Chapter 23 - Page 2

vivid chapter yet in his life was closing. Unconsciously he raised his hand and waved good-bye; the others, noticing the act, understood and were silent.

All were under the influence of the morning, which was dawning slowly and ill. There are fine days in November, yet we cannot depend upon it, and now the month was in one of its bad humors. An overcast sun was struggling through brown, ominous clouds, and its light was pale and cold. A sharp wind whistled against the houses, yet shuttered and silent in these early morning hours. The city was still asleep, and did not know that the candidate had come home to hear his fate.

"Is this ugly sky an omen of ill?" asked Churchill, who, despite his supercilious nature and the fact that he represented an opposition newspaper, had come at last under the spell of Jimmy Grayson and was in a way one of the band.

"If it is a gray sky for Mr. Grayson, it is a gray sky for the other man, too, and I draw no inference from the circumstance," replied Harley.

Nevertheless there was an oppression over the whole group--perhaps it was because they were so near the end; and scarcely another word was said as they walked along the silent street, each thinking of the day at hand and the night to follow.

The candidate had offered all the hospitality of his house, but none would accept, not wishing to intrude upon the first freshness of his family reunion; they intended to register at the hotels and come to his home later on for the news of the day. So they stopped at a street corner, bade him a short farewell, and allowed him to go on alone.

But Harley could not resist the temptation of looking back. They had arrived in the town two hours ahead of time, and he knew that the candidate's family were not yet expecting him, but he could see the house behind its shield of trees, now swept of foliage, and already there were signs of life about it. He saw the candidate's wife run down the steps and meet her husband, and then he looked away.

"This is one part of a Presidential campaign that we must not watch," he said to the group about him, and without a word they walked to their hotel, not glancing back again, although more than one in the group was secretly envious of Harley, because of the welcome that they knew awaited him a little later.

It was a good hotel that received them, and it was an abounding breakfast that awaited them there. Harley sat near a window of the dining-room, where he could look out upon the street and see the city coming to life, a process that began but slowly, because it is always a holiday when the people cast their votes for a President. Yet the city awoke at last, men began to appear in the streets, a polling-booth opposite the hotel was opened, and the Presidential election had begun.

The dining-room was now filling up, and all around Harley and his friends rose the hum of