ngs were possible. At this point
they invariably became excited, lost their equanimity, and swore. Then
they fell back on their faith in Ratcliffe: if any man could pull them
through, he could; after all, the President must first reckon with him,
and he was an uncommon tough customer to tackle.

Perhaps, however, even their faith in Ratcliffe might have been shaken,
could they at that moment have looked into his mind and understood what
was passing there. Ratcliffe was a man vastly their superior, and he
knew it. He lived in a world of his own and had instincts of refinement.
Whenever his affairs went unfavourably, these instincts revived, and for
the time swept all his nature with them. He was now filled with disgust
and cynical contempt for every form of politics. During long years
he had done his best for his party; he had sold himself to the devil,
coined his heart's blood, toiled with a dogged persistence that no
day-labourer ever conceived; and all for what? To be rejected as its
candidate; to be put under the harrow of a small Indiana farmer who
made no secret of the intention to "corral" him, and, as he elegantly
expressed it, to "take his hide and tallow." Ratcliffe had no great fear
of losing his hide, but he felt aggrieved that he should be called
upon to defend it, and that this should be the result of twenty years'
devotion. Like most men in the same place, he did not stop to cast
up both columns of his account with the party, nor to ask himself the
question that lay at the heart of his grievance: How far had he served
his party and how far himself? He was in no humour for self-analysis:
this requires more repose of mind than he could then command. As for
the President, from whom he had not heard a whisper since the insolent
letter to Grimes, which he had taken care not to show, the Senator felt
only a strong impulse to teach him better sense and better manners. But
as for political life, the events of the last six months were calculated
to make any man doubt its value. He was quite out of sympathy with it.
He hated the sight of his tobacco-chewing, newspaper-reading satellites,
with their hats tipped at every angle except the right one, and their
feet everywhere except on the floor. Their conversation bored him and
their presence was a nuisance. He would not submit to this slavery
longer. He would have given his Senatorship for a civilized house like
Mrs. Lee's, with a woman like Mrs. Lee at its head, and t