He had laid his hat down on the bar, where its brim, flattening to the walnut surface, was soaking up the liquor that had been spilled from an overturned glass. In a strange whim of his disordered mind he had commanded every one to let the hat lie where it was, and they had all obeyed, with the seriousness of drinking men. And there it reposed, all its grace and expression gone, strangely typifying the wreck of its wearer’s fortunes.
As Garwood stood there, his black hair matted to his brow, his cheeks and chin blue with a long day’s growth of the stubble of his beard, he suddenly flung over his shoulder a peremptory order to Steisfloss to fill the glasses again, and when the saloon-keeper pushed the tall bottle toward him, he turned half around and splashed a drink out of it with an unsteady hand. Then holding the little tumbler in a precarious grasp, he faced about again and with elbows resting on the bar behind him, he broke forth in a thick voice:
“Don’t you think I’m beaten! Don’t you think it, I tell you! I may be beaten now, you understand, but I’m not beaten! No, sir! I’ve only begun. I tell you, I’ve only begun. They can keep me off the delegation, what do I care? I’ll be at Springfield just the same. They can send that Singed Cat to Congress if they want to, what do I care? Jim Rankin—Jim Rankin—who’s he? I’ll lick ’em, I’ll lick ’em all, every one, yet. You’ll see, you wait and see. You hear me? You wait and see. I’ll lick ’em all, every one, yet. I’ll drive ’em out of the district. I’ll drive ’em out of the state, from the Wabash on the east to the Mississippi on the west, from Dunleith to Cairo. I’ll set the buffalo grass on fire and sweep the state clean of them. You will not find one of them o’er all the rolling prairies of Illinois.”
As he rolled out the word “Illinois,” in the tone the orators of that state use when they wish to show their state pride, he swung his arm in an all-embracing circle, and his auditors dodged the slopping whisky.
Then he stood and blinked at them.
“Why don’t you fellows drink?” he broke forth again. “What do you want to stand around that way for? What are you afraid of? Jim Rankin? Think I’m licked, do you? Think I’m dead politically, do you? Well, I’ll show ’em. I’ll show ’em all. Why don’t you drink, Pusey; why don’t you drink up? Think I ain’t got any money? Well, I’ll show you—Chris here knows me. I’ll show you—”
He fumbled in his pockets, produced a crumpled mass of green bills, and held them forth in his fist.
“I tell you there isn’t room for them and me on all the broad expanse of Illinois—”
Some one struck up a favorite song of the campaign platforms:
“Not without thy wondrous story,
Illinois, Illinois;
Shall be writ the nation’s glory,
Illinois, Illinois;
In the record of the years,
Abr’ham Lincoln’s name appears,
Grant and Logan—and our tears,
Illinois, Illinois.”