He bowed to an elderly gentleman with a sharply pointed chin beard and the type of face that was once called clerical.

“Some one defined oratory the other day,” said Galt, “as the fringe with which the inhabitants of the Southern States still delighted to trim their politics—­so I should call the gentleman of to-day ’a political tassel.’  He’s ornamental and he hangs by a thread.”

And he passed into the lobby arm-in-arm with Tom Bassett.

The place was swarming with delegates:  delegates from country districts, red-faced farmers in flapping linen coats and wide-brimmed hats; delegates from the cities, dapper, well-groomed, cordial-voiced; delegates of the true political type, shaven, obsequious, alert; delegates of the cast that belongs at home, outspoken, honest-eyed, remote; stout delegates, with half-bursting waistbands, thin delegates, with shrunken chests.  In the animated throng there was but one condition held in common—­they were all heated delegates.  In one corner a stout gentleman in a thin coat, with a scarlet neck showing above his wilted collar, held a half-dozen listeners with his eyes, while he plied them with emphatic sentences in which the name of Crutchfield sounded like a refrain.  Moving from group to group, portly, unctuous, insinuating, a man with an oily voice was doing battle in the cause of Webb.

The throng that passed in and out of the lobby was continually shifting place and principles.  One instant it would seem that Crutchfield triumphed in a majority sufficient to overwhelm the platform; a moment more and the Webb men were vociferously in the ascendant.  At the time it resolved itself into a question of tongues.

“This is thick,” said Ben Galt, dodging the straw hat with which a perspiring politician was fanning himself and gently withdrawing himself from the arms of a scarlet individual in a wet collar to collide with his double.  “Let’s go to dinner.  Ah! there’s the Lion of Democracy—­how are you, Judge?”

The Lion, a striking figure, with a graceful, snow-white mane and a colossal memory, held out a tireless hand.  “Well met, Ben,” he exclaimed in effusive tones.  “I’ve been on the outlook for you all day.  One moment—­your pardon—­one moment—­Ah, my dear sir! my dear sir!” to a countryman who approached him with outstretched hand, “I am delighted.  Remember you?  Why, of course—­of course!  Your name has escaped me this instant; but I was speaking of you only yesterday.  No, don’t tell me! don’t tell me.  I remember.  Ah, now I have it—­one moment, please—­it was after the battle of Seven Pines.  You lent me a horse after the battle of Seven Pines.  Thank you—­thank you, sir.  And your charming lady, who made me the delicious coffee.  My best regards to her.”

The great man was surrounded, and Galt and Bassett, leaving him to his assailants, passed into the dining-room.

Glancing hastily down the long room filled with small, overcrowded tables, they joined several men who were seated near an open window.