“Conventions have been held in all the senatorial districts down the state, and sixty-nine candidates are already nominated. Of these sixty-nine, we have beyond any question”--he consulted his paper, as if to make sure of the number--“we have fifty-three, and that doesn’t include the nine hold-over senators who are with us. We can lose ten of them at the polls and still have enough to control the caucus. In Cook County, to-morrow, we’ll carry the First, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Eleventh, Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-third and the country towns--the Seventh--giving us thirty-five more candidates, or ninety-seven in all. This is a conservative estimate, and gives the doubtful districts to Warren. We can lose Cook to-morrow and still have a fighting chance to win out. I regard the battle as ours. Senator Warren is defeated.” “Over at the Richelieu,” said Cowley, of the _News-Despatch_, “Baldwin claims they have you whipped to a standstill.” “They’re welcome over there to any comfort they can get out of the situation,” said Garwood in a superior way. It rained on the day of the primaries. All morning politicians, big and little, stamped into Senator Warren’s hotel on Michigan Avenue, or stamped into the Grand, tracking with greasy mud the muslin that had been stretched over the carpet in Colonel Talbott’s headquarters. The polls were to open at one o’clock. The colonel had risen early, after three hours’ sleep, and snatched his breakfast from a tray, talking to Carroll between bites. All morning he was buttonholed by men who scuffled for a word, complaining that Warren’s fellows would have money to burn, and he fought with them, bill by bill, for the few dollars he had in his pocket. He was only liberal, to the extent that his slender campaign funds permitted liberality, with those who were to work in Carroll’s district. As the day wore on and he received reports and despatched orders, like a general fighting a battle, the colonel’s spirits rose, and the politicians, when he ordered them sharply about, paused at the door to look back at him, pleased by the thought that this was the Colonel Talbott of the good old days.