"An ignorant mob that can be left in ignorance," said Mr. Crayon, briskly.
"Nothing must be said! Nothing must be said! Quite resolved upon that!" exclaimed Mr. Goodnight, brusquely.
"This resolution is unchangeable, I take it?" asked Jimmy Grayson, in tones milder than ever.
"There is not the least possibility of a change," replied Mr. Goodnight, in a tone of finality. "We have considered the question from every side, and nothing is to be said. Of course, if you were to declare for a revision, we should have to abandon you at once to overwhelming defeat."
"But I should like to say a few words upon the subject," said Jimmy Grayson, and there was a slight touch of pleading in his tone, "just as a sort of salve to my conscience. You see I am troubled about all these requests that I should declare myself, and I have certain ideas about what a candidate should do, in which I differ from you, and in which probably I am wrong, but I cannot help it. I should like to ease my mind, and hence I ask you that I be permitted to say a few words. Just one little speech, and I will not handle the subject again, if you direct me not to do so."
"We are against it; we are against saying a single word," declared Mr. Goodnight.
"Just one little speech," pleaded Jimmy Grayson. "I think the people are entitled to it. We stop to-morrow at a small station, a place of not more than twenty houses; I should like to say something there, and that would serve as a claim later on that I had not avoided the issue. But, as I said, I promise you that I will not touch the subject again without your permission."
"Don't believe in it! Don't believe in it!" said Mr. Crayon, snappily.
"I am afraid I shall have to insist," said Jimmy Grayson, plaintively. "I do not like to say anything that would displease such powerful friends, but our people are peculiar, sometimes. I feel that I must touch the subject a little when we reach Waterville to-morrow morning."
He spoke in his most propitiatory tones, but the committee was still stirred. Mr. Goodnight, Mr. Crayon, and their associates demanded absolute silence, and they had not found it difficult to overawe the candidate. Yet there was a certain mild persistence in his tone which told them that they should humor him a little, as one would a spoiled or hurt child. They, as men of the world, knew that it was not well to bear too hard on the bit.