new it.
What had gone on just before I had come in? Just as I started to turn
my glance away, the General threw his famous scowl directly at me. For
one long second our eyes clung, almost glared. Then, without a sign of
emotion or recognition he went back to staring at the Undersecretary
with an intensity almost violent. Shaken back into self-consciousness
by that grim stare I tried to fit together some of the other faces
about the table.

Admiral Mason-Nason-Lacey--Admiral Lacey. I'd met him just a few days
before, in that ill-fated conference in the White House. What was the
other name? Jessop. He was there, too, alongside Lacey. But where was
the Army, outside of Simon Legree? That was like Simon, at that. Let
the Navy stick together; Legree was the _General_, and as such was
himself the Army.

Who were the others? I knew none of them, certainly, although some
trick of memory made me sure that I had seen or heard of them before.
Like faces in an old school album they presented themselves to me, and
for a long fraction of a minute I delved deep, trying to recall. A
voice, that deep barking bass I had heard while waiting, boomed across
the table.

"Mr. Morgan!" and the table seemed to quiver. "Mr. Morgan!" and the
tenseness seemed to flow back into that huge room like a warm current.
The Old Man leaned over and answered my unspoken question.

"Senator Suggs, Foreign Affairs Chairman."

I eyed the redoubtable senator. Short, swarthy skin that belied all
his ranted racial theories, hair that straggled by intent over his
weak green eyes, and a chin that retreated and quivered and joggled in
time with his twitching adolescent eyebrows. Six solid terms in the
Senate; six solid terms of appealing to the highest in theory and the
lowest in fact; six terms of seniority for the chairmanship of
committees far too important for a bigot; six terms of Suggs, Suggs,
Suggs. The bass rumbled on.

"We're no further ahead, Morgan, than we were two hours ago. This,
definitely cannot go on, if it has to be taken to the people
themselves."

Morgan pondered well before he answered, and the room stilled.

"Senator," he said at last; "this is right now in the hands of the
people, if you consider that you are one of the elected
representatives, and the rest of us are chosen, with one exception, by
those same elected representatives. The exception, naturally, is Mr.
Miller."

Five Star Simon snorted. His nasal voice carried well. "