"No," Wong Lee sighed. "They spirited her away--out of the city. She is doubtless in some slave house at Vancouver or Seattle. Poor Po! He is heartbroken."
"And what of yourself; are you not in danger?" Broderick questioned.
Wong smiled wanly. "Until the New Year season ends I am safe at any rate."
CHAPTER LIII
ENTER PO LUN
Broderick returned to Washington; he wrote seldom, but the newspapers printed, now and then, extracts from his speeches. The Democrats were once more a dominating power and their organs naturally attacked the California Senator who defied both President and party; they asserted that Broderick was an ignorant boor, whose speeches were written for him by a journalist named Wilkes. But they did not explain how Broderick more than held his own in extemporaneous debate with the nation's seasoned orators. Many of these would have taken advantage of his inexperience, for he was the second youngest Senator in Congress. But he revealed a natural and disconcerting skill at verbal riposte which made him respected, if not feared by his opponents. One day, being harried by administration Senators, he struck back with a savagery which, for the moment, silenced them.
The San Francisco papers--for that matter, all the journals of the nation--printed Broderick's words conspicuously. And, as they held with North or South, with Abolition or with Slavery, they praised or censured him.
"I hope, in mercy to the boasted intelligence of this age, the historian, when writing the history of these times, will ascribe the attempt of the President to enforce the Lecompton resolution upon an unwilling people to the fading intellect, the petulant passion and the trembling dotage of an old man on the verge of the grave."
"Buchanan will be furious," said Benito. "They say he's an old beau who wears a toupee and knee-breeches. All Washington that dares to do so will be laughing at him, especially the ladies."