He recognized the most of the men around him as Western or Southern types. Many of them had chin whiskers and wore soft crush hats. The negroes interested and fascinated him: they were so grimly ugly of face, and yet apparently so good natured and light hearted.
On the street again he saw the same types of men. He wondered if they were not his colleagues. As for them, they probably took him for a Boston or New York man, with his full brown beard and clear complexion.
The negroes attracted his eyes constantly. They drifted along the street apparently aimlessly, many of them. Their faces were mostly smiling, but in a meaningless way, as if it were a habit. He soon found that they were swift to struggle for a chance to work. They asked to carry his valise, to black his boots; the newsboys ran by his side, in their eagerness to sell.
As he went along, he noticed the very large number of "Rooms to Let," and the equally large number of signs of "Meals, Fifteen and Twenty-five Cents." Evidently there would be no trouble in finding a place to board.
As he entered Radbourn's office, he saw a young lady seated at a desk, manipulating a typewriter. She had the ends of a forked rubber tube hung in her ears, and did not see Bradley. He observed that the tube connected with a sewing-machine-like table and a swiftly revolving little cylinder, which he recognized as a phonograph. At the window sat Radbourn, talking in a measured, monotonous voice into the mouthpiece of a large flexible tube, which connected with another phonograph. His back was toward Bradley, and he stood for some time looking at the curious scene and listening to Radbourn's talk.
"Congress brings to Washington a fulness of life which no one can understand who has not spent the summer here," Radbourn went on, in a slow, measured voice, his lips close to the bell-like opening of the tube. It had a ludicrous effect upon Bradley—like a person talking to himself.
"The city may be said to die, when Congress adjourns. Its life is political, and when its political motor ceases to move the city lies sprawled out like a dead thing. Its streets are painfully quiet. Its street cars shuttle to and fro u nder the burning sun, and its teamsters loaf about the corners drowsily. The store-keepers keep shop, of course, but they open lazily of a morning and close early at night. The whole city yawns and rests and longs for the coming of the autumn and Congress.
"It is amusing and amazing to see it begin to wake up at the beginning of the session. Then begins the scramble of the hotels and boarding-houses to secure members of Congress. Then begins"—
The girl suddenly saw Bradley standing there, and called out, "Some one to see you, Mr. Radbourn!"
Radbourn stopped the cylinder, and turned.