And so the interest in this one remaining convention deepened, the strain tightened, the crowd thickened. The delegates, tired and sullen, shed their waistcoats, tore off their moist and dirty collars and settled down to an angry fight. The amphitheatrical arrangement of the chairs had long been broken. The ward delegations now formed circles about their leaders. The damp arabesques wrought by the janitor’s superficial sprinkling-can had long since been superseded by arabesques of tobacco juice. The floor was littered with scraps of paper, the spent ballots with which the stubborn contest had been waged. The First Ward delegation was in a solid ring, and in the center of it sat Malachi Nolan, his elbows on his knees, tearing old ballots into tiny specks of paper and strewing them on the floor, but keeping all the while a surveying eye on the Fifth Ward delegation, now divided into two groups, one of which surrounded Howe, the other huddling about Grogan, the lawyer, who, with disheveled hair, a handkerchief about his neck, stood glaring angrily at Nolan, his eyes shadowed by heavy circles telling of weariness and the strain. Now and then the leaders made desperate attempts to trade, harrying Simmons, offering him everything for his seven votes. Simmons himself, in his turn, tried to induce each faction to swing its strength to him. But the situation remained unchanged. Once Nolan sent for Underwood and whispered to him. He thought he knew one or two Conway men who could be got very cheaply, but the boy shook his head--the reformer within him demurred--and yet he smiled sardonically at the reformer thinking of the primaries and the convention itself. Then Malachi Nolan caught the chairman’s shifty eye and moved an adjournment until morning. But even as he spoke, Grogan scowled at Muldoon, shook his head at his followers, and the room rang with their hoarse shouts: “No! no! no!” Heartened by this confession of weakness on Nolan’s part, they kept on yelling lustily: “No! no! no!” They even laughed, and Muldoon smote the table, to declare the motion lost. On the forty-seventh ballot, one of the Simmons votes went over to Conway, and there was a faint cheer. On the forty-eighth, one of the Simmons votes went to Underwood, and parity was restored. On the forty-ninth, Underwood gained another of Simmons’ votes--Nolan, it seemed, had promised to get him on the janitor’s pay-roll in the state house--and the vote was tied. This ballot stood: First Second Fifth Ward Ward Ward Total Conway -- 10 22 32 Underwood 21 4 7 32 Simmons -- 5 -- 5