"Reckon we can," replied Funk, "if we can raise the price." The judge scowled. "We shall, of course, provide for that," he said. At the words Funk straightened up, and a revival of interest was apparent in the other members of the group. "What would you suggest--an open-air meeting?" "Don't know as I would," said Funk. "Open-air meetin's is dangerous--mightn't be enough turn out to fill all outdoors. Course, we might have a torch-light percession, to draw a crowd--if we had the torches and a band." "That can be arranged," said the judge. "Might have the meetin' in the op'ra house," Funk went on. "What d'ye think, Neal?" He deferred to McFarlane. "Seems to me the op'ra house would be safer," said McFarlane. "That, of course, is a matter to be considered," said Bromley. "But at any rate, I wish to have meetings announced in all the counties." The silence which had oppressed the members of the committee having been broken by the words of Funk and McFarlane, the conversation became general, and grew in interest until McFarlane voiced the burden that lay at the bottom of all their hearts by saying: "Judge, how 'bout the funds? You know what we was sayin' the other day." "Yes," said Bromley, "I recall our conversation. I shall meet all legitimate expenses--ah--as they arrive." There was an instant depreciation of interest, and when the men filed down the stairs half an hour later, McFarlane again voiced the burden of their hearts by saying: "He's goin' to hold onto his pile, boys. All bills to be paid on vouchers signed by the auditor and presented to the treasurer." McFarlane liked to recall to his friends his six months in the State House, and spoke at times in the language of the bills he had enrolled and engrossed so often during that experience. "Well, a lawyer that tries his own case has a fool for a client," said Mason, "and it's that-away 'ith a candidate that manages his own campaign." Bromley had been led to his resolution to take the stump by two incidents. One, the first, occurred at Chicago. He had gone there to attend a banquet of the State Bar Association, and had made a speech. Though he had been accustomed to the court room all his life, and had spoken much to juries, and oftener to courts, he was deliberative and judicial, rather than epideictic, and had acquired the dry, sophistical manner of speaking which comes to those happy and distinguished lawyers whose causes are heard with more sympathy by the solemn judges of the courts of appeal, than by the juries in the _nisi prius_ courts, and he had shrunk from popular oratory.