of his hand, right now. Well, I don't want
this to go any farther, you're a gentleman,--but Austen came down here
yesterday and had the whole thing sized up by last night. Old Hilary
thought the Gaylords sent for him to lobby their bill through. They may
have sent for him, all right, but he wouldn't lobby for 'em. He could
have made a pile of money out of 'em. Austen doesn't seem to care about
money--he's queer. He says as long as he has a horse and a few books and
a couple of sandwiches a day he's all right. Hilary had him up in Number
Seven tryin' to find out what he came down for, and Austen told him
pretty straight--what he didn't tell the Gaylords, either. He kind of
likes old Hilary,--because he's his father, I guess,--and he said there
were enough men in that House to turn Hilary and his crowd upside down.
That's how I know for certain. If Austen Vane said it, I'll borrow money
to bet on it," declared Mr. Tooting.

"You don't think young Vane is going to get into the race?" queried Mr.
Crewe.

"No," said Mr. Tooting, somewhat contemptuously. "No, I tell you he
hasn't got that kind of sense. He never took any trouble to get ahead,
and I guess he's sort of sensitive about old Hilary. It'd make a good
deal of a scandal in the family, with Austen as an anti-railroad
candidate." Mr. Tooting lowered his voice to a tone that was caressingly
confidential. "I tell you, and you sleep on it, a man of your brains and
money can't lose. It's a chance in a million, and when you win you've got
this little State tight in your pocket, and a desk in the millionaire's
club at Washington. Well, so long," said Mr. Tooting, "you think that
over."

"You have, at least, put things in a new and interesting light," said Mr.
Crewe. "I will try to decide what my duty is."

"Your duty's pretty plain to me," said Mr. Tooting. "If I had money, I'd
know that the best way to use it is for the people,--ain't that so?"

"In the meantime," Mr. Crewe continued, "you may drop in to-morrow at
three."

"You'd better make it to-morrow night, hadn't you?" said Mr. Tooting,
significantly. "There ain't any back way to this house."

"As you choose," said Mr. Crewe.

They passed within a few feet of Victoria, who resisted an almost
uncontrollable impulse to rise and confront them. The words given her to
use were surging in her brain, and yet she withheld them why, she knew
not. Perhaps it was because, after such communion as the afternoon had
brou