e--didn't make a
grand stand play of it?"

"Yes; he might have made capital for himself out of the corporation
bill, but he didn't. He made his report without bringing personalities
into it."

"And the bill was passed over the governor's veto! That was Morton's way
of showing that he didn't need Daniel."

"Very likely. I'm rather glad it happened that way."

"Glad Daniel got a licking?"

"Oh, not just that; but it shows him that if he's going to be the
people's champion he will have to be unhorsed pretty often. If all these
things could be accomplished easily, there wouldn't be any glory in
success. It's not an easy thing to drive a man like Mr. Bassett out of
politics, or even to defeat the dangerous measures he introduces in the
legislature. If it were easy to get rid of them, such men wouldn't last
long. Besides, I'm a little afraid it wasn't half so much Dan's
patriotism that was involved as it was his vanity. He was bitter because
he found that Mr. Bassett had deceived him and was trying to use him.
But in view of Mr. Bassett's many kindnesses to him he wouldn't make a
personal matter of it in the House. Dan's opposition was based on legal
defects in that bill,--points that were over the heads of most of the
legislators,--but he is now determined to keep up the fight. He finds
that Mr. Bassett is quite able to do as he pleases even without his
services. He felt that he dealt with him magnanimously in keeping his
antagonism to the corporation bill on the high plane of its legal
unsoundness. Mr. Bassett ignored this, and merely secured the passage of
the bill by marshaling all the votes he needed in both parties."

"That's a new scheme they say Morton has introduced into Indiana--this
getting men on both sides to vote for one of these bad bills. That shuts
up the party newspapers, and neither side can use that particular thing
as ammunition at the next election. Instead of talking about House Bill
Ninety-five in the next campaign, they will howl about the tariff on
champagne, or pensions for veterans of the Black Hawk War. They're all
tarred with the same stick and don't dare call attention to the other
fellow. Daniel had better get out of politics," she ended leadingly.

"Please, no! He'd better stay in and learn how to make himself count. So
far as Mr. Bassett is concerned, I think that for some reason he had
gone as far with Dan as he cared to. I think he was prepared for the
break."

Mrs. Owen was wipin