“I’m through! I’m done! There’s no use trying to save you—not a damn bit of use. Go ahead and run! I’m through! Stick your neck right into it if you want to. I’ve done my best—I’ve done all a man could do. I no sooner see you safely out of a scrape with a light woman than you start hell-bent for the halls of state. You—” “Don’t you worry, Uncle Joe,” called out Oliver cheerily. “Uncle Horace will probably snow me under a mile deep.” Mr. Sikes was silent for a few moments, contemplating this calamity. Suddenly he banged the back of the seat with his clenched fist. “Not on your life!” he roared. “We’ll skin him alive. You’ll carry every darned precinct in the county. He won’t—” “Hang onto your hat, Uncle Joe!” “My what? Good Lord! I forgot—but never mind! Don’t go back after it! It’s an old one anyhow. Yes, sir; we’ll peel the hide off of old Gooch next November—every inch of it. Let me out at the Hubbard House, Oliver. Silas Link drops in there about this time every evening to cool off under the electric fans. Does he know about this?” “I don’t think he does,” said Oliver, drawing up to the curb in front of the hotel. “Good!” exclaimed Mr. Sikes, with satisfaction. He clambered out of the car. “Good day, ma’am. I hope you don’t get wet.” He eyed her hair narrowly, even apprehensively. “Hurry along, Oliver. You mustn’t keep her out in the rain.” “Good-by, Mr. Sikes. Thank you for warning me,” said Mrs. Flame, favoring him with a smile so enchanting that instead of blurting out the latest news to Mr. Link when he encountered him in the lobby of the hotel a few moments later, he gloomily announced that a fellow as young as Oliver didn’t have a ghost of a chance. CHAPTER XVII MR. GOOCH DECLARES HIMSELF The Republicans of the county in convention a week later went through the formality of nominating a ticket, a heretofore useless procedure attended by vainglorious claims, bombastic oratory, unbridled denunciation and a grim sort of jauntiness that passed for confidence and died as soon as the meeting was over. Ever since the Civil War the party had stoutly and steadfastly put up a ticket and just as regularly had abandoned it to its fate. The candidates themselves, accepting defeat at the outset, took little or no interest in the campaign aside from the slight satisfaction they eked out of seeing their names on the printed ballot. It was, so to speak, like reading one’s own obituary notice—or, as one hardy, perennial office-seeker remarked—attending one’s own funeral and getting back home in time for supper.