward. There is enough to the man to elect him. We mean to have a
clean-cut, high-toned campaign with a great man to lead us, who is known
to the whole country. The day is past for this log-cabin business. It's
now a stone front and champagne."

I went back with Yarnell to the Richmond House, then turned my own way
to study the crowds. Chicago was a carnival of unlicensed spirits. What
thousands of blue flies already swarmed upon the fresh carcass of this
new political party! A few years before and it was poor, but of flesh
that was fresh. Now it was beginning to stink. Tariffs, railroads, all
powerful moneyed interests, special privileges, were settling upon it,
blowing it full of eggs. All th