Heartened by this confession of weakness on Nolan's
part, they kept on yelling lustily:
"No! no! no!"
They even laughed, and Muldoon smote the table, to declare the motion lost.
On the forty-seventh ballot, one of the Simmons votes went over to Conway, and there was a faint cheer. On the forty-eighth, one of the Simmons votes went to Underwood, and parity was restored. On the forty-ninth, Underwood gained another of Simmons' votes—Nolan, it seemed, had promised to get him on the janitor's pay-roll in the state house—and the vote was tied. This ballot stood:
First Second Fifth
Ward Ward Ward Total
Conway — 10 22 32
Underwood 21 4 7 32
Simmons — 5 — 5
The Simmons men were holding out, waiting to throw their strength to the winner. When the sixty-seventh ballot had been taken, Muldoon, squinting in the miserable light, at the secretary's figures, hit the table with the chair leg and said:
"On this ballot Conway receives 32, Underwood