old man acquiesced, blushing with pleasure; "I didn't
think, though, that it was known outside--"

"Things go further than you guess. I'm a newspaper man, and I can tell
you that I shall speak of it again in my paper. Well, I guess they've
got through with their mail, and the platform's coming in."

Thus he brushed aside the old man's agitated thanks.

"One moment," said the old man, "who--who's going to nominate him?"

For the space of an eyeblink the kindly Canton man looked embarrassed,
then he said, briskly: "Foraker, Foraker, of Ohio--he's the principal
one. That's he now, chairman of the committee on resolutions. He's
there, the tall man with the mustache--"

"Isn't that elderly man, with the stoop shoulders and the chin beard and
caved-in face, Teller?" It was a man near me, on the seat behind, who
spoke, tapping the Canton man with his fan, to attract attention;
already the pitiful concerns of the old man who was "a little off" (as I
had heard some one on the seat whisper) were sucked out of notice in the
whirlpool of the approaching political storm.

"Yes, that's Teller," answered the Canton man, his mouth straightening
and growing thin.

"Is it to be a bolt?"

The Canton man nodded, at which the other whistled and communicated the
information to his neighbors, one of whom remarked, "Let 'em bolt and be
damned!" A general, subtle excitement seemed to communicate its
vibrations to all the gallery. Perhaps I should except the old partisan;
he questioned the girl in a whisper, and then, seeming to be satisfied,
watched the strange scene that ensued with an expression of patient
weariness. The girl explained parts of the platform to him and he
assented; it was good Republican doctrine, he said, but what did they
mean with all this talk against the money; were they having trouble with
the mining states again? The Canton man stopped to explain--he certainly
was good-humored.

During the next twenty minutes, filled as they were with savage emotion,
while the galleries, like the floor, were on their chairs yelling,
cheering, brandishing flags and fists and fans and pampas plumes of red,
white and blue at the little band of silver men who marched through the
ranks of their former comrades; he stood, he waved his fan in his feeble
old hand, but he did not shout. "You must excuse me," said he, "I'm all
right on the money question, but I'm saving my voice to shout for
_him_!"

"That's right," said the Canton m