[The President by Alfred Henry Lewis]@TWC D-Link bookThe President CHAPTER V 22/29
Eliminate Mr.Patch and Mr. Swinger, however, and Mr.Hawke would be chosen by a majority of seven. 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.
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