"All over," answered the elder young man as he dived into his book. As he read he realized that the convention had chosen Captain Morton--a partisan of the Judge--for chairman. The hot, stifling air of the room was thick with the smoke of cheap tobacco. Morty Sands grew nervous and irritated during the preliminary motions of the organization. Even as a sporting event the odds on Van Dorn were too heavy to promote excitement. He went out for a breath of air. When he reentered Judge Van Dorn was making the opening speech of the convention. It was a fervid effort; the Spanish war was then in progress so the speech was full of allusions to what the Judge was pleased to call "libertah" and "our common countrah" and our sacred "dutah" to "humanitah." Naturally the delegates who were for the Judge's renomination displayed much enthusiasm, and it was a noisy moment. When the Judge closed his remarks--tearfully of course--and took his seat as chairman of the Fourth Ward delegation, which was supposed to be for him unanimously as it was his home ward, Morty noticed that while the Judge sat grand and austere in the aisle seat with his eyes partly closed as one who is recovering from a great mental effort, his half-closed eyes were following Mr. Joseph Calvin, who was buzzing about the room distributing among the delegates meal tickets and saloon checks good for food for man and beast at the various establishments of public entertainment. Morty learned from George Brotherton that as the county officers were to be renominated without opposition, and as the platform had been agreed to the day before, and as the county central committeemen had been chosen the night before at the caucuses, the convention was to be a short horse soon curried. Of course, Captain Morton as permanent chairman made a speech--with suitable eulogies to the boys who wore the blue. It was the speech the convention had heard many times before, but always enjoyed--and as he closed he asked rather grandly, "and now what is the further pleasure of the convention?"