to be nearer the centre of things when he could look out upon the dome.

It surprised him to learn how humbly most of the congressmen lived.
They were quite ordinary humans in all ways. Of course some of the
senators of great wealth lived in fine houses, but they were the
exception, and the poorer members did not conceal their suspicion of
these great men.

"It aint a question of how much a man's got," Clancy of Iowa said, "but
how he got it. I've simmered the thing down to this: Living in a
hash-house aint a guarantee of honesty any more than living in a
four-story brown-stone is a sure sign of robbery, but it's a tolerably
safe inference."

These rich senators and representatives, owners of vast coal tracts, or
iron mines, or factories, rode up to the capitol with glittering
turn-outs, their horses' clanking bits and jingling chains, warning
pedestrians like Clancy and Talcott, to get out of the way. For the
first time in his life Bradley met great wealth with all of its power.
It shocked him and made him bitter.

He took little interest in the organizing of the house. His experience
in Des Moines taught him to sit quietly outside the governing circle.
He accepted a place on one of the minor committees and waited to see
what would develop.

His life was very quiet. Nothing was done before the holidays but
organize, and he found a great deal of time to study. Radbourn came
back during the early weeks of the session and resumed his work.

Clancy went to the theatre very often and attended all manner of shows,
especially all that were free or that came to him as a courtesy.

"I've lived where I couldn't get these things," he said, "and I propose
to improve each shining hour."

Attending Congress was quite like attending the legislature. Every
morning the members went up to the great building, which they soon came
to ignore, except as a place to do business in. They trooped there
quite like boys going to school. It was the state legislature
aggrandized--noisier, more tumultuous and confusing.

In a little while, Bradley ceased to notice the difference in gilding
and jim-crackery between the senate and representative ends of the
corridors. He no longer noticed the distances, the pictures, or the
statues in the vaulted dome, but passed through the vast rotundas with
no thought of them. The magnificence of it all grew common with
familiarity.

The vast mass, and roar, and motion of the hall itself soon ceased to