Colonel Dodd snorted emphatic approval. “You are talking like children. Guff and growls can't carry this convention. That crowd hasn't even got a candidate for governor. Have you heard one mentioned?” “I don't suppose they would dare to go as far as that,” said one of the committeemen. “Governor Harwood, by party usage, is entitled to a renomination, of course. What they figure on is a new state committee and a platform that will include reforms.” “Huh! Yes! So much striped candy! Give it to 'em. Then we've got only twenty-four men to handle in the way we have always handled state committees--and even that crowd can't find saints and archangels for their candidates! And as for a political platform--bah!” It was the practical politician's caustic estimate of conditions. Then the chairman joined in, bolstering this supercilious view: “As for that legislature--how many bills were ever passed in our legislature over a governor's veto after we had got in our work? We are going to have a safe man for governor. That band's lungs won't last for ever. Colonel Dodd, are you ready?” If revolt and the spirit of resentment and rebellion did exist in that assemblage, which the magnates of the party faced when they marched upon the platform, the tumult of applause covered all sinister outward aspects. The routine of the convention was entered upon: the secretary read the convention call, the organization was perfected without protest, and the orator of the day, as president pro tem, a conservative United States Senator, began his “key-note speech.” It was a document which had been in proof slips for a week, and which all the party workers from Colonel Dodd down had read and approved. Therefore, when Richard Dodd entered from one of the side doors and came tiptoeing across the platform and touched the colonel's arm and jerked energetic request for the colonel to follow, the colonel followed, glad of an excuse to be absent while the Senator fulminated. Young Dodd's face was flushed and working with excitement. He hurried his uncle into a small retiring-room and locked the door. “I've got your man, uncle,” he declared. “What man?” The colonel was grouchy and indifferent. “Your man Farr.” “I don't claim him.” “But you said you wanted him. You said you wanted to hang him like a dead crow in the political bean-patch.” “Merely momentary insanity on my part, Richard. There seems to have been a little run of it in this state, and when Judge Warren caught it and gave it to me I talked like a fool, I suppose. But you must remember that a polecat can give the most level-headed man an almighty start--and then the level-headed man walks out around the polecat and goes on his way very calmly.” “But don't you consider that Farr is a dangerous man?” The colonel held up his pudgy hand and snapped a finger into his palm. “He amounts to that in front of the muzzle of a ten-inch gun.”