records at Gulf City, I threw up my
hands. Their game will always go on, I suppose, but you gave them
a shock when you broke up their Altacoola graft scheme. And I'm
glad you did They cast me aside to-day, probably thinking they
could get me again if they needed me.

"I am going on the sugar plantation of a friend, where I can make
a new start and forget that I ever went to Washington."

Langdon paused deliberately. The Senate was hushed. The galleries were
stifled. Not even the rustle of a sheet of paper was heard in the
reporters' gallery. The Mississippian gazed around the Senate chamber.
He saw Stevens and Peabody craning their necks across the aisle and
talking excitedly to each other.

Then he stepped forward and spoke, waving the paper in the air.

"This letter is signed 'Charles Norton.'"

The old Southerner gazed triumphantly at the men who had sought to
destroy him. It was with difficulty that the presiding officer could
hammer down the burst of handclapping that arose from the galleries.

Senator Horton, however, was not satisfied with Langdon's sudden
ascendency.

"How do we know that that letter is not a forgery, a trick?" he
exclaimed.

"Go get Congressman Norton--if you can--and get his denial," responded
Langdon.

The junior Senator from Mississippi hurriedly pushed his way out of
the Senate chamber. His day's work was done.

Down on a broad plantation along the Pearl River an old planter, who
has borne his years well, as life goes nowadays, passes his days
contentedly. He delights in the rompings of his grandchildren as they
rouse the echoes of the mansion and prides himself on the achievements
of their father, Randolph, who has improved the plantation to a point
never reached before.

Sometimes he receives a letter from his daughter. Hope Georgia, now
Mrs. Haines, telling him of her happy life, or perhaps it is a letter
from Carolina, describing the good times she is having in London with
the friends she is visiting.

And the old planter goes out on the broad veranda in the warm Southern
twilight, and he thinks of the days that were. He remembers how the
Third Mississippi won the day at Crawfordsville. He thinks of the days
when he fought the good fight in Washington. His thoughts turn to the
memory of her who went before these many years and whom he is soon
to see again, and peace descends on the soul of the gentleman from
Mississippi as the world drops to slum