"One of the leaders?"
"I mean that I like you."
While the waiter brought the finger bowls the significance of the simple words burned into Shelby's brain. The two men lit cigars and waited; Shelby's was gnawed to shapelessness. Left to themselves again, the Boss said softly:—
"Two years from this fall the governorship should go to your section."
Shelby's color mantled and ebbed, leaving him white.
"Our choice,"—the Boss's purring note sank—"our choice, if my poor opinion should carry weight with the convention, our choice will be you."
Before Shelby could force a broken word of acknowledgment from his dry throat the Boss had plunged into a keen analysis of the situation in the Demijohn. Local statistics, finances, patronage, men's names, habits, and characteristics, the minutest details, were at his finger-tips, and the conclusion of the whole matter drove home like a sledge.
"Your election hangs on money; on your election hangs your future."
"I've spent every cent," returned Shelby, with slow distinctness.
"Yes; I know," was the quiet rejoinder. "I have hoped that the State Committee would do something. The circumstances are, as you say, unusual."