And yet day by day, word by word, hint by hint—­his eye on the future loyalty of the Everett faction at the polls—­he made the candidate understand that Arba Spinney was a man to be reckoned with—­that the convention was not an open-and-shut certainty for the machine.  Without realizing how it had come about, Everett found himself discussing “political exigencies.”  Without knowing that he had been selected as a martyr for his party, he committed himself in lofty sentiments regarding the duty of a man in a crisis.  Not that he suspected that his chances were endangered.  He felt that he was truly the man of destiny; he was urging other men to forget their slights and their disappointments and rally to him.  But the fact remained that—­thinking wholly of other men—­he had committed himself, and in a way that he could be reminded of when the time came.

The Duke planted that kedge well out, to serve in the stress of weather at the polls in the fall, should Everett and his men be silly enough to confound “party exigency” with treachery.

All men are forgetful.  The Duke feared that some men had forgotten the details of Gen. Varden Waymouth’s notable life.  The publicity bureau, obeying crafty suggestions and not understanding just what it was all about, began in the stress of that campaign to recall stories of the old days.  And no man represented the old days as did Varden Waymouth, hero, scholar, and statesman.  There were giants in the old days, and every machine newspaper in the State hailed General Waymouth as chief of the giants.  They contrasted the present with the past.  General Waymouth’s picture gazed forth in stately benignity from every broadside—­his life story filled the columns of newspapers and the mouths of men.

With Arba Spinney’s activities Thornton was in touch at all times.  More than ever before Mr. Spinney merited his title “Fog-horn.”  He was striking the high places in the State, pouring language from under the mat of his mustache, warning all men off the political shoals of “the machine.”  From those shoals he was scooping up mud in both hands, and spattering all men and all measures.  He found plenty of listeners, for protest was abroad.  But the persistent defamer irritates even his friends.  He offends the innate sense of patriotism and loyalty which slinks even in the breast of the rebel.  The Duke noted with satisfaction the outward symptoms of Mr. Spinney’s campaign; he was winning a following in those days of unrest.  Through the columns of his newspapers the old politician exploited Mr. Spinney, seeing to it that he was well advertised as a man who persistently branded his own State as a den of infamy.  Thus he made Spinney strong enough to play against Everett and weak enough to fall far in the estimation of men when the time came for him to fall.

And then at last, in the latter days of June, all roads led to Rome.  The Republican Convention was called for the twenty-eighth, in the big hall of the State’s metropolis.