It was a quarter-past nine when the footman opened the door of the Fifty-seventh Street house, in reply to Peter’s ring. Yet he was told that, “The ladies are still at dinner.”
Peter turned and went down the stoop. He walked to the Avenue, and stopped at a house not far off.
“Is Mrs. Pell at home?” he asked, and procured entrance for both his pasteboard and himself.
“Welcome, little stranger,” was his greeting. “And it is so nice that you came this evening. Here is Van, on from Washington for two days.”
“I was going to look you up, and see what ‘we, the people’ were talking about, so that I could enlighten our legislators when I go back,” said a man of forty.
“I wrote Pope a long letter to-day, which I asked him to show you,” said Peter. “Things are in a bad shape, and getting worse.”
“But, Peter,” queried the woman, “if you are the leader, why do you let them get so?”
“So as to remain the leader,” said Peter, smiling quietly.
“Now that’s what comes of ward politics,” cried Mrs. Pell, “You are beginning to make Irish bulls.”
“No,” replied Peter, “I am serious, and because people don’t understand what I mean, they don’t understand American politics.”