ve been
in politics," he protested, taken aback by my hardly disguised attack
upon him,--for he was in reality "party" and "machine." "Surely, you
understand the situation. We must have money to maintain our
organization, and to run our campaign. Our workers can't live on air;
and, to speak of only one other factor, there are thousands and
thousands of our voters, honest fellows, too, who must be paid to come
to the polls. They wouldn't vote against us for any sum; but, unless we
pay them for the day lost in the fields, they stay at home. Now, where
does our money come from? The big corporations are the only source,--who
else could or would give largely enough? And it is necessary and just
that they should be repaid. But they are no longer content with moderate
and prudent rewards for their patriotism. They make bigger and bigger,
and more and more unreasonable, demands on us, and so undermine our
popularity,--for the people can't be blinded wholly to what's going on.
And thus, year by year, it takes more and more money to keep us in
control."

"You seem to have forgotten my point," said I, smiling. "Why should
_you_ be kept in control? If you go out, the others come in. They
bluster and threaten, in order to get themselves in; but, once they're
elected, they discover that it wasn't the people's woes they were
shouting about, but their own. And soon they are docile 'conservatives'
lapping away at the trough, with nothing dangerous in them but their
appetites."

"Precisely,--their appetites," said he.

"A starved man has to practise eating a long, long time before he can
equal the performances of a trained glutton," I suggested.

His facial response to my good-humored raillery was feeble indeed. And
it soon died in a look of depression that made him seem even older and
more decrepit than was his wont. "The same story, wherever I go," said
he sadly. "The business interests refuse to see their peril. And when I,
in my zeal, persist, they,--several of them, Sayler, have grinned at me
and reminded me that the legislature to be elected next fall will choose
my successor! As if my own selfish interests were all I have in mind! I
am old and feeble, on the verge of the grave. Do you think, Mr. Sayler,
that I would continue in public life if it were not for what I conceive
to be my duty to my party? I have toiled too long for it--"

"Your record speaks for itself, Senator," I put in, politely but
pointedly.

"You are very