Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/153

 scholarly looking Secretary seemed to be less the scholar now and more the shrewd-eyed but smiling politician. Somehow Rufus was rather sorry about that.

But he could not keep up with the rapid current of the talk at all. He did not know which was the current and which were the eddies. All the others seemed to know, and some of them began to jot down occasional notes on copy-paper or on the margins of their newspapers while he looked at them and wondered what they wrote, and wished he knew something about politics. The others knew a great deal about politics. Most of them could tell all the initials and ambitions of all the minor politicians in the State, and of all the big politicians in every State. They understood the national significance of this State Convention.

The Secretary understood a good deal about reporters. He knew that among those to whom he was giving audience there were two or three of the best interviewers in the country, and they knew he knew this. So the merry game of lead-up and dodge-away had been carried on for nearly twenty min-