"You are a good man for the _Monitor_, Churchill," said Harley, sharply. "Your humor is in perfect accord with the high taste displayed, and you show the same dignity and consideration in your references to political opponents." "Oh, I see," said Churchill, sneering just as he had been taught to sneer by the _Monitor_. "He is the first guest to dine with the Presidential nominee, and he is overpowered by the honor." "You shut up, Churchill!" said Hobart, another of the correspondents. "You sha'n't pick a quarrel with Harley, and you sha'n't be a mischief-maker here. There are enough of us to see that you don't." Harley turned his back scornfully upon Churchill, who said nothing more, and began to tell his friends of Grayson. "He is an orator," he said. "We know that by undoubted report, and his manner is simple and most agreeable. He has more of the quality called personal magnetism than any other man I ever saw." "What of his ability?" asked Tremaine, the oldest of the correspondents. Harley thought a little while before replying. "I can't make up my mind on that point," he said. "I find in him, so far as I can see, a certain simplicity, I might almost say an innocence, which is remarkable. He is unlike the other public men whom I have met, but I don't know whether this innocence indicates superficiality or a tact and skill lying so deep that he is able to plan an ambush for the best of his enemies." "Well, we are to be with him five months," said Tremaine, "and it is our business to find out." III THE START They were to start at dawn the next day, going back to Chicago, where the campaign would be opened, and Harley, ever alert, was dressing while it was yet dusk. From a corner of the dining-room, where he snatched a quick breakfast, he saw the sun shoot out of the prairie like a great red cannon-ball and the world swim up into a sea of rosy light. Then he ran for the special train, which was puffing and whistling at the station, and the flock of correspondents was at his heels. Harley saw Mr. and Mrs. Grayson alighting from a cab, and, satisfied with the one glance, he entered the car and sought his place. Always, like the trained soldier, he located his camp, or rather base, before beginning his operations, and he made himself comfortable there with his fellows until the train was well clear of the city and the straggling suburbs that hung to it like a ragged fringe. Then he decided to go into the next coach to see Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, making, as it were, a dinner call.