The chairman of the convention, grim
and pale and wondering just how much damage this overturn signified to
his personal interests, nodded recognition to these speakers, and
allowed them to waste their words upon the welter of mere sound.
He also recognized other men who arose. He knew them for Spinney's
adherents and divined what they were trying to say. And having divined
it, he was promptly inspired to get in with the rush of those who were
climbing aboard the band-wagon.
He advanced to the edge of the platform, and by tossing his arms secured
a moment of silence. He had his own salvation to look after.
"I am glad, inexpressibly pleased, that as chairman of your convention I
can now declare myself for General Waymouth; for the convention has but
one name before it--the name of Arba Spinney has been withdrawn!"
When the tumult began again--almost delirium this time--David Everett
appeared from the wings, white, stricken, overwhelmed by the suddenness
with which the prize had been snatched beyond his reach, driven out upon
the stage by the State Committee like a whipped cur forced to perform
his little trick in public.
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