"He has his own county, of course. And you say he has men at work up in DeWitt. Now, if he gets Tazewell and Polk--well----" Garwood flung out his hands hopelessly, as if to surrender. "Great guns, what's the use?" "And Sprague'll throw Moultrie to him--that's fixed. Sprague knows he can't get it; he's just been acting as a stalking horse for Bailey," said Kellogg, anxious to bear his part in this conference, even if he could bring nothing cheerful to it. "How did he ever get on the blind side of Sprague?" queried Garwood, peevishly. "Oh, legislature," said Kellogg, proud to be able to show his knowledge of affairs in the state house at Springfield; "he put some of Sprague's fellows--Simp Lewis and some more of 'em--on the pay roll, and took care of brother-in-law Wilson when he made up the committees." "H-m-m-m," Garwood mused, "Mason and Moultrie, and DeWitt--if he gets Tazewell or Polk now--I don't know what you gentlemen think about it, but it looks to me as if he had us pretty nearly skinned." What they thought of it was not apparent, for none of them spoke, and silence settled over the little room, where Garwood's ambitions were trembling in the fateful balance. At last Pusey spoke: "He hasn't got Polk _yet_." Something of the determination which the little man had put into his tone affected the others, and they looked up with new smiles. A reaction set in and Garwood glanced at Pusey gratefully. "Yes," he said, trying to resume his congressional dignity, with a smile that was intended to take from it its suggestion of distance, "you remember what the devil said: "'--let us Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our enemy; our own loss how repair; How overcome this dire calamity; What reinforcement we may gain from hope; If not, what resolution from despair.'" They stared at him in amazement, wondering how it was possible for him to know what the devil had said, all except Pusey, who nodded appreciatively, to show his own relation to the world of letters. And then Hale drew a long breath and threw back his shoulders. "Of course," he said, "if we can carry the primaries here in Polk, that will help us to win out over in my county. Can you do it?" "How about Jim Rankin?" blurted out the tactless, maladroit Kellogg. The name cast a chill over the little gathering just as the new cheer was warming it, and they were all vicariously embarrassed by what, just at that time, amounted to a _contretemps_. If Rankin himself, passing by outside at that very moment, could have seen the expressive glances that were secretly exchanged before they all yielded to the impulse to fix unitedly on Garwood's face, he would have had a sensation to gladden him during all his homeward way. But Garwood met the situation with real dignity. "Well, Jim will be against me, of course." They might have demurred out of mere politeness, but Garwood added: "And I can assure you, gentlemen, he is an antagonist not to be despised."