"Gosh, isn’t that a situation!" said one of them. "Yes, but don’t mention it," Mr. Killam requested. "Certainly not." * * * * * "What was it he told ’em?" asked one of the unwashed of his more fortunately placed fellow. "I didn’t ketch it all," replied the other, proud nevertheless to possess even a fragment of a state secret. * * * * * The crowd was far too large for the Spartanburg court-house, so the public discussion was had under the oaks of Burnett Park. An improvised platform of planks laid upon empty boxes lifted the candidates high into view of the assembled Spartans, who stood without thought of fatigue for six hours and listened to the merry war of words, and encouraged, interrogated, cheered and howled at the speakers in good old primary campaign fashion. The primary campaign is inherently prolific of heat and hate: for the candidates, being agreed on political principles, are driven perforce to the discussion of personal records and foibles. This campaign had developed the most friction between Mr. LaRoque and Mr. Killam, these two having been long in public life and having accumulated the usual assorted odds and ends of memories they would desire to forget. In the very beginning of the canvass the Senator and the Colonel had rushed through Touchstone’s category from the Retort Courteous to the Quip Modest, the Reply Churlish, the Reproof Valiant, the Countercheck Quarrelsome, the Lie with Circumstance, and had pulled up on the very ragged edge of the Lie Direct. There they had hung for days, while an appreciative public feigned to wait in breathless suspense for the moment when the unequivocal words "You are a liar" should precipitate a tragedy and the coroner count one of the gentlemen out of the race. At many of the meetings, the reports had it, were the people "standing on the crust of a muttering volcano," or in tense situations where "a single spark to the powder" would have—played hell; and especially at Gaffney on the preceding day, so the newspapers said, was the feeling so bitter and the words so caustic that partisans of Killam and LaRoque, "desperate men who would shoot at the drop of a hat, had stood with bated breath, hand on pistol, imminently expectant of the fatal word that should cause rivers of blood to flow."