him, Harvey? He will be sure
to come to you next--must, as you are in charge of my campaign."

"I'll tell him straight out that I'll have nothing to do with him," said
I blandly. "The Wall Street submission to the party must be brought to
me by some other ambassador. I'll not help him to fool his masters and
to hide it from them that he has lost control."

I could have insisted, could have destroyed Goodrich--for Burbank would
not have dared disobey me. But the campaign, politics in general, life
itself, filled me with disgust, a paralyzing disgust that made me almost
lose confidence in my theory of practical life.

"What's the use?" I said to myself. "Let Burbank keep his adder. Let it
sting him. If it so much as shoots a fang at me, I can crush it."

And so, Burbank lifted up Goodrich and gave hostages to him; and
Goodrich, warned that I would not deal with him, made some excuse or
other to his masters for sending Senator Revell to me. "See Woodruff,"
said I to Revell, for I was in no mood for such business. "He knows best
what we need."

"They give up too damn cheerfully," Woodruff said to me, when I saw him
a week or ten days later, and he gave me an account of the negotiations.
"I suspect they've paid more before."

"They have," said I. "In two campaigns where they had to elect against
hard times."

"But I've a notion," he warned me, "that our candidate has promised them
something privately."

"No doubt," I replied, as indifferently as I felt.

I had intended to make some speeches--I had always kept the public side
of my career in the foreground, and in this campaign my enforced
prominence as director of the machine was causing the public to dwell
too much on the real nature of my political activity. But I could not
bring myself to it. Instead, I set out for home to spend the time with
my children and to do by telephone, as I easily could, such directing of
Woodruff as might be necessary.

My daughter Frances was driving me from the Fredonia station. A man
darted in front of the horses, flung up his arms and began to shriek
curses at me. If she had not been a skilful driver, we should both have
been thrown from the cart. As it was, the horses ran several miles
before she got them under control, I sitting inactive, because I knew
how it would hurt her pride if I should interfere.

When the horses were quiet, she gave me an impetuous kiss that more than
repaid me for the strain on my nerves. "You are the