Preserve and Protect Read Online Free Page A

and from Sacramento the phone rings in Bob Leffingwell’s room. But the switchboard says he is accepting no calls, and the question remains: what will he do?
    What will they all do, for that matter, all those whose hopes and ambitions, dreams and desires, went into the making of the wild, chaotic convention just concluded? Cullee Hamilton, Negro Congressman from California, candidate for Senator from California, steady and decent and no friend to Ted Jason … Roger P. Croy, former governor and now National Committeeman from Oregon, no friend to Orrin Knox … Patsy Jason Labaiya, sister of Ted, estranged wife of Felix … Senator Lafe Smith of Iowa, close friend of Orrin, Harley and Bob Munson … Rep. J. B. “Jawbone” Swarthman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, friend or not-friend of the Hudson policies, as it has suited him … Supreme Court Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis, sometime friend of Bob Leffingwell, all-time enemy of Orrin Knox … Senator Fred Van Ackerman of Wyoming, bitter enemy of Harley and Orrin, spokesman for the Committee on Making Further Offers for a Russian Truce (COMFORT) … LeGage Shelby, old friend and present enemy of Cullee Hamilton, national chairman of Defenders of Equality for You (DEFY) … Rufus Kleinfert, Knight Kommander of the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism (KEEP) … and all those in the world beyond, whose nations and peoples are so deeply affected by the occupant of the American Presidency, such men as the Secretary-General of the United Nations … Krishna Khaleel, Ambassador of India … Lord Claude Maudulayne, Ambassador of the United Kingdom … Raoul Barre, Ambassador of France … Vasily Tashikov, Ambassador of the U.S.S.R.…Prince Obi … Terrible Terry … Felix Labaiya … and all the others who have so profound and basic a stake in the outcome.
    But most important of all, what will the President of the United States do? Because there is one, of course, product of that American capability, built in by her founders and so annoying to those who would like to see her toppled, to maintain her national continuity even under so heavy a blow.
    Even now, at his sister’s vacation cabin at Lake Tahoe, the pragmatic old veteran who has been Speaker of the House for the past twenty years is being sworn in by a trembling young Forest Service ranger whom he has pressed into service for the occasion. “Mr. Speaker” at this moment is in process of becoming “Mr. President,” just as the Constitution says he must in the absence of a Vice President. Harley didn’t have one, though he had the authority under the twenty-fourth Amendment to fill the vacancy created by his own accession to the White House. He had told the Speaker once that he was going to step down in a year anyway, and meanwhile he didn’t want to create all sorts of political hostilities in Congress by choosing one of them over another. This had disturbed the Speaker and caused much national concern, but Harley was the President and the option was his. He didn’t choose to exercise it, and so here is history being made at Lake Tahoe: Mr. Speaker is becoming Mr. President.
    “If you will repeat after me, sir—” the young ranger says. The Speaker interrupts with a wave of the hand that starts out to be impatient but thinks better of it.
    “I’ve attended a few, son,” he says, not unkindly. “I know how it’s done.”
    “Yes, sir,” the boy says, blushing, and begins, stammering slightly in his excitement, “I, William Abbott—”
    “I, William Abbott,” the Speaker repeats gravely, and everything is silent save for the click and whirr of cameras and the nearby battle of a pair of blue jays in the pines whose argument will go down in history on the tapes and films of this historic event.
    “—do solemnly swear,” the young ranger goes on, and the Speaker’s voice grows a little stronger, though on his sister’s worn Bible his right hand trembles ever