said in
non-committal fashion, as Burr's best friend. "I hear, by the way, that
the delegation from his old home is instructed to vote for him on the
first ballot, whether or not."

"He has a great name down in my parts," put in the farmer. "The people
think he has the agricultural interests at heart. They wanted to send
him to Congress in Webb's place, you know."

"Yes, I know," said Galt. "Hello, Bassett," as Tom Bassett joined him.
"Where've you been? Lost sight of you this morning."

"Oh, I was out with the Committee on Credentials. A member? I should say
not. I wanted to hear that Madison County case, so I got made
sergeant-at-arms. By the way, Dick," to Dickson, "I hear you held the
floor for five minutes this morning and got off five distinct stories
that landed with Columbus."

"Nonsense. I didn't open my mouth--except to call 'time' on the men who
did. There's our orator now."

He bowed to an elderly gentleman with a sharply pointed chin beard and
the type of face that was once called clerical.

"Some one defined oratory the other day," said Galt, "as the fringe with
which the inhabitants of the Southern States still delighted to trim
their politics--so I should call the gentleman of to-day 'a political
tassel.' He's ornamental and he hangs by a thread."

And he passed into the lobby arm-in-arm with Tom Bassett.

The place was swarming with delegates: delegates from country districts,
red-faced farmers in flapping linen coats and wide-brimmed hats;
delegates from the cities, dapper, well-groomed, cordial-voiced;
delegates of the true political type, shaven, obsequious, alert;
delegates of the cast that belongs at home, outspoken, honest-eyed,
remote; stout delegates, with half-bursting waistbands, thin delegates,
with shrunken chests. In the animated throng there was but one condition
held in common--they were all heated delegates. In one corner a stout
gentleman in a thin coat, with a scarlet neck showing above his wilted
collar, held a half-dozen listeners with his eyes, while he plied them
with emphatic sentences in which the name of Crutchfield sounded like a
refrain. Moving from group to group, portly, unctuous, insinuating, a
man with an oily voice was doing battle in the cause of Webb.

The throng that passed in and out of the lobby was continually shifting
place and principles. One instant it would seem that Crutchfield
triumphed in a majority sufficient to overwhelm the platform; a moment
mo