And, while the battle might be made to stagger on through forty ballots,
in the end Mr. Patch and Mr. Swinger must perforce withdraw. They could
give no excuse for holding on forever in a fight shown to be hopeless.
Some method must be devised to break the Hawke alignment or in a last
solution of the situation Mr. Frost would lose.

Senator Hanway made ready to play his last card--a card to which nothing
short of the desperate turn of events would have caused him to resort.
He made a list of eighteen of Mr. Hawke's supporters; he picked them out
because they were nervous, hysterical souls whom one might hope to
stampede. Senator Hanway then got the names, with the home addresses, of
a score of the principal constituents of each of these aspen, hysterical
gentlemen.

A telegraph operator, one close-mouthed and of a virtuous taciturnity,
sat up all night with Senator Hanway in his study--the night before the
caucus. There was none present but Senator Hanway and the wordless
telegraphic one; the former, deeming the occasion one proper for that
cautious rite, drew the blinds closely.

At Senator Hanway's dictation, the taciturn one who had been so
forethoughtful as to bring with him envelopes and blanks, wrote
messages to each of the hysterical eighteen, about twenty to a man,
signing them with the names of those influential constituents. The
messages were letter-perfect; in each instance, the message for
signature bore the name of one upon whom the member who would receive it
leaned in his destinies of politics. No two were worded alike, albeit
each commanded and demanded the Speakership for Mr. Frost. When they
were done, nearly four hundred of them, the taciturn one endowed them
with those quirleyques and symbols and hieroglyphics which belong with