“A point of order has been raised against the resolution offered by the gentleman from Pulaski.  It is the ruling of the chair that the point is well taken.  The resolution is out of order.”

This was greeted with great applause; but the chair checked it promptly.  The ten gentlemen who had copies of the Bassett programme in their pockets were not surprised by the decision.  Thatcher stood at a side door and two of his men were pushing their way through the aisles to reach Pettit; for the Honorable Isaac Pettit was on his feet demanding recognition while Thatcher’s delegates shouted to him to sit down; humiliation must go no farther, and if the Fraser County editor did not realize that his new chief was the victim of a vile trick, the gentleman from Fraser must be throttled, if necessary, to prevent a further affront to Thatcher’s dignity.  Thatcher was purple with rage; it was enough to have been made the plaything of an unscrupulous enemy once, without having one’s ambitions repeatedly kicked up and down a convention hall.

The chairman, fully rehearsed in his part, showed a malevolent disposition to continue toward the friends of Thatcher an attitude at once benevolent and just.  So many were demanding recognition amid cat-calling and whistling that the fairest and least partial of presiding officers might well have hesitated before singling out one gentleman when so many were eagerly, even furiously, desirous of enlightening the convention.  But the presiding officer was obeying the orders communicated to him by a gentleman who was even at this moment skimming across the cool waters of Lake Waupegan.  It would more fully have satisfied the chairman’s sense of humor to have recognized the Honorable Isaac Pettit and have suffered an appeal from the ruling of the chair, which presumably the editor wished to demand.  By this means the weakness of Thatcher might have expressed itself in figures that would have deepened Thatcher’s abasement in the eyes of his fellow partisans; but this idea had been discussed with Bassett, who had sharply vetoed it, and the chairman was not a man lightly to disobey orders even to make a Hoosier holiday.  He failed to see the editor of the “Fraser County Democrat” and peremptorily closed the incident.  There was no mistaking his temper as he announced:—­

“The chair announces that the next business in order is the call of the roll of counties for nominations for the office of secretary of state.  What is the pleasure of the convention?”

Colonel Ramsay had repaired to the gallery to enjoy the proceedings with Mrs. Bassett’s party.  In spite of his support of the Palmer and Buckner ticket (how long ago that seems!), the Colonel had never lost touch with the main body of his party, and he carried several Indiana counties in his pocket.  His relations with Bassett had never been in the least intimate, though always outwardly cordial, and there were those who looked to him to eliminate the Fraser