ing prevailed, on her to keep the
knowledge of their engagement secret from every one, even her father.

The days and nights became filled with important work for Senator
Langdon and his secretary. Together they went over the important
measures, outlined what appeared to be the best course of procedure,
and carried it into effect as far as possible. Langdon became a
prominent figure in the Senate, owing to his consistent support of
measures that fitted in with the public policy, or what should be the
public policy, of the nation. He had learned that the only practicable
way to outwit or to cope with the members of the dominating machine,
made up, he was surprised to see, of members of both the parties--the
only two in Washington--was to oppose what the machine wanted with
enough power to force it to grant him what he believed the public
ought to have. He was described by some of the hide-bound "insiders"
on Capitol Hill as "the only brainy man who had fought the machine in
thirty years."

At the home he had later established in Washington as preferable
to the International Hotel were frequently seen a small coterie of
Senators and Congressmen who had become known to the sarcastic party
bosses in both houses of Congress as the "Langdon crowd," which crowd
was admitted to be somewhat a factor when it finally prevailed on the
President to take over 11,000 postmasters from the appointment class
and put them under the control of the Civil Service Commission,
resulting in the necessity of a competitive examination for these
postmasters instead of their securing positions through political
favoritism.

Those who did not know Langdon intimately suggested that "this fellow
ought to be 'taken care of.' What in God's name does he want? A
committee chairmanship? An ambassadorship for some Mississippi
charcoal burner? A couple of Federal judgeships for his friends? Well,
whatever it is, give it to him and get him in with the rest of us!"

Again it was Peabody who had the deciding say.

"There's only one thing worse than a young reformer, and that's an old
one," he laughed bitterly at a secret conclave at his apartment in the
luxurious Louis Napoleon Hotel. "The young one thinks he is going to
live and wants our future profits for himself. The old one thinks he's
going to die, and he's sore at leaving so much graft behind him."

Heads and hearts thinking and throbbing together, Langdon and his
secretary had learned to lean on