purpose.

The very next day the secret was abroad, and Whitelaw Reid came to me to
ask why in a newspaper combine of this sort the New York Tribune had been
left out.

To my mind it seemed preposterous that it had been or should be, and I
stated as much to my new colleagues. They offered objection which to me
appeared perverse if not childish. They did not like Reid, to begin with.
He was not a principal like the rest of us, but a subordinate. Greeley was
this, that and the other. He could never be relied upon in any coherent
practical plan of campaign. To talk about him as a candidate was
ridiculous.

I listened rather impatiently and finally I said: "Now, gentlemen, in this
movement we shall need the New York Tribune. If we admit Reid we clinch it.
You will all agree that Greeley has no chance of a nomination, and so by
taking him in we both eat our cake and have it."

On this view of the case Reid was invited to join us, and that very night
he sat with us at the St. Nicholas, where from night to night until the end
we convened and went over the performances and developments of the day and
concerted plans for the morrow.

As I recall these symposiums some amusing and some plaintive memories rise
before me.

The first serious business that engaged us was the killing of the boom for
Judge David Davis, of the Supreme Court, which was assuming definite and
formidable proportions. The preceding winter it had been incubating at