The wooden minute hand of the old clock on the court house cupola had laboriously twitched along to the zenith of the dial once more, marking ten o’clock; only half an hour remained now before the time for the Convention to reassemble, and the Dearborn delegates were still absent. People began to stroll toward the court house, and casually attach themselves to the outskirts of the cluster of saturnine, clean-shaven, thin-featured old villagers, in high black stocks and broad-brimmed soft hats, who stood on the steps, behind the fluted columns of the building’s ambitious Grecian front, and chewed tobacco voraciously while they set up the rival claims of Martin Van Buren and Francis Granger, or mumblingly wrangled over the life and works of De Witt Clinton. These old men, by reason of the antiquity and single-heartedness of their devotion to their country, had two inalienable and confirmed rights: to sit on the platform close by the speakers when the Declaration of Independence was read each Fourth of July and to have the first chance for seats when the doors were opened at a political Convention. At last the eyes of those who had lingered about the Turnpike Tavern were gladdened by the sight of the Dearborn crowd, driving furiously up in three or four vehicles. Milton Squires was in the foremost wagon, and he was the first to alight. He trembled and turned around swiftly as a man laid a hand on his shoulder. “What d’yeh want?” he demanded, with nervous alertness. The man whispered in his ear: “Abe Beekman is over in the back settin’ room at Blodgett’s, ’n’ he wants to see your man Fairchile right off.” Milton had regained his composure. “So do I want to see him. Whair abaouts is he? I was to meet him here.” “There ain’t been no sign of him here, this mornin’. Nobuddy ’n Tyre’s laid eyes on him, so far’s I kin fine aout.” “Thet’s cur’ous,” said Milton reflectively. “He started to drive over early enough. We cum by train, expectin’ to fine him here. P’raps he’s seen Beekman by this time, on th’ quiet.” “No, he ain’t!” The messenger’s tone was highly positive. “Then mebbe I’d better go ’n’ see Beekman myself. Whair is Blodgett’s?” The man led the way off the main street, to a big, clap-boarded, dingy white house, fronting nowhere in particular, and stopped at the gate. “Ain’t you comin’ in?” Milton asked him. “I dasen’t.” CHAPTER XXIV.--THE CONVENTION: THE NEWS. There were two strange men in the low-ceilinged, grimly-furnished “settin’ room,” as Milton was ushered into the presence of the Boss, but at a gesture from this magnate they went out; the Boss surveyed the new comer without a word of greeting or comment.