When the uproar was subdued, the thin voice of Mr. Slate sounded from the platform. "What he doesn't sell he buys," he cried in his nervous, penetrant tones. "Twelve years ago he was accused of lobbying with full hands in the legislature. He was the lobbyist of the P.H. & C. railroad. The charge was passed over, not disproved. What do you say to this, Major?" In the effort to restore order the chairman grew purple, but the major turned squarely upon his questioner. "I say nothing, sir. It is unnecessary to assert that a gentleman is not a criminal at large." A burst of applause broke out. "I repeat the charge," screamed Slate. "It is false!" retorted the major. "It's a damned lie!" called a dozen voices. "Nick Burr knows it. Ask him!" answered Slate. From a peaceable assemblage the convention had passed into pandemonium. Two thousand throats made, in two thousand different keys, a single gigantic discord. The pounding of the chairman was a faint accompaniment to the clamour. In the first lull, a man's voice with a dominant note was heard demanding recognition, and at the sight of his towering figure upon the platform there was a short silence. "It's Nick Burr!" called a man from Burr's district. "Let's hear Nick Burr." There was a protest on the part of the Webb faction. Burr and Webb were looked upon as rivals. "He hates Webb like the devil!" cried a delegate, and "It's pie for Burr!" sneered another. But as he moved slightly forward and faced the chairman a sudden hush fell before him. Among the men surrounding him his powerful figure towered like a giant's. His abundant red hair, waving thickly from his bulging forehead, redeemed by its single note of colour the rigidity of his features. His eyes--small, keen, deeply set beneath heavy brows--flashed from a dull opacity to an alert animation. But in the first and last view of his face it was the mouth that marked the man; the straight, thin lips would close or unclose at their own will, not at another's--the line of the mouth, like the line of the hard, square jaw, was the physical expression of his character. He was called ugly, but it was at least the ugliness of individuality--the ugliness of an unpolished force--of a raw, yet disciplined energy. Now, as he stood at his full height upon the stage, his personality was felt before his words were uttered. He had but one attribute of recognised oratory--a voice; and yet a voice so little vibrant as to seem almost without inflections. It was resonant, far-reaching, incisive; but it rang abruptly and without mellowness.