"Eliminated!" sneered his grandfather. "The first man you'll meet in the legislative lobby next winter, sugar on his speech and alum on his finger, so that he can get a good firm grip of your buttonhole, will be Arba Spinney, drawing his salary as the paid agent of half-a-dozen schemers. He may seem a little wilted just now, but he's a hardy perennial—you needn't worry about him."
"I think you're the man to take these documents to the Committee on Resolutions, Thelismer," stated the General, drawing out the planks he had submitted the evening before. "You can explain why they should be inserted—and I have modified them somewhat. I have no desire to frighten the party at the outset."
The Duke took the papers, and departed without a word. The men of the affidavits returned to their delegations on the floor of the convention, gratification in their faces, as well as a sense of the importance of the secret they were guarding.
The band gave a final bellow, and the business of the convention proceeded.
General Waymouth and Harlan took chairs into their little room and sat down to wait. The sounds came to them mellowed by distance, but distinct. They followed the procession of events.
Spinney's name was presented by an up-country spellbinder who had copied logic, diction, and demagogic arguments from his chief. But all the thrill, swing, and excitement of the Spinney movement were gone. Red fire, hilarity, and stimulants could not be used to spice this daylight gathering of men ranged in orderly rows on their settees—and subtle suggestion had already gone abroad. Yet the undercurrent of opposition to the further dictation by the party ring was shown by the applause that greeted every reference by the speaker to the conditions that existed in the party. On the text of Spinney, personating Protest, the orator preached to willing converts who clamored for change, even though no better leader than Spinney offered. Spinney got perfunctory applause; suggested change was cheered tumultuously.
The convention was ripe for revolution against dominant conditions, without exactly understanding how to rebel wisely and well.
Suddenly a clarion voice raised itself from the convention floor. They in the little room could hear every word.
"That's Linton," said the General, calmly. "He balked under my pat, but he's plunging into the traces handsomely under the whip!"
"Linton! After refusing? Is he presenting your name?"