he moment between the two men is done, Barclay,
rampant with power, says: "Myton" (it is always "Myton," never
"Senator," with Barclay; he finds it just as well to let his inferiors
know their relation to the universe), "Myton, I ran across a queer
thing last week when I took over that little jerkwater New England
coast line. The Yankees are a methodical lot of old maids. I find they
had been made agents of a lot of the big fellows--insurance people,
packing-houses, and transcontinental railroads--two of my lines were
paying them, though I'd forgotten about it until I looked it up--and
the good old sewing society had card-indexed the politics of the
United States--the whole blessed country, by state and congressional
districts. I took over the chap who runs it, and I've got the whole
kit in the offices here now. It's great. If a man bobs up for
something in Florida or Nebraska, we just run him down on the card
index, and there he stands--everything he ever did, every interview
he ever gave, every lawsuit he ever had, every stand he ever took in
politics--right there in the index, in an envelope ready for use, and
all the mean things ever written about him. I simply can't make a
mistake now in getting the wrong kind of fellows in. Commend me to a
Yankee or a Jap for pains. I can tell you in five minutes just what
influences are behind every governor, congressman, senator, judge,
most of the legislators in every state, the federal courts clear up to
the Supreme Court. There was a man appointed on that court less than a
dozen years ago who swapped railroad receiverships like a tin peddler
with his senator for his job, when he was on the circuit bench. And he
was considerable of a judge in the bean country for a time. Just to
verify my index, I asked Bemis about this judge. 'Lige,' I said, 'was
Judge So-and-So a pretty honest judge?' 'Oh, hell,' says Lige, and
that was all I could get out of him. So I guess they had him indexed
right." And Barclay rattles on; he has become vociferous and
loquacious, and seems to like to hear the roar of his voice in his
head. The habit has been growing on him.

But do not laugh at the blindness of John Barclay, sitting there in
his power, admiring himself, boasting in the strength of his
card-index to Senator Myton. For the tide of his power was running in,
and soon it would be high tide with John Barclay--high tide of his
power, high tide of his fame, high tide of his pride. So let us watc