Rankin and Pusey had long ago shaken hands, Garwood standing by with the beatific glow of the peacemaker, though all the while the look in Rankin's eyes was hard as ever, and Pusey's smirk was unchanged. Pusey attended the meeting of the congressional committee, even if he was not a member, and the others were pleasantly stimulated by the prospect of a disagreement between him and Rankin. But the editor maintained a perfect silence the whole evening, never vouchsafing one suggestion, but acquiescing in all that was done, if not by voting, which would have been impertinent, at least by respectfully nodding his head. And if, later, when the county central committee, of which Pusey was now the chairman, met, Rankin did not return his call, as it were, by reciprocally attending the meeting, he at least found business that took him out of town, over to Mason County, and thereby deprived the alert editor of the _Advertiser_ of the ground work of a story that would have served him for every dull hour of an unusually dull campaign. It was perhaps well for Garwood, considering the strained relations between his two chief supporters, that this was a dull campaign. He found it much less trying than the first. There was not so much for him to do, and what there was he could enjoy in a more leisurely manner. It was the off year, in which the people, unable to work themselves up to the pitch of excitement required of them in presidential years, leave politics to the politicians even more than they ordinarily do. The stripling from Moultrie County who was running against Garwood seemed far beneath his notice, except when he chose in his speeches to patronize him. His own acquaintance had grown wider, there were many to welcome him everywhere he went, and they liked the distinction of knowing their congressman and of calling him "Jerry." Garwood loved to bask in their smiles, to revel in the sensation of personal popularity, and it became more and more easy to convince himself that he was a genuine man of the people. There was another new feature in this campaign that he enjoyed. He was enabled in his speeches to speak familiarly of Washington, of things that were done and said in the House, and to relate personal anecdotes of noted men, to whom it was apparent he could talk in a free colloquial way, that were almost as delightful to his auditors as to himself. "I suppose, now that it is all over," he would say, "that I betray no confidence in telling you that one afternoon when I had gone over to the White House and was waiting there in the ante-chamber to see our great president, that he spied me among the others--Senator Ames was there with me--and, coming over to where we stood, said: 'Jerry, you're just the fellow I wanted to see--'"