WHEN he reached his rooms that afternoon, Senator Ratcliffe found there, as he
expected, a choice company of friends and admirers, who had beguiled their leisure
hours since noon by cursing him in every variety of profane language that experience
could suggest and impatience stimulate. On his part, had he consulted his own feelings
only, he would then and there have turned them out, and locked the doors behind them.
So far as silent maledictions were concerned, no profanity of theirs could hold its own
against the intensity and deliberation with which, as he found himself approaching his
own door, he expressed between his teeth his views in respect to their eternal interests.
Nothing could be less suited to his present humour than the society which awaited him
in his rooms. He groaned in spirit as he sat down at his writing-table and looked about
him. Dozens of office-seekers were besieging the house; men whose patriotic services
in the last election called loudly for recognition from a grateful country.
They brought their applications to the Senator with an entreaty that he would endorse
and take charge of them. Several members and senators who felt that Ratcliffe had no
reason for existence except to fight their battle for patronage, were lounging about his
room, reading newspapers, or beguiling their time with tobacco in various forms; at long
intervals making dull remarks, as though they were more weary than their constituents
of the atmosphere that surrounds the grandest government the sun ever shone upon.
Several newspaper correspondents, eager to barter their news for Ratcliffe's hints or
suggestions, appeared from time to time on the scene, and, dropping into a chair by
Ratcliffe's desk, whispered with him in mysterious tones.
Thus the Senator worked on, hour after hour, mechanically doing what was required of
him, signing papers without reading them, answering remarks without hearing them,
hardly looking up from his desk, and appearing immersed in labour. This was his
protection against curiosity and garrulity.
The pretence of work was the curtain he drew between himself and the world.
Behind this curtain his mental operations went on, undisturbed by what was about him,
while he heard all that was said, and said little or nothing himself. His followers
respected this privacy, and left him alone. He was their prophet, and had a right to
seclusion. He was their chieftain, and while he sat in his monosyllabic solitude, his
ragged tail reclined in various attitudes about him, and occasionally one man spoke, or
another swore. Newspapers and tobacco were their resource in periods of absolute
silence.
A shade of depression rested on the faces and the voices of Clan Ratcliffe that evening,
as is not unusual with forces on the eve of battle. Their remarks came at longer
intervals, and were more pointless and random than usual. There was a want of
