To the layman such an order may mean little. To the convention it meant everything. Six counties were, officially, for Conover. Two for Standish. Thus eighteen of Caleb’s adherents could, and would, vote to ratify the seating of the Railroader’s delegates. The opponents of this weird measure could muster a numerical force of but six. Meanwhile, the preliminary organization of the convention had been effected without much delay. The Standish delegates, knowing the futility of making a fight at this time, had raised merely a perfunctory opposition to the nomination of Bourke as temporary chairman. Through Bourke (by way of Shevlin) Conover now proclaimed his plan of choosing the all-important Committee on Credentials. Bourke, well drilled, repeated the decision in a droning monotone. Instantly the convention was in the maddest uproar. All semblance of order was lost. Bedlam broke loose. In the gallery the contesting Standish delegates writhed in impotent rage, leaning far over the rail, shaking their fists and howling down insult, curse and threat. On the floor the delegates from Wills and Matawan were already upon their feet, yelling furious protests, shrieking “Fraud;” “Robbery!” and kindred pleasantries, without trying or hoping to secure recognition from the chair. Foreseeing the inevitable trend of affairs, the Conover “heelers” and the fraudulent delegates from the six larger counties had been prepared for this. At a signal from Billy Shevlin they burst into a deafening uproar of applause. The furtive-faced Bourke rapped on the table, but the bang of his heavy gavel was unheard. The Standish delegates would not be quieted, and the Conover crowd did not want to be. A dozen fist-fights started simultaneously. A ’longshoreman—Conover district captain from one of the “railroad” wards of Granite—wittily spat in the face of a vociferating little farmer from Wills County, and then stepped back with a bellow of laughter at his own powers of repartee. But others understood the gentle art of “retort courteous” almost as well as he. Losing for once his inherited New England calm, Karl Ansel drove his big gnarled fist flush into the grinning face of the dock-rat, and sent him whirling backward amid a splintering of broken seats. As the ’longshoreman staggered to his feet, wiping the blood from his face, the sergeant-at-arms (foreman of a C. G. & X. section gang), made a rush for Ansel, but prudently held back as the gaunt old man fell on guard and grimly awaited his new opponent’s onset. Ansel, smarting and past all control, ploughed his way down the main aisle, and halting below the stage, shook his clenched fist at Caleb’s crayon likeness. “I’ve seen forty pictures of Judas Iscariot in my time,” he thundered, apostrophizing the portrait in a nasal voice that rose high above the clamor, “and no two of them looked alike. But by the Eternal, they _all_ were the living image of YOU!”