Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/246

 talk politics. He represented a reform league and he came, he said, to discuss my candidature for the state senate, and to offer me the support of his organization. "Of course," he went on to explain, "we should impose certain conditions." He fixed on me again and very intently, those strange, fanatic eyes.

I knew very well what the conditions were; it was hardly necessary for him to explain that I should he expected to sign a pledge to support the bills proposed by his organization, some of which, no doubt, were excellent measures.

I explained to him that I was under no illusions as to the campaign, that there was no possible chance of my election that year, that if there had been I never would have been nominated, and nothing short of a miracle could elect me. "But," I added, "even if that miracle happens, though it will not, and I should be elected, I should go down to Columbus and to the Senate able to say that I had made no promises whatever."

He looked at me a moment, with those strange, cold eyes peering narrowly out of his somber visage, and as he gazed they seemed to contract, and with the faint shadow of a smile that was wholly without humor, he said:

"Well, you can say that."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

The smile raised the man's cheeks a little higher until they enclosed the little eyes in minute wrinkles, and invested them with an expression of the deepest cunning.

"Why, since you are opposed to signing our