cticut Avenue in Washington, and my wife
shall have dresses four times a year from Paris." He turned to Gwynne
with glowing eyes. "You've barely seen her--and you haven't had a sight
of the kids. She's Isabel's great friend. I wonder you haven't been
round. I've got the nicest little shanty you ever saw, and we'd always
be glad to see you."

Gwynne thanked him absently; then, while his guest, dismissing politics,
indulged in domestic rhapsodies, relating several anecdotes the while he
consumed another bag of peanuts, Gwynne's brain worked rapidly. He
boiled with discouragement and disgust. The cynical frankness of this
young provincial, with his serene confidence in his star, and in his
power to handle the millions he despised, bore a primitive and
humiliating likeness to his younger self: Americanized by the lower
standards of his country perhaps, but painfully like in its elements.
All he could claim, it seemed to him at the moment, was a higher
personal sense of honesty and honor; and how long would he keep it in
this country? While he was hesitating between taking a possible rival
into his confidence, and an arrogant desire to announce his reason for
coming to California, without regard to consequences, Colton dropped the
subject of his family, scattered the mass of shells on the floor with a
sudden sweep of his foot, and tipping his chair back against the wall,
produced a large red apple and his pocket-knife.

"I can't say that I like the seamy side of politics," he remarked,
absently, as he performed a delicate operation without breaking the
skin. "My wife always maintains that I'm the most honest man alive, and
I shouldn't wonder if that was the way I really was made. Anyhow, I know
I'd a heap sight rather do a man a good turn than an ill one; but when
he gets in your way what are you going to do in a country where politics
are machine-made and every cog has to be oiled with graft? I'm thankful
I'll never be forced to accept a bribe--there's a lot of difference
between giving and taking, and I guess I'll have to do a lot of the
first. But it's politics or nothing with me, aside from having a natural
genius for them. I'll never get out of Rosewater otherwise. My father is
likely to live for twenty years yet, and I hope to God he will; but I
want the big game while I'm young. If the country was better I'd be,
too, and like my job. But you've got to play the game in your
shirt-sleeves. Kid gloves, and you sit on th