McLEOD was waiting with some impatience in his room at the hotel.

“Walk in Gaston, you’re a little late. However, better late than never.” McLeod plunged directly into the purpose of his visit.

“Gaston you’re a man of brains, and oratorical genius. I heard your speech in the last Democratic convention in Raleigh, and I don’t say it to flatter you, that was the greatest speech made in any assembly in this state since the war.”

“Thanks!” said Gaston with a wave of his arm.

“I mean it. You know too much to be in sympathy with the old moss-backs who are now running this state. For fourteen years, the South has marched to the polls and struck blindly at the Republican party, and three times it struck to kill. The Southern people have nothing in common with these Northern Democrats who make your platforms and nominate your candidate. You don’t ask anything about the platform or the man. You would vote for the devil if the Democrats nominated him, and ask no questions; and what infuriates me is you vote to enforce platforms that mean economic ruin to the South.”

“Man shall not live by bread alone, McLeod.”

“Sure, but he can’t live on dead men’s bones. You vote in solid mass on the Negro question, which you settled by the power of Anglo-Saxon insolence when you destroyed the Reconstruction governments at a blow. Why should you keep on voting against every interest of the South, merely because you hate the name Republican?”

“Why? Simply because so long as the Negro is here with a ballot in his hands he is a menace to civilisation. The Republican party placed him here. The name Republican will stink in the South for a century, not because they beat us in war, but because two years after the war, in profound peace, they inaugurated a second war on the unarmed people of the South, butchering the starving, the wounded, the women and children. God in heaven, will I ever forget that day they murdered my mother! Their attempt to establish with the bayonet an African barbarism on the ruins of Southern society was a conspiracy against human progress. It was the blackest crime of the nineteenth century.”

“You are talking in a dead language. We are living in a new world.”

“But principles are eternal.”

“Principles? I’m not talking about principles. I’m talking about practical politics. The people down here haven’t voted on a principle in years. They’ve been voting on old Simon Legree. He left the state nearly a quarter of a century ago.”

“Yes, McLeod, but his soul has gone marching on. The Republican party fought the South because such men as Legree lived in it, and abused the negroes, and the moment they won, turn and make Legree and his breed their pets. Simon Legree is more than a mere man who stole five millions of dollars, alienated the races, and covered the South with the desolation of anarchy. He is an idea. He represents everything that the soul of the South loathes, and that the Republican party has tried to ram down our throats, Negro supremacy in politics, and Negro equality in society.”

“You are talking about the dead past, Gaston. I’m surprised at a man of your brain living under such a delusion. How can there be Negro supremacy when they are in a minority?”

“Supremacy under a party system is always held by a minority. The dominant faction of a party rules the party, and the successful party rules the state. If the Negro only numbered one-fifth the population and they all belonged to one party, they could dictate the policy of that party.”

“You know that a few white brains really rule that black mob.”

“Yes, but the black mob defines the limits within which you live and have your being.”

“Gaston, the time has come to shake off this nightmare, and face the issues of our day and generation. We are going to win in this campaign, but I want you. I like you. You are the kind of man we need now to take the field and lead in this campaign.”

“How are you going to win?”

“We are going to form a contract with the Farmer’s Alliance and break the backbone of the Bourbon Democracy of the South. The farmers have now a compact body of 50,000 voters, thoroughly organised, and combined with the negro vote we can hold this state until Gabriel blows his trumpet.”

“That’s a pretty scheme. Our farmers are crazy now with all sorts of fool ideas,” said Gaston thoughtfully.

“Exactly, my boy, and we’ve got them by the nose.”

“If you can carry through that programme, you’ve got us in a hole.”

“In a hole? I should say we’ve got you in the bottomless pit with the lid bolted down. You ’ll not even rise at the day of judgment. It won’t be necessary!” laughed McLeod, and as he laughed changed his tone in the midst of his laughter.

“And what is the great proposition you have to make to me?” asked Gaston.

“Join with us in this new coalition, and stump the state for us. Your fortune will be made, win or lose. I ’ll see that the National Republican Committee pays you a thousand dollars a week for your speeches, at least five a week, two hundred dollars apiece. If we lose, you will make ten thousand dollars in the canvass, and stand in line for a good office under the National Administration. If we win, I ’ll put you in the Governor’s Palace for four years. There’s a tide in the affairs of men, you know. It’s at the flood at this moment for you.”

Gaston was silent a moment an............