guild
were innumerable. One might have mistaken it for an annual meeting of
the Associated Press.

V

The convention assembled. It was in Cincinnati's great Music Hall.
Schurz presided. Who that was there will ever forget his opening words:
"This is moving day." He was just turned forty-two; in his physiognomy a
scholarly _Herr Doktor_; in his trim lithe figure a graceful athlete; in
the tones of his voice an orator.

Even the bespectacled doctrinaires of the East, whence, since the days
when the Star of Bethlehem shone over the desert, wisdom and wise men
have had their emanation, were moved to something like enthusiasm. The
rest of us were fervid and aglow. Two days and a night and a half the
Quadrilateral had the world in a sling and things its own way. It had
been agreed, as I have said, to limit the field to Adams, Trumbull and
Greeley; Greeley being out of it, as having no chance, still further
abridged it to Adams and Trumbull; and, Trumbull not developing very
strong, Bowles, Halstead and I, even White, began to be sure of Adams on
the first ballot; Adams the indifferent, who had sailed away for Europe,
observing that he was not a candidate for the nomination and otherwise
intimating his disdain of us and it.

Matters thus apparently cocked and primed, the convention adjourned over
the first night of its session with everybody happy except the D. Davis
contingent, which lingered on the scene, but knew its "cake was dough."
If we had forced a vote that night, as we might have done, we should
have nominated Adams. But inspired by the bravery of youth and
inexperience we let the golden opportunity slip. The throng of delegates
and the audience dispersed.

In those days, it being the business of my life to turn day into night
and night into day, it was not my habit to seek my bed much before the
presses began to thunder below, and this night proving no exception, and
being tempted by a party of Kentuckians, who had come, some to back me
and some to watch me, I did not quit their agreeable society until the
"wee short hours ayont the twal." Before turning in I glanced at the
early edition of the Commercial, to see that something--I was too tired
to decipher precisely what--had happened. It was, in point of fact,
the arrival about midnight of Gen. Frank P. Blair and Governor B. Gratz
Brown.

I had in my possession documents that would have induced at least one of
them to pause before making himself too c