I am almost certain that the Senator had taken no action that could possibly conflict with the interests of Judge Robertson prior to the mention of the name of Dix at the Convention. In fact, with the exceptions previously stated, I am quite certain that the name of Dix was a genuine surprise to the entire Convention, managers and all. Judge Robertson thought differently, however. He believed that Conkling was the cause of his defeat, and to this misapprehension is due the enmity that sprang up between these two men, and worked with various results to the defeat of the political aims of both ever since. As I was Senator Conkling’s guest, this seemed to create a conviction in the mind of Judge Robertson, without any inquiry into the matter, that I had acted at the instigation of Conkling in bringing Dix to the front; whereas the conception of Dix as the best candidate originated solely with myself, nor did I ever suggest the idea to Conkling until I addressed the Convention, in favor of General Dix. Believing as he did, that the Senator had played the marplot to such perfection at Utica, Robertson was naturally on the watch for the first opportunity that would enable him to get even with the friend whom he suspected of having so basely betrayed him, and with having blocked his way to political preferment. This opportunity came at the Chicago Convention, when the Utica statesman was managing matters very successfully to nominate General Grant for a third term. It is curious that the very circumstance which was most conducive to Grant’s success for the second term was the remote cause of his defeat for the third. Senator Conkling had no idea of the deep-seated enmity that lodged in the breast of Robertson. He had done nothing, knowingly, to merit it, and had been calculating on the co-operation of Robertson, as usual. He was not aware of the smouldering fire of vengeance that lay latent in the bosom of his friend. He supposed that Robertson and his co-mates in politics were with him as in days of yore in the support of General Grant. He imagined that he had gone to Chicago with a full hand, but instead of that he was short of some of his best cards, and his enemies had them stocked in a way that finally brought him to grief. Conkling only discovered his dilemma after the Convention met, when he found to his dismay that Robertson had bolted the Grant ticket. Robertson had first made an alliance with the Blaine party, but finding an insufficiency of power among that party to carry his point against the solid phalanx of the Grant movement, he joined forces with John Sherman’s supporters, who were under the management of James A. Garfield. The able strategist from Utica, at the head of his 306 chosen followers, so disconcerted the Sherman contingent that it also failed to carry the necessary number of guns.