"That idea, my boy, that idea! It's incubated all right, and Peabody and Stevens can come just as soon as they want to."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE BATTLES OF WASHINGTON
At twenty minutes after 12 Senator Langdon and Secretary Haines were still undisturbed by any move on the part of Peabody and Stevens, who maintained a silence that to Haines was distinctly ominous. His experience at the Capitol had taught him that when the Senate machine was quiet it was time for some one to get out from under.
Miss Williams, the naval committee's stenographer, entered.
"Senator Langdon," she said, "Senator Peabody and Senator Stevens are in committee room 6, and they told me to tell you that they'd be—I can't say it. Please, sir, I—"
"D—d," interpolated Langdon, laughing.
"Yes, sir, that's it. They'll be—that—if they come in here at 12:30.
You must come to them, they say."
"Tell the gentlemen I'm sitting here with my hat on the back of my head, smoking a good see-gar, with nails driven through both shoes into the floor—and looking at the clock."
At 12:25 Senator Stevens entered.