ted me,
to seem to lend my approval."

I looked straight at him until his gaze fell. Then I said, my voice even
lower than usual: "If you will look at the election figures carefully
you will find written upon them a very interesting fact. That fact is:
In all the doubtful states--the ones that elected you--Scarborough swept
everything where our party has heretofore been strongest; you were
elected by carrying districts where our party has always been weakest.
_And in those districts, James, our money was spent--as you well know._"

I waited for this to cut through his enswaddlings of self-complacence,
waited until I saw its acid eating into him. Then I went on: "I hope you
will never again deceive yourself, or let your enemies deceive you. As
to your plans--the plans for Goodrich and his crowd--I have nothing to
say. My only concern is to have Woodruff's matters--his
pledges--attended to. That I must insist upon."

He lowered his brows in a heavy frown.

"I have your assent?" I insisted.

"Really, Harvey,"--there was an astonishing change from the complacent,
superior voice of a few minutes before,--"I'll do what I can--but--the
responsibilities--the duties of--of my position--"

"You are going to _take_ the office, James," said I. "You can't cheat
the men who _gave_ it to you."

He did not answer.

"I pledged my word," I went on. "You gave the promises. I indorsed for
you. The debts _must_ be met." Never before had I enjoyed using that
ugliest of words.

"You ask me to bring myself into unpopularity with the entire country,"
he pleaded. "Several of the men on your list are ex-convicts. Others are
about to be indicted for election frauds. Many are men utterly without
character--"

"They did _your_ work, James," said I. "I guarantee that in no case will
the unpleasant consequences to you be more than a few disagreeable but
soon forgotten newspaper articles. You haggle over these trifles,
and--why, look at your cabinet list! There are two names on it--two of
the four Goodrich men--that will cost you blasts of public
anger--perhaps the renomination."

"Is _this_ my friend Harvey Sayler?" he exclaimed, grief and pain in
that face which had been used by him for thirty years as the sculptor
uses the molding clay.

"It is," I answered calmly. "And never more your friend than now, when
you have ceased to be a friend to him--and to yourself."

"Then do not ask me to share the infamy of those wretches," he pleade