"Brace up, brace up. You need a brandy and soda."
"Then take a glass of milk," rallied Shelby; "paregoric, boneset tea, anything. I'm ashamed of you."
"You're a younger man, Ross. You can rebound. I can't any more. I'm too old. I--I've lost confidence in myself."
"I haven't lost confidence in myself," ejaculated Shelby. "No such alliance of thugs and goody-goods shall down me. I'm in this game to stay and to win."
His stout words in some degree bolstered the discouraged veteran, and they turned presently to a discussion of ways and means. The outlook was not cheering. The fusion of the opposition had fallen at a time when the funds collected to meet the exigencies of an ordinary campaign had been mainly expended.
"The State Committee must help," declared Shelby. "There's no valid reason why they shouldn't. The corporations have given them everything they asked this year."
"I sounded the Boss. He was not encouraging."
"Damn him," said Shelby, "what does he want?" That question would recur.
"We have raised everything locally that our people will stand, and you may say that of the Demijohn generally. If there's more to be got, it must come from those most concerned."
"It's your political future that's at stake."
Shelby drummed his desk. By and by, taking his check-book, he began to run through the stubs, jotting figures on a pad.
"I've spent three thousand dollars already," he said at last. "Three thousand legitimate dollars. I've never footed it up before, and it's rather staggering. Of course, the big items--the assessments of the local committee and the other county committees--I had kept in mind. What I have not realized was the constant drain of small amounts for this and that,--printing, lithographs, bands, flag-raisings, you know what. And treats--why, I spent over seventy-five dollars in bar money alone the day of the Pioneers' picnic, while the County Fair meant the price of a good horse. It's a good thing for me that the torchlight idiocy has gone out. Still, the 'Shelby Base-ball Club' is as big a nuisance. Three thousand legitimate dollars," he repeated. "We now come to the illegitimate."
The older man winced. Shelby was too frank for him at times. While he recognized that vote-buying was of occasion necessary for party success, he made it his boast between his conscience and himself that he had never directly taken part in it. So now he hemmed, and merely said:--