THE STAR CHAMBER IN THE OLD NATIONAL They did not come furtively, yet they came unobtrusively--these men who drifted into the National Hotel in Marion that day. At one side of the big rotunda of the National stood Walker Farr, his keen gaze noting the men who came dribbling in, singly, by twos and threes. They were not men of Marion city. A newspaper reporter, happening in at the National, noted that fact. He stood for a time and watched the filtering arrivals. There were some who were plainly men of affairs, others were solid men who bore the stamp of the rural sections. They went to the desk, wrote their names, and were shown up-stairs by bellhops. Most of them, as they crossed the office, nodded greeting to the tall young man who wore a frock coat and a broad-brimmed hat and stood almost motionless at one side of the rotunda. The National was state Mecca for all kinds of conventions. The reporter studied his date-book. No convention was scheduled for that day. He managed to get a peep at the hotel register. The men who had been signing their names hailed from all portions of the state, but the reporter did not find identities which suggested political activities. It was plainly not a gathering of politicians--none of the old war-horses were in evidence. The reporter questioned a few of the arrivals, chasing beside them. They all gave the same answer--they had come to Marion on business. The reply was safe, succinct, and stopped further questions. The reporter did venture to pick out a little man and inquire what kind of business called him to Marion, and the little man informed him with sarcasm that he was a baker from Banbury and had come down to purchase doughnut holes. The reporter thereupon dodged into the bar to escape the grins of some of the office crew, and his haste was such that he nearly beat the baize doors into the face of Richard Dodd, who was coming out. “You're the first real politician I've seen in this bunch,” affirmed the reporter. “What's it all about?” “What's what about?” “This convention that's assembling here.” “I know nothing about it,” stated Mr. Dodd, with dignity. “It's nothing of a political nature, I can assure you of that.” The reporter noted that young Mr. Dodd's eyes were red and that his step wavered, and that he exhaled the peculiar odor which emanates from gentlemen who have been prolonging for some time what is known vulgarly as a “toot.” In fact, the reporter remembered then the rumor in newspaper circles that the chief clerk of the state treasury had been attending to stimulants instead of to business for almost two weeks. “I assure you that I know all that's to be known about politics,” insisted Mr. Dodd. “If there's a convention here, who's running it?” They had returned from the bar into the main office. “I don't know--can't find out. That tall fellow over there seems to know everybody who had been coming in--all the bunch of outsiders. But I never saw him before.”