“Or a representative?”
“Nor that either.”
“Then you must have some business there?”
“Certainly, sir; I am a correspondent of the New York ***.”
“Oh! you write the letters from Washington for that paper?”
“Precisely so; and it is a more difficult task to write a good letter than to make a bad speech.”
“No doubt of that, sir; you may often be employed in making the best of a bad argument.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I mean, by improving what has been said by a senator or representative.”
“Not only that, but it is we that give the cue to every argument. Our representatives take up a question as they find it stated in the papers.”