cked
up on the side,--the old man understands that others have got to live
besides him. Salaries in politics don't cut no figure nowadays, anyhow.
It's the chance the place gives for pick-ups."

At first I flatly refused, but Buck pointed out that I was foolish to
throw away the benefits sure to come through the "old man's" liking for
me. "He'll take care of you," he assured me. "He's got you booked for a
quick rise." My poverty was so pressing that I had not the courage to
refuse,--the year and a half of ferocious struggle and the longing to
marry Betty Crosby had combined to break my spirit. I believe it is
Johnson who says the worst feature of genteel poverty is its power to
make one ridiculous. I don't think so. No; its worst feature is its
power to make one afraid.

That night I told my mother of my impending "honors." We were in the
dark on our little front porch. She was silent, and presently I thought
I heard her suppressing a sigh. "You don't like it, mother?" said I.

"No, Harvey, but--I see no light ahead in any other direction, and I
guess one should always steer toward what light there is." She stood
behind my chair, put her hands on my shoulders, and rested her chin
lightly on the top of my head. "Besides, I can trust you. Whatever
direction you take, you're sure to win in the end."

I was glad it was dark. An hour after I went to bed I heard some one
stirring in the house,--it seemed to me there was a voice, too. I rose
and went into the hall, and so, softly to my mother's room. Her door was
ajar. She was near the window, kneeling there in the moonlight,
praying--for me.

* * * * *

I had not been long in the legislature before I saw that my position was
even more contemptible than I anticipated. So contemptible, indeed, was
it that, had I not been away from home and among those as basely
situated as myself, it would have been intolerable,--a convict
infinitely prefers the penitentiary to the chain gang. Then, too, there
was consolation in the fact that the people, my fellow citizens, in
their stupidity and ignorance about political conditions, did not
realize what public office had come to mean. At home they believed what
the machine-controlled newspapers said of me--that I was a "manly,
independent young man," that I was "making a vigorous stand for what was
honest in public affairs," that I was the "honorable and distinguished
son of an honorable and distinguished