And the big fellow clung to that belief to his dying day.
A good sized knot of delegates came in, making the roof ring with cheers for Forsythe. Another knot across the hall tried to drown them out with counter cheers for Hammond.
“Hello, you bedroomers!” Shouted a Forsythe man above the din.
“Go on, you ghost walkers,” a man from the other ranks retorted.
And in Hammond’s sick room out in the little suburban farmhouse, the invalid was listening to the tumult in the convention hall as it came to him over his radio. A vigilant wife and nurse kept him constantly under their eye, shutting off the blaring instrument whenever he showed signs of getting nervous.
“Remember, Warren, if you overstrain your nerves, the doctor won’t let you read your speech,” Mrs. Hammond warned him at intervals.
“I’ve got to read that speech if it kills me,” he told her. “If I don’t know what’s going on beforehand I won’t be able to put the right spirit in it.”
And he managed to grin at her cheerily, although it was an evident effort.
In Forsythe’s headquarters at the hotel near the convention hall, the other candidate was nervously rehearsing his speech in the intervals when he was listening in on the radio. Little Jim Neenan was in constant attendance upon him these days, acting as general handy man.
The crafty one had taken a room of his own down the corridor from Forsythe’s suite where he could be on hand night and day to make himself useful. He was charging nothing for these services, but he hadn’t forgotten the main chance.