"A wager to you boys that none of you can name the state from which the first completed return will come. What odds will you give?" said "King"

Plummer, who was resolutely seeking to be cheerful.

"We won't take your wager because we'd win, sure," said Hobart. "It will be a precinct in New York City, up-town. They get through quick there; they never fail to be first."

"Whatever the vote there is, I am going to look upon it as an omen,"

said Mr. Heathcote. "If our majority is reduced it will mean a bad start, good ending; if our majority is increased, it will mean that a good beginning is half the battle."

Dexter, the chairman of the state campaign committee, entered, his thin face still shadowed by gloomy thoughts.

"We've had a few bulletins at headquarters, but nothing definite," he said. "All the reports so far are from the East, of course, owing to the difference in time, but I'd like mighty well to know what they are doing out there on the Slope and in the Rockies."

"We'll know in good time, Charlie; just you wait," said Jimmy Grayson, who was the calmest man in the room.

"I've done enough waiting already to last me the rest of my life," said Dexter, moodily.

The door was opened softly, and four or five pairs of young eyes peeped shyly into the room. The candidate, with a.s.surances that there was nothing to be told, gently pushed the youthful figures away and closed the door again.

"I would put them to bed," he said, apologetically, "but they can't sleep, and it is not any use for them to try; so they are supposed to be shepherded in another part of the house by a nurse, but they seem to break the bounds now and then."

"I claim the privilege of carrying them the good news when we get it, if they are still awake," said Harley.

A messenger-boy entered with a despatch, but it contained no information, merely an a.s.surance from a devoted New England adherent that he believed Jimmy Grayson was elected, as he felt it in his bones.

"Why does a man waste time and money in telegraphing us a thing like that?" said Dexter. "It isn't worth anything."

But Harley was not so sure. He believed with Jimmy Grayson that good wishes had more than a sentimental value. He went to the window and gazed into the street. The number of people singing campaign songs as they waited for the news was increasing, and the echoes of much laughter and talk floated towards the house. Farther down the street they were throwing flash-lights on white canvas in front of a great crowd, but so far the bulletins were only humorous quotations or patent-medicine advertis.e.m.e.nts, each to be saluted at the beginning with a cheer and at the end with a groan. He turned back to the table just as another boy bearing a despatch entered the room.

Mr. Dexter had const.i.tuted himself the clerk of the evening--that is, he was to sit at the centre-table and read the despatches as they came. He took the yellow envelope from the boy, tore it open, and paused a moment. Then all knew by the change upon his face that the first news had come. Dexter turned to Hobart.

"You were right," he said, "it is from New York City, up-town. The Thirty-first a.s.sembly District in the City of New York gives a majority of 824 for Grayson. This is official."

At another table sat a man with a book containing the complete vote of all the election districts in every state of the Union at the preceding Presidential election. All looked inquiringly at him, and he instantly made the comparison.

"We carried the Thirty-first a.s.sembly District of the City of New York by 1077 four years ago," he said. "Our majority suffers a net loss of 253."

"Did I not tell you?" exclaimed Heathcote. "A bad start makes a good ending."

"It's a happy sign," said Sylvia, with her usual resolute hopefulness.

But, despite themselves, a gloom settled upon all; the first report from the battle was ominous--such a loss continued would throw the election heavily in favor of the other man--and after her remark they were silent.

Mrs. Grayson looked into the room, but they told her there was nothing, and, whether she believed them or not, she closed the door again without further question.

"Here comes another boy," said Hobart, who was at the window, watching the crowd before the transparency.

"Now this is good news, sure," said "King" Plummer.

It was from another a.s.sembly district in New York City, and the party majority was cut down again, but this time the reduction was only 62 votes.

"That's better," said Mr. Heathcote.

"It will have to be a great deal better to elect our man," whispered Hobart to Harley.

Harley went to the window again, and looked down the street towards the transparency, where the opposition voters were cheering wildly at the first news so favorable to their side. Despite himself, Harley felt an unreasoning anger towards them. "You cheer about nothing," he said to himself. "This is only a few thousand votes among millions." Then he was ashamed of his feeling, and left the window.

"The Hub speaks!" exclaimed Mr. Dexter, as he tore open another envelope. Then he announced a vote from one of the wards of Boston.

"And it speaks right," said the man with the book. "Mr. Grayson cuts down the majority polled against us there four years ago by 433 votes."

A little cheer was raised in the room, and down the street at the transparency there was a cheer, too, but the voices were not the same as those that cheered a few moments ago.

"Good old Boston," said Hobart, "and we made that gain right where the enemy thought he was strongest!"

The first gain of the evening had a hopeful effect upon all, and they spoke cheerfully.

But a vote from Providence, a minute later went the other way, and it was followed by one of a similar nature from New Haven. The gloom returned. Their minds fluctuated with the bulletins.

"It was too good to last," whispered Hobart, downcast.

The children again appeared at the door and wanted to know if their father was elected. Sylvia took upon herself the task of a.s.suring them that he was not yet elected, but he certainly would be before many hours. Then they went away sanguine and satisfied, and trying to keep sleepy eyelids from closing. In the street the noise was increasing as the crowd received facts, and the cheers were loud and various. But those of the enemy predominated, and Harley thrilled more than once with silent anger. A half-dozen men pa.s.sed the house singing a song in derision of Jimmy Grayson; some of the words came to them through the window, and Sylvia flushed, but Mr. Grayson himself showed no sign that he understood.

The telegrams now were arriving fast; there were two streams of boys, one coming in at the door and the other going out, and Mr. Dexter, at the table, settled to his work. For a while the chief sounds in the room were the tearing of paper, the rustling of unfolded despatches, and the dry voice of the chairman announcing results. These votes were all from Eastern cities, where the polls closed early and the ballots could be counted quickly. Over the West and the Far West darkness still brooded, and the country districts everywhere were silent.

Yet Harley knew that throughout the United States the utmost activity prevailed. To him the night was wonderful; in a day of perfect peace nearly twenty million votes had been cast, and the most powerful ruler in the world had been made by the free choice of the nation, just as four years or eight years hence another ruler would be made in his place by the same free choice, the old giving way to the new. Now to-night they were trying to find out who this ruler was, and no one yet could tell.

But the tale would be told in a few hours. Harley knew that over an area of three million square miles, as large as the ancient civilized world, men were at work counting, down to the last remote mountain hamlet, and putting the result on the wires as they counted it. And ninety million people waited, ready to abide by the result, whether it was their man or the other. To him there was something extraordinary in this organized, this peaceful but tremendous activity. To-night all the efforts of the world's most energetic nation were bent upon a single point. In each state the wires talked from every town and village to a common centre, and each state in turn, through its metropolis, talked to the common centre of them all, and the general result of all they said would be known to everybody before morning. It seemed marvellous to him, although he understood it perfectly, that a few hours after the boxes were opened the votes should be counted and accredited to the proper man.

He resumed his seat at a table, although there was yet but little for him to write, and listened to the dry, monotonous voice of Dexter as he called the vote. The results were still of a variable nature, gains here and losses there, but on the whole the losses were the larger, and the atmosphere of the room grew more discouraging. The great state of New York, upon which they had relied, was showing every sign that it would not justify their faith. The returns from the city of New York, from Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, were all bad, and the most resolute hopes could not make them otherwise.

"'As goes New York, so goes the Union,'" whispered Hobart, quoting an old proverb.

"Maybe that rule will be broken at last," replied Harley, hopefully.

But even Sylvia looked gloomy. There was one thought, as these returns came, in the minds of them all. It was that the members of the Philipsburg Committee had made good their threat; their defection had drawn from Grayson thousands of votes in a pivotal state, and if he had ever had a chance of election this took it from him. Yet no one uttered a word of reproach for Jimmy Grayson, although Harley knew that those who called themselves practical politicians were silently upbraiding him. He feared that they might consider their early warnings justified, and he resented it.

A discordant note, too, was sounded by the South; Alabama, a state that they considered sure, although by a small majority, would go for the other man if the returns continued of the same tone. The only ray of light came from New England, whence it had not been expected. The large cities there were showing slight increases for Jimmy Grayson.

"Who would have thought it?" said Mr. Heathcote.

But it seemed too small to have any effect, and they turned their minds to other parts of the country that seemed to be more promising ground.

The voice of Mr. Dexter, growing hoa.r.s.e from incessant use and wholly without expression, read a bulletin from New York:

"Great crowd in front of the residence of the Honorable Mr. Goodnight, on upper Fifth Avenue, and he is speaking to them from the steps. Says the election of their man is a.s.sured. Derides Mr. Grayson; says no man can betray predominant interests and succeed. Crowd hooting the name of Grayson."

"The traitor!" exclaimed Hobart.

But Jimmy Grayson said nothing. Harley watched him closely, and he knew now that the candidate's expressionless face was but a mask--it was only human that he should feel deep emotion. Harley saw his lips quiver faintly now and then, and once or twice his eyes flashed. Down the street, in front of the transparency, there was a tremendous noise, the people had divided according to their predilections and were singing rival campaign songs, but there was no disorder.