For when the convention opened, Warren Hammond was really ill, broken down by the strain of the campaign on top of the shock of his injuries. With great effort he had finished dictating his final radio statement which he hoped to read over the wire to the convention. Now there were grave doubts whether he would be able to read it himself.
The morning of the convention dawned at last. Into the city’s convention hall the delegates poured.
Quaid snorted at the spectacle.
“Don’t look much like the old-time batch of handmade ones,” the big fellow mourned to Barney as they watched from the gallery.
“Nope,” his satellite admitted. “Especially with the skirts in on the game. But the women ain’t nuthin’ to this Hammond. He’s a woman and a devil and one of the Lord Almighty’s mysterious ways wrapped up in one bundle. He’s been one trick ahead of us at every jump. That accident of his was either plain dumb good luck or fixed by himself intentional. The poor invalid stuff’s got the women going. The boys that are feeling him out say even those in the neutral crowd are leanin’ his way. I’m afraid he’s got us licked, chief.”
“You’ve said it, Barney—afraid I’m about through.”
An out-of-town man under the edge of the gallery hailed a local acquaintance. “Hello, Dick! Is this the place where you held the ghost dinner?”
Barney and his chief grinned at each other ruefully.
“They’ll always believe we fellows were blind and dumb that night,” Barney replied.
“And I’ll always believe those radio people double crossed us somehow,” Quaid added.