- tended to pardon Whalen, that he might have, in his
campaign, the assistance of that skilled and unscrupulous manipulator. The pack of country newspapers took up the Courier's cry. Whalen's illness was either ignored, or referred to as feigned, at the direction of prison authorities and the governor. And yet a certificate pigeonholed in Gilman's desk, signed by the prison physician, stated that Thomas Whalen had pulmonary tuberculosis and was in a moribund condition.
In his office in the city William Handy, the chairman of the state central committee, read these newspaper stories, and swore as he did so. That night the shrewdest and maddest politician in the state stole out of town. The next morning Gilman was surprised when the big man burst through the door marked "private," brushed by him and entered, unannounced, the governor's chambers. Before the stately door swung to behind him, Gilman heard him demand:
"What's all this I hear about your pardoning Tom Whalen?"
The private secretary did not hear the governor's reply, for with deliberate step he had crossed the
