"You'll let me write to you again, won't you?"
"Certainly. I shall follow your career with the deepest interest. I wish you'd think of this alliance movement and advise me what to do. Good-by." She extended her hand.
"Good-by," he said, and his voice choked. When he turned and walked away Washington was very far away indeed and political honors cheap as dust.
[XXVI.]
Congressional life.
He found Washington less lonely for him on his return. There were many new members, and they sought each other socially and soon managed to have a good deal of talk among themselves, notwithstanding the studied slights of the old members. One member, Clancy, who grew profane at times, said, "These old seeds think they're hell's captains, but I guess we can live if they don't shake hands."
Most of the members were married and lived with their families in rented houses, but others, who were too poor to bring their families or who were bachelors like Bradley, lived in boarding houses. Bradley secured a room and board in a house near the capitol, because he seemed to be nearer the centre of things when he could look out upon the dome.
It surprised him to learn how humbly most of the congressmen lived. They were quite ordinary humans in all ways. Of course some of the senators of great wealth lived in fine houses, but they were the exception, and the poorer members did not conceal their suspicion of these great men.
"It aint a question of how much a man's got," Clancy of Iowa said, "but how he got it. I've simmered the thing down to this: Living in a hash-house aint a guarantee of honesty any more than living in a four-story brown-stone is a sure sign of robbery, but it's a tolerably safe inference."