"I got you into this myself," he went on. "I coaxed you in, for the situation was right and ripe. You kicked it over yourself. I haven't any compunctions, Vard. I stayed with you just as long as I could stay. But I'll be dod-jimmed if I'll shove a Governor onto my party that's a hybrid of Socialist and angel. Now you can't swing this thing. Everett's got it buttoned. I tell you he has! You're too big a man, to-day, to get before that convention and be thrown down. I've got a better line on the situation than you have. Vard, let's not have this come up between us at our time of life. It's bad--it's bad!" "It _is_ bad," returned the General, quietly; "but not for me! And it's too late to stop. I'm going through with it, Thelismer." There was dignity--a finality of decision--that checked further argument. Thornton shifted gaze from Waymouth to his grandson, started to say more, snapped his jaws shut, and walked away. The door of the anteroom afforded a view across the stage. The hour had arrived. The secretary of the State Committee appeared from the wings and waited until the delegates were in their seats and quiet. He read the call, and then the temporary organization was promptly effected, the tagged delegates popping up here and there and making the motions that had been entrusted to them. A clergyman invoked Divine blessing, praying fulsomely and long, beseeching that the delegates would be guided by the higher will in their deliberations. "It's the only prayer I ever find amusing--God pardon me!" whispered the General at Harlan's side, watching the preliminaries. "To call a State convention, as the machine runs it, a deliberative body is a sad jest of some magnitude. The managers intend to hold the real convention the night before in the State Committee's headquarters at the hotel. But to-day I hope that prayer proves prophetic." He studied the faces on the platform. The United States Senator, smug and now satisfied that he had chosen aright for his personal interests, sat in the chairman's central seat, and studied his people from under eyelids half lowered while the parson prayed. After the prayer, the routine proceeded hurriedly. For five minutes the convention seemed to be in a state of riot. Men were bellowing and yelping, and standing on settees. The counties were holding simultaneous caucuses for the purpose of selecting, each its vice-president of convention, its State committeeman, and member of the Committee on Resolutions--the resolutions then reposing in the breast-pocket of the Hon. Luke Presson. The secretaries were announced, the temporary organization was made permanent, and, advancing against a blast of band-music and a salvo of applause, the Senator-chairman began his address.