Читать книгу The 13th District. A Story of a Candidate онлайн

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The members of the committee were smoking cigars from a box the judge had provided, a box of five-cent domestic cigars, which fouled the atmosphere of the private office with their thick white smoke. The smoke from the Havana cigar the judge himself was smoking, wriggled upward in a blue wraith from the white hand that held it, and the judge only raised the cigar to his lips often enough to keep it alight, and as if to aid his mental processes. These processes were doubtless profound, for he bent his head, and wrinkled his brow, and looked intently at the silver-mounted furnishings of his desk. He had already sat there what seemed to the waiting politicians a long time, and had not moved. But at last he dropped the eraser with which he had been playing while he thought, and, lightly touching the revolving bookcase, for its swing and creak made him nervous, he gave a judicial cough.

“I have asked you to meet here, gentlemen,” he began, half turning in his swivel chair, “to discuss some features of my campaign. You, all of you, no doubt, were apprised, at the convention of our party, of the reluctance I felt in accepting the nomination; you, all of you, are aware, at what personal sacrifice I consented to allow my name to be used, so that it is unnecessary for me to discuss this feature of the case at this time.”