“Now, let me tell you something, Dick,” the secretary answered, firmly.  “Don’t you work off all your dyspeptic ideas in this neighborhood.  My Senator is a great man.  They can’t appreciate him up here because he’s honest—­crystal clear.  I used to think I knew what a decent citizen, a real man, ought to be, but he’s taught me some new things.  He’ll teach them all something before he gets through.”

Cullen hung one leg over Haines’ desk.

“You’re a nice, quiet, gentlemanly little optimist, and I like you, old fellow,” retorted Cullen.  “But don’t deceive yourself too much.  Your Senator Langdon is personally one of the best ever.  But he was born a mark, and a mark he’ll be to the end of time.

“He looks good now.  Sure, I like his speeches, and all that, but just wait.  When some of those old foxes in the Senate want to put his head in the bag and tie it down, they won’t have any trouble at all.”

Smiling, Haines looked up at his cynical friend.

“The bag’ll have to go over my head, too,” he said, with a nod.

“Well, I don’t know that Peabody’d have to strain himself very much to get such an awful big bag to drop you both in, if it comes right down to that, old chap.  You’re making a mistake.  You’re as bad as your old man.  You’re a beautiful pair of optimists, and you a good newspaper man, too—­it’s a shame!”

After momentary hesitation, Cullen continued, thoroughly serious.

“But, my old friend,” he said in low tone, glancing quickly about, “there’s one thing that you’ve got to put a stop to.  It’s hurting you.”

The secretary’s face showed his bewilderment.

“What do you mean?” he snapped, abruptly.  “Out with it!”

“I mean,” replied Cullen, “that rumors are going around that you are keeping Langdon away from the crowd of ‘insiders’ in the Senate for your own purposes—­that, in short, you plan to—­”

“I understand,” was the quick interruption.  “I am accused of wanting to ‘deliver’ Senator Langdon, guarantee his vote, on some graft proposition, so that I can get the money and not he himself.  Consequently I’m tipping him off on what measures are honest, so that he’ll vote for them, until—­until I’m offered my price, then influence him to vote for some big crooked scheme, telling him it is all right.  He votes as I suggest, and I get the money!”

“That’s what ‘delivering a man’ means in Washington,” dryly answered the Chicago correspondent.  “It means winning a man’s confidence, his support, his vote, through friendship, and then selling it for cash—­”

“But you, Dick, you have—­”

“Of course, old man, I have denied the truth of this.  I knew you too well to doubt you.  Still, the yarn is hurting you.  Remember that Western Senator who was ‘delivered’ twice, both ways, on a graft bill?” he laughingly asked the secretary.

“Should say I did, Dick.  That is the record for that game.  It was a corporation measure.  One railroad wanted it; another opposed it.  The Senator innocently told an Eastern Senator that he was going to vote for the bill.  Then the Easterner went to the railroad wanting the bill passed and got $7,000 on his absolute promise that he would get Senator X. to vote for it, who, of course, did vote for it.”