"You ought to know as much about it as me, anyway, Judge. You're a corp'ration lawyer--you've been to Springfield yourself, I reckon." The lawyer winced, and the natural ruddiness of his healthy skin showed under his white beard a deeper hue. "I have only been there to appear in the Supreme or the Appellate Court, Mr. McFarlane; I have no concern with any legislative lobbying my clients may do, if they do any." "Oh, sure--'scuse me, Judge--that's done by the Chicago lawyers, of course; I didn't stop to think." McFarlane had almost settled himself in his chair, but at this _contretemps_ he leaned forward again, and then, wishing to give the action the effect of interest rather than of embarrassment, he hastened on: "But that ain't all, by a long shot. You know Sprague--Con Sprague?" "The present incumbent? Of course." "Well, you know, Jerry beat him for renomination, or Jim Rankin did it fer 'im. Garwood had promised Sprague to hold the Polk County delegation fer 'im, he says, and, well, Rankin turned a trick at the Clinton convention that euchred Sprague out of the nomination. Course, Jim turned round and tried to square it by throwin' the legislative nomination to Sprague's brother-in-law, Hank Wilson; but still, Sprague's sore." "He is?" "You bet he is. He hasn't lifted a finger in the whole campaign, an' I heerd last night from Al Granger, who's over from Sullivan, that his fellows over there are openly knifing Garwood, and that gives us a chance to carry Moultrie. Well," McFarlane paused to swallow, "we can carry DeWitt here--it's your home county--and the majority against us is less than a hundred; we have a good chance in Piatt, an' they're shaky about Logan, particularly down in Millwood to'nship. Garwood had a meetin' there the other day which was a frost--a change of a hundred an' fifty votes, an' you've got 'em. Why, I tell you, man, it's the chance of your life. You can win out." McFarlane spoke with the enthusiasm of that confidence into which a politician can work himself when he begins to juggle the handy figures of old election returns, and some of his warmth was communicated to the candidate, who felt his blood tingle, and his heart rise in anticipation. He had never allowed himself to think of the possibility of his election, until that moment; but that moment was the fatal one that comes to every candidate, at a certain stage in his campaign, when he begins to indulge in dreams of victory. And yet Bromley was a wary man and he shrank again, in his habit of judicial deliberation. "You speak encouragingly, Mr. McFarlane," he said, "but I do not quite share your confidence. I am not the man to indulge in illusions. You realize, of course, that I took the nomination at some sacrifice, merely for the sake of the party. I had no thought of being elected with the district organized as it is under the present apportionment act."