“Very well,” assented Clive, “if I can smash the Machine, too, it’s all I ask. I tell you my mind is made up. This convention has been a mockery, a farce. You know how many voters were with us, and you know the deal our delegates got. The time’s come in this State to draw up a new Declaration of Independence. And, right now, I’m going to be the man to start the ball rolling.”
“But, hold on!” began Ansel. Clive did not hear. Brushing past the lank manager, he walked out of the room and made his way to the front of the platform. Karl, muttering perplexedly, followed him.
As the young candidate’s tall figure emerged from the wings, a buzz of wonder went up from the delegates on the floor below, for, as Ansel had said, such an advent at such a time was without precedent. But there was neither hisses from the Conover crowd nor cheers from the corner where the survivors of the Standish hope sat. The delegates were too astonished to make any demonstration.
Straight across the stage Standish strode. Shevlin, hurrying out from Conover’s room, made as though to bar his way, but gave place before the other’s greater bulk, and fled to tell the Railroader what was afoot.
With Ansel still behind him, Standish kept on until he reached the table beside which the chairman sat. At his coming Bourke jumped nervously to his feet.
“Hey! This ain’t regular,” he began, unconsciously copying Ansel’s words. “The nomination’s just goin’ to begin, and we——”
But he could get no further. Standish pushed him aside, ignoring the chairman as completely as if he were one of the battered stage properties.
Dropping one hand upon the table, he faced the crowd, his whole being alert with tense nervous force. A low murmur, like a ground swell, ran from row to row of seats, and found its echo in the galleries, where hundreds of the townspeople had packed themselves to hear the nominating speeches, and to witness, with varying emotions, the crowning victory of Caleb Conover.
In the midst of a silence in which the fall of the proverbial pin would have sounded like the early morning milk wagon, Clive Standish began the most unusual speech that a Mountain State convention had ever heard.
“My friends——”