fixed fact in our State and can't be helped for the present. So far as your personal kindness to me goes I have the deepest sense of it, and the chances are, on the strength of what you have just said, that I may one day be senator."
"And when you are you won't be as much down on the State organisation as you are now," remarked Senator Standiford, beginning to climb the marble steps. "You will probably be called a boss yourself."
"No, I shall not," answered Thorndyke. "I shouldn't have the heart to put men through the mill as I have seen you and Senator Bicknell and a few others do."
Senator Standiford professed to regard this as a pleasantry, and so they entered the Capitol together.
The day was the regular one for the meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and there was a full attendance, every member being prompt except the chairman. Ten minutes after the hour struck, Crane entered. It was almost impossible for a man to have had the personal triumph he had enjoyed the day before, without showing some con-
