"Come, come, man," was the irritable retort. "I never let a few dollars stand between myself and my friends."
"All right, Senator."
The lobbyist thrust himself down in his chair, puffed slowly at a cigar, and gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling.
"Few years ago," he began, after a minute or two, "there was a feller who was goin' to squeal about a bond issue. He had his speech all really to warn the country that he thought a crowd of the plutocracy was goin' to get the bonds to resell to the public at advanced rates. Well, sir, I arranged to have a carriage, a closed carriage, call that night to take him to see the President, for he was told the President sent the carriage for him. When he got out he was at the insane asylum, an' I can tell you he was bundled into a padded cell in jig time, where he stayed for three days. 'He thinks he's a member of Congress,' I told the two huskies that handled him, an' gave 'em each a twenty-case note. The doctor that signed the necessary papers got considerable more."
Stevens' gasp of amazement caused the narrator genuine enjoyment.
"I know of a certain Senator who was drunk an' laid away in a Turkish bath when the roll was called on a certain bill. He was a friend of Peabody's," laughed the lobbyist to the Mississippian.
"But in this case," said Stevens, "we must be very careful. Possibly some of your methods in handling the men you go after—"
"Say," interposed Steinert, "you know I don't do all pursuin', all the goin' after, any more than others in my business. Why, Senator, some of these Congressmen worry the life out of us folks that sprinkle the sugar. They accuse us of not lettin' 'em in on things when they haven't been fed in some time. They come down the trail like greyhounds coursin' a coyote."
The speaker paused and glanced across at Peabody, who, however, was too busily engaged in writing in a memorandum book to notice him.
"Why, Senator Stevens," went on the lobbyist, "only to-day a Down East member held me up to tell me that he was strong for that proposition to give the A.K. and L. railroad grants of government timber land in Oregon. He says to me, he says: 'What'n h—l do my constituents in New England care about things 'way out on the Pacific Coast? I'd give 'em Yellowstone National Park for a freight sidin' if 'twas any use to 'em,' he says. So you see—"