"Very well, Totten! Nevertheless, let us hope that the mob fools have gone home to bed, including our friend Morrison. He needs his sleep; I believe he still follows the family rule of being in his mill at seven in the morning. He's a good millman, even if he isn't much of a politician." "And I don't look for any trouble, anyway," declared General Totten, adding in his thoughts, for his further consolation, the assurance that, at half past eleven, so the clock on the wall revealed to his gaze, such an early riser as Morrison must be abed and asleep; therefore, the exception for the sake of politeness did not threaten to complicate affairs! But at that instant something else did threaten. Through the arches and corridors of the State House rang the sounds of tumult, breaking on the hush with terrifying suddenness. One voice, shouting with frenzied violence, prefaced the general uproar; there was the crashing of shattered wood. The rifles barked angrily. "My God, North! I've been afraid of it!" Corson lamented. "You have crowded 'em too hard!" "I'm going by the law, Corson! The election law! The statute law! And the riot laws of this state! The law says a mob must be put down!" An immediate and reassuring silence suggested that the law had prevailed and that a mob had been put down in this instance. Corson, whose face was white and whose eyes were distended, voiced that conviction. "If a gang had been able to get in they'd be howling their heads off. But it was quick over!" The men in the Executive Chamber stood in their tracks and exchanged troubled glances in silence. "Amos, what are you waiting for?" demanded His Excellency. "For a report--an official report on the matter," mumbled the adjutant-general, steadying his trembling hands by shoving them inside his sword-belt. "Go down and find out what it all means." "I can save time by telephoning to the watchman's room," demurred Totten. "Incidentally saving your skin!" the Governor rapped back. "But I don't care how you get the information, if only you get it and get it sudden!" Totten went to the house telephone in the private secretary's room and called and waited; he called again and waited. "Nobody is on his job in this State House to-night!" His Excellency's fears had wire-edged his temper. "By gad! you go down there and tend to yours, as I have told you to do, Amos, or I'll take that sword and race you along the corridor on the point of it!" "We must be informed on what this means," insisted the Senator. There was a rap on the private door. Again the men in the Executive Chamber swapped uneasy glances. Corson's demeanor invited the Governor to assume the responsibility. His Excellency was manifestly shirking. He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the fireplace, as if he felt an impulse to arm himself with the ornamental poker and tongs. "May I come in?" The voice was that of the mayor of Marion. The voice was deprecatory. "Come in!" invited North.