could give the President and General Attorney so much
satisfaction as the elevation of Senator Hanway to the White House. They
were a unit with Mr. Gwynn; they believed that not alone the future of
the Anaconda but the prosperity of the nation, not to say the round
advantage of the world at large, would be subserved thereby. They would
confer with Senator Hanway as Mr. Gwynn suggested.

So hot were they that the President and General Attorney, with Richard,
at once sought Senator Hanway; since it was no later than eleven in the
morning they caught that great statesman before he started for the
Senate. He greeted them with dignified warmth, and, aided by Richard,
who conversationally went ahead to break the ice, the trio quickly came
to an understanding.

Senator Hanway talked with a freedom that was of itself a compliment,
when one remembers how it had ever been his common strategy in this
business of President-catching to appear both ignorant and indifferent.
Senator Hanway explained that the thing just then was the nomination. It
would be necessary to control the coming National Convention. Governor
Obstinate was a formidable figure; he was popular with the people; and,
although Governor Obstinate was a man who would prove most perilous if
armed with those thunderbolts of veto and patronage wherewith the
position of chief executive would clothe his hand, Senator Hanway was
sorry to say there were many among the leading spirits of party who
cared so little for the public welfare and so much for their own that
they would push Governor Obstinate's fortunes as a method of making
personal capital in their home regions with the ignorant herd. Senator
Hanway would not go into the details of what in his opinion might be
accomplished by the President and General Attorney and the great railway
system they controlled. It would be wiser, and perhaps in better
taste,--here Senator Hanway smiled with becoming modesty,--if others
were permitted to do that. If his good friends of the Anaconda who had
come so far in his honor--a mark of regard which he, Senator Hanway,
could never forget nor underestimate--gave him their company to the
Capitol, he would be proud to make them acquainted with Senators Gruff
and Loot and Toot and Drink and Dice and others of his friends, and
those gentlemen would go more deeply into the affair. The President and
General Attorney, he was sure, could so exert the Anaconda influence
that the delegations f