Congressman Amos Caretall staged, next morning in the Post Office, one of those dramatic incidents which had checkered his career and done a good deal to make him what he was. These scenes were meat and drink to Amos. He liked to hark back to them and chuckle at the memory. In Washington, last winter, for example, he had told over and over the story of his speech at the rally of Winthrop Chase, Senior; his pledge to vote for a Chase, and the sequel to that pledge. The thing appealed to his sense of humor. This morning he met Wint in the Post Office and snubbed him. And within half an hour all Hardiston knew about it, and was talking about it. The way of the thing was this. Wint had met Jack Routt on the way uptown; and they came up Broad Street together, and down Main to the Post Office. Wint was thoughtful and a little silent; Routt expansively amiable in the fashion that had become habitual with him since the campaign opened. He asked Wint, jocularly, whether he was downhearted, and Wint said he was not. Routt told him he would be. “You’ll be ready to quit before I’m through with you, old man,” he warned Wint. “You’ll be ready to crawl into your hole. Oh, I’m laying for you.” “Go ahead,” Wint told him quietly. “All your ads in the papers won’t do you a bit of good, either. That’s good money wasted. You have to get out and talk to the voters, Wint. Take a tip from me. It’s the word of mouth that does the trick.” Wint said if this were so Routt would surely come out on top. “You’ve used word of mouth pretty freely,” he remarked. “Getting into the quick, am I?” Routt chuckled. “Why, no. I just commented on the fact that....” Routt asked solicitously: “Look here. You’re not sore, are you? You know, the understanding was that this was to be a real fight.” “Of course,” Wint agreed. “And I’m not sore. Go as far as you like.” A moment later, Routt said: “I heard Amos was going to throw you down. Anything in that? If he does, you haven’t got a chance.” “Nothing in it,” Wint told him. “I had a talk with Amos last night.” Routt laughed and said Amos’s promises didn’t amount to anything. “Is he backing you; or is he holding off?” he asked. “I haven’t heard that he’s doing much.” “You’ll hear in due time,” Wint told him. He thought, afterward, that it was a curious coincidence that Routt should have said this about Amos on this particular morning. It was almost as though Routt had really had some foreknowledge. But at the time, the question made no great impression on him.