I never ad-libbed at all on those parts he corrected, though I often did on the rest-when you get rolling there is often a better, more alive way to say a thing. I began to notice the nature of his corrections; they were almost always eliminations of qualifiers- make it blunter, let ’em like it or lump it!
After a while there were fewer corrections. I was getting with it.
I still never saw him. I felt that I could not “wear his head” if I looked at him on his sickbed. But I was not the only one of his intimate family who was not seeing him; Capek had chucked Penny out-for her own good. I did not know it at the time. I did know that Penny had become irritable, absent-minded, and moody after we reached New Batavia. She got circles under her eyes like a raccoon-all of which I could not miss, but I attributed it to the pressure of the campaign combined with worry about Bonforte’s health. I was only partly right. Capek spotted it and took action, put her under llght hypnosis and asked her questions-then he flatly forbade her to see Bonforte again until I was done and finished and shipped away.
The poor girl was going almost out of her mind from visiting the sickroom of the man she hopelessly loved-then going straight in to work closely with a man who looked and talked and sounded just like him, but in good health. She was probably beginning to hate me.
Good old Doc Capek got at the root of her trouble, gave her helpful and soothing post-hypnotic suggestions, and kept her out of the sickroom after that. Naturally I was not told about it at the time; it wasn’t any of my business. But Penny perked up and again was her lovable, incredibly efficient self.
It made a lot of difference to me. Let’s admit it; at least twice I would have walked out on the whole incredible rat race if it had not been for Penny.
There was one sort of meeting I had to attend, that of the campaign executive committee. Since the Expansionist Party was a minority party, being merely the largest fraction of a coalition of several parties held together by the leadership and personality of John Joseph Bonforte, I had to stand in for him and peddle soothing syrup to those prima donnas. I was briefed for it with painstaking care, and Rog sat beside rue and could hint the proper direction if I faltered. But it could not be delegated.
Less than two weeks before election day we were due for a meeting at which the safe districts would be parceled out. The organization always had thirty to forty districts which could be used to make someone eligible for cabinet office, or to provide for a political secretary (a person like Penny was much more valuable if he or she was fully qualified, able to move and Speak on the floor of the Assembly, had the right to be present at closed caucuses, and so forth), or for other party reasons. Bonforte himself represented a “safe” district; it relieved him from the necessity of precinct campaigning. Clifton had another. Dak would have had one if he had needed it, but he actually commanded the support of his guild brethren. Rog even hinted to me once that if I wanted to come back in my proper person, I could say the word and my name would go on the next list.
Some of the spots were always saved for party wheel horses willing to resign at a moment’s notice and thereby provide the Party with a place through a by-election if it proved necessary to qualify a man for cabinet office, or something.
But the whole thing had somewhat the flavor of patronage and, the coalition being what it was, it was necessary for Bonforte to straighten out conilicting claims and submit a list to the campaign executive committee. It was a last-minute job, to be done just before the ballots were prepared, to allow for late changes.
When Rog and Dak came in I was working on a speech and had told Penny to hold off anything but five-alarm fires. Quiroga had made a wild statement in Sydney, Australia, the night before, of such a nature that we could expose the lie and make him squirm. I was trying my hand at a Speech in answer, without waiting for a draft to be handed me; I had high hopes of getting my own version approved.