Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/154

 utes, and the Secretary of State seemed to have the merriest time of them all. He was smiling serenely. Baffling interviewers was one of his recreations.

Donaldson was sharpening his lead-pencil. "What is the cause," he said, boldly, "of the administration's antagonism toward Holliday?" He went on whittling his pencil.

General Holliday had chin-whiskers and was the best type of Western statesman. Wolf, the machine man, was no type of statesman; he was a politician. Everyone knew, including the Secretary of State, that Holliday was a better man than Wolf. What decent reason could the administration give for being opposed to the better man? And if the Secretary of State said there was no opposition, he knew, none better, what might be the result. But he had reasons for not wanting to express a preference for either wing of the party. Whatever was said would, in half an hour, be flashed into every big newspaper-office in the country and, what was of more consequence, into the Convention Hall of the Western city. If he refused to answer, that, too, would be news,