music with starlight over all, was careless of routes, and
Inspector Val led him past the Treasury Building, across the White Lot
between the Monument and the White House, until they stood at the
drain's mouth, of which you have heard so much. The stream was rushing
forth a clayey gray.

"Do you see?" asked Inspector Val, pointing to the stream.

"See what?" said Richard, waxing impatient, as a man will when roused
from loving dreams to consider a question of sewage.

"The color," replied Inspector Val. "That shows our man to be
industriously at his task. No, no explanation now; on the twenty-seventh
of May we'll come again, and the drain itself shall furnish a solution
to the puzzle."

CHAPTER XX

HOW STORRI FOOLISHLY WROTE A MESSAGE

Governor Obstinate being stubbornly and openly for gold, party opinion,
disliking concealment and skulking mystery, began to burn the grass of
imperious inquiry about the feet of Senator Hanway. Men could understand
a gold-bug or a silver-bug, and either embrace or tolerate him according
to the color of their convictions. But that monstrous insect of finance,
the straddlebug, pleased no one; and since Senator Hanway, whose
patriotism was self-interest and who possessed no principle beyond the
principle of personal aggrandizement, was on every issue a straddlebug,
finance first of all, our sinuous statesman commenced to taste troublous
days.

Senator Gruff urged him to declare for gold.

"You will have two-thirds of the better element with you," said Senator
Gruff, "and by that I mean the richer element."

Senator Hanway submitted that while the richer or managing element was
for gold, the masses might be for silver. If he were nominated following
a gold declaration, a silver public might defeat him at the polls.

"But the public," explained Senator Gruff, disagreeing, "are as sheep;
the managers of party are the wolves. The howl of one wolf in politics
is of graver moment than the bleating of many sheep."

"But the sheep are the more numerous," laughed Senator Hanway, who was
amused by what he termed the zooelogical figures of Senator Gruff.

"What matters that?" said Senator Gruff. "Wasn't it Virgil who wrote
'What cares the wolf how many the sheep be'? The wolves, I tell you,
win."

Senator Hanway, full of inborn furtivities, still hung in the wind of
doubt.

"Would it not be as wise," he argued, "to claim the public's attention
with some new unusual propositi