near the simple fact to be funny. The School Book Lobby, the University
Lobby, the Armour Lobby, each had its turn with him, through its
smooth, convincing agent.

He reached his lowest deep one night after a conversation with Lloyd
Smith, an ex-clerk, and a couple of young fellows who called upon him
at his room. Lloyd noticed his gloomy face, and asked what the trouble
was. He told them frankly that he was disgusted.

"Oh, you'll get used to it!" the ex-clerk said. "When I first went into
the House, I believed in honesty and sincerity, like yourself; but I
came out of my term of office knowing the whole gang to be thieves. My
experience taught me that legislators in America think it's a Christian
virtue to break into the government treasury."

The others broke out laughing, believing him to be joking; but there
was a ferocious look on his face, and Bradley felt that he might be
mistaken, but he was not joking.

"They stole stationery, spittoons, waste baskets, by God! They stole
everything that was loose, and at the end of the term, they seemed to
be looking around unsatisfied, and I told 'em there was just one thing
left--the gold leaf on the dome."

The others roared with laughter, and Bradley was forced to join in. But
the face of the ex-clerk did not lose its dark intensity.

"Take salary grabbing. Why! they wanted me to certify to their demands
for Sunday pay for themselves and their clerks, and I refused, and they
were wild. I'm not an angel nor a Christian man, but I won't sign my
name to a lie, and blamed if they didn't pass the order without my
signature! Yes, sir; it's there on the record.

"Take nepotism. The members bring their wives and daughters down here,
put them in as pages and clerks, or divide the proceeds when they have
no relatives. Every device, every imaginable chicanery, every possible
scheme to break into the State money box, is legitimate in their eyes,
and worthy of being patented. Public money is fair game; and yet," he
said, with a change of manner, "we have the fairest, purest and most
honorable legislators, take it as a whole, that there is in the United
States, because our State is rural, and we're comparatively free from
liquor. Our legislature is a Sunday School, compared to the leprous
rascals that swarm about the Capitol at Albany or Springfield."

"What is the cure?" asked Bradley, whose mind had been busy with the
problem.

"God Almighty! there is no cure, except the abo