protested and felt that he had accomplished his purpose. He did not know that a few farmer delegates from the Indianapolis delegation could start a storm. Returning to the convention while the first ballot was in progress he found that his name was before the convention. “When I entered the hall,” he said afterward, “several men yelled ‘Stand pat, John,’ and I didn’t know what to do for an instant. I thought, however that the manly thing to do was to make a statement to the convention and I stood on a chair and told them that my name had been presented without my knowledge or consent, and that no man had any right or authority to present my name and that I was not in any sense a candidate.” The moment he concluded Wabash county was called and cast 15 out of its 16 votes for him, and Wayne county followed with its 26 votes--the solid delegation. When his name had been first presented there was a tremendous ovation and cries of “Kern,” “Kern” drowned all other noises. In a box in the balcony an interesting little drama was enacted. Mrs. Marshall, wife of the governor, was entertaining several ladies, including Mrs. Kern and Meredith Nicholson, the novelist. When Kern’s name was presented and the demonstration began, Mrs. Kern, frankly elated at the rare honor being shown her husband, insisted that he would not accept. This was received with incredulity by the others present. The subject had been thoroughly threshed out about the family hearth and she knew. Nicholson scouted the idea that he would decline--a preposterous idea! When Kern appeared, his coat almost torn from him by frantic friends trying to hold him back, and mounted the chair and rebuked his friends, the novelist, amazed, exclaimed--“That man’s not human.” But that was not to be his final effort. The first ballot ended with Kern far in the lead with 303 votes, only six of these from Marion county, the other 177 having been cast for Thomas Taggart. On the second ballot Taggart withdrew his name and cast the solid vote of the delegation for Kern, and the roll call ended found him with 647 votes. It was then, with the nomination within his grasp, that Kern made his supreme effort to put aside the crown. This time he took the platform and the convention heard him with impatience, and with a considerable show of feeling he protested against the right of the delegates to force upon him something he had renounced. When he said that it had been intimated that he had been masquerading in the matter he was greeted with shouts of “No, no,” “Sit down” and “You can’t refuse.” Leaving the hall on the conclusion of his speech he went to his law office and began work on a case. It was while thus engaged, and after Lamb had also withdrawn in his favor, that the stenographer, answering the telephone, turned to him in surprise with the exclamation--“Why, Mr. Kern, you have just been nominated for the senate.”