minute," said the judge; "let's get at it straight. What do
you want with me?"

"I'll tell you," volunteered Keating. "You see, the boys are getting in
line again for this convention. They are the old file that used to rule
the roost before the 'Herald' got too strong for them, and they rely on
Mr. Harkless's being sick to beat Kedge Halloway with that Gaines
County man, McCune. Now, none of us here want Rod McCune I guess. We had
trouble enough once with him and his heelers, and now that Mr. Harkless
is down, they've taken advantage of it to raise a revolution: Rod McCune
for Congress! He's a dirty-hearted swindler--I hope Miss Sherwood will
pardon the strong expression--and everybody thought the 'Herald' had
driven him out of politics, though it never told how it did it; but
he's up on top again. Now, the question is to beat him. We hold the
committees, but the boys have been fighting the committees--call 'em
the 'Harkless Ring,' and never understood that the 'Herald' would have
turned us down in a second if it thought we weren't straight. Well,
we saw a week ago that Kedge Halloway was going to lose to McCune; we
figured it out pretty exactly, and there ain't a ray of hope for Kedge.
We wrote to Mr. Harkless about it, and asked him to come down--if he'd
been on the ground last Monday and had begun to work, I don't say but
what his personal influence might have saved Halloway--but a friend of
his, where he's staying, answered the letter: said Mr. Harkless was
down with a relapse and was very fretful; and he'd taken the liberty of
reading the letter and temporarily suppressing it under doctor's orders;
they were afraid he'd come, sick as he was, from a sense of duty, and
asked us to withdraw the letter, and referred us to Mr. Harkless's
representative on the 'Herald.' So we applied here to Miss Sherwood, and
that's why we had this meeting. Now, Halloway is honest--everybody knows
that--and I don't say but what he's been the best available material Mr.
Harkless had to send to Washington; but he ain't any too bright----"

Mr. Martin interrupted the speaker. "I reckon, maybe, you never heard
that lecture of his on the Past, Present, and Future'?"

"Besides that," Keating continued, "Halloway has had it long enough,
and he's got enough glory out of it, and, except for getting beat by Rod
McCune, I believe he'd almost as soon give it up. Well, we discussed all
this and that, and couldn't come to any conclusion. We didn't w