rets
drawn out by the post-prandial corkscrew? Who shall justly calculate
the influence the lobby and its workings had in hastening that
inevitable, the war between the states?

Into this outer circle whirled that smaller element which came to the
Capital to spend money--not to make it. Diamonds flash, point lace
flounces flaunt! Who will stop that mighty whirligig to inspect whether
the champagne is real, or the turtle is prime?

_Allons! le jeu est fait!_

Camp-followers and hangers-on of Congress, many of its members from the
West, claim agents from Kansas, husbandless married women from
California and subterranean politicians from everywhere herein found
elements as congenial as profitable. All stirred into the great _olla
podrida_ and helped to "Make the hell broth boil and bubble."

The inner circle was the real society of Washington. Half submerged for
half of each year by accumulating streams of strangers, it ever rose
the same--fresh and unstained by deposit from the baser flood. Therein,
beyond doubt, one found the most cultured coteries, the courtliest
polish and the simplest elegance that the drawing-rooms of this
continent could boast. The bench and the bar of the highest court lent
their loftiest intellects and keenest wits. Careful selections were
there from Congress of those who held senates on their lips and kept
together the machinery of an expanding nation; and those "rising men,"
soon to replace, or to struggle with them, across the narrow Potomac
near by. To this society, too, the foreign legations furnished a strong
element. Bred in courts, familiar with the theories of all the world,
these men must prove valuable and agreeable addition to any society
into which they are thrown.

It is rather the fashion just now to inveigh against foreigners in
society, to lay at their door many of the peccadilloes that have crept
into our city life; but the diplomats are, with rare exceptions, men of
birth, education and of proved ability in their own homes. Their ethics
may be less strict than those which obtain about Plymouth Rock, but
experience with them will prove that, however loose their own code,
they carefully conform to the custom of others; that if they have any
scars across their morals, they have also the tact and good taste to
keep them decorously draped from sight.

In the inner circle of Washington were those officers of the army and
navy, selected for ability or service--or possibly "by gr